You might be able to use resized pieces of Cosmographer starship gear for the space-stations Jim, if they'll stand resizing sufficiently. At this scale, something that obviously isn't the shape of a planet will probably work!

Also, is it "Disapora"? I don't know Starfinder, but for a scatter of asteroids (which is what this seems to be), "Diaspora" might be more apt.

Must admit, I was getting slight déjà vu feelings watching Ralf's livestream yesterday, as parts of it reminded me of my Wyvern Citadel maps for the Community Atlas. Very different scale of course, but there are inevitable similarities for drawing anything set on a craggy hilltop in this kind of more realistic style.

I made much more use of symbols however, rather than drawn polygons, for the cliffsides, though I did experiment that way originally (see this post in my Forum notes on the Citadel map, while still in progress). Just couldn't get the bevelled polygons to look right though, so switched to a technique developed for battlemat cliffs by another of our resident mapping experts, Shessar, as described via the Forum post here. As ever with CC3 mapping, there are always different methods to try!

Looking forward to Part 2 of this video, to see how it all develops. Anyone would think Ralf was running a game set in Middle Earth...😉

This really is invaluable, Sue. As I've printed-off the PDF mapping guides for virtually all the Annuals, I tend to remember if I've seen a given style somewhere, but if someone then asks, I end up hunting through the PF website pages to find it, usually guessing which year it's in first, because I can't find it in the mass of printouts otherwise...

I've not explored anything like enough of the issues in detail to have favourites, though my ongoing Community Atlas mapping has provided opportunities to experiment with quite a few.

@jmabbott If you're subscribed to the PF Newsletters, you'll find there are sometimes money-off vouchers available for webstore purchases in those, and the company has in the past run generous Black Friday promotions, which might make the complete Annual collection a bit less fearsomely-priced. It's how I completed my set a few years back; after that, it's "just" a question of keeping-up with it year by year. That's not so bad either, as if you're a subscriber, you usually get a time-limited, money-off renewal purchase option around the end of the current year as well.

Folks - Do please note that this week's live video is scheduled to begin 30 minutes later than normal, according to the timer note on YouTube. That's at 16:30 UTC, NOT 16:00 UTC!

Reawakening this topic as over the weekend I discovered a recent change to the basic Windows image viewer software, "Photos", means it will now convert webp images to other forms of image, including various bitmaps, such as jpg. You simply use the "Edit" facility and save it how you require from there. There've been a number of other changes to Photos in recent months, but this one is actually useful 😉!

There are things to be said for both options (plus of course, you can't assume everyone will wish to map somewhere where the snow falls in late autumn/early winter, thickens and only starts to thaw around the start of spring - i.e. the randomness of what happens in British winters!), and both are obviously buildings. However, the one with less snow cover has a bit more character to it, which would definitely support the idea you mentioned in your most recent post Sue.

Not merely tin (or other sorts of metal) roofs, but any smoother kinds of roofing material, such as tiles or slates. The idea is to substantially roughen the surface in some fashion - using rocks or logs sometimes (still to be seen in the Alps today in places, for instance). Reason I suggested them is, and depending on the snow thickness, they can break-up the appearance of the smooth surface of the snow seen on the roof symbols currently.

Thatched roofs tend to be pitched steeply enough to shed snow (and water), thus snow shouldn't accumulate as much on them (in parts of Japan subject to heavy snowfalls, the thatched roofs have a particularly steep pitch, for example). This isn't so much because thatch can't cope with the snow or water, but because thatch is usually lighter than other roofing materials, so may not be sufficiently supported by the underlying roof structure to carry the additional weight of substantial snowfalls.

Congratulations Sue (and very nearly Shessar as well!)!

Seems highly apt, given Sue's entry was the genesis for the forthcoming Winter Village CA style for the March issue.

And well done to everyone else who entered, regardless of the voting results!

When you hover over the "Open PDF Mapping Guide" words, do you get a "pointing-finger hand" symbol on your cursor instead of the usual arrow one? I ask, because you mentioned the hotspot does not seem to be active, and that you "assume" this is what you have to do, whereas the change to the pointing finger cursor icon ordinarily confirms it's where you need to click.

I think Adobe took over half a minute to open my mapping guide, but I find the Adobe Reader startup is often pretty slow from "cold" these days. (Too much unwanted and unrequested Windows clutter that keeps getting dumped on my system, I suspect...)

This is based on a download and installation done within the past twenty minutes, incidentally (so around 17:15 UTC on Dec 2).

Yes, CC4 is a work in progress. As CC3+ users, we have no definite information beyond that, so far as I'm aware. It will doubtless all be revealed in due course!