Hi Everyone! :D

Ralf is back from Spiel and recovered enough to start overland mapping again with Campaign Cartographer 3+, showing us this week how to make maps with the August Cartographer's Annual issue: "E Prybylski Overland 2".

Come along and join in the chat on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u-rZXRZvNc

Or watch it here on the forum (though you won't be able to join in the chat right here)

Have you tried reducing the Display Speed 'Automatic bitmap quality to Medium instead of High while you work on the map? It means it won't look as sharp, but it may work just a bit faster.

I'm not sure if you will have to reverse that to High again before you export, but if you get a blurred export the answer to that might be yes.

You get the Display speed dialog by clicking the Display Speed Settings|CC2RESMODE| button on the left.

Alternatively you can try using 'Fixed bitmap quality' set to High instead of Very High, or even to Low.

I can't make the connecting symbols break so I'm assuming you mean the gaps at the corners? Those gaps are intentional and are meant to be covered by the tower symbols. The best way to draw them is by going in straight lines between the towers in a single click.

Also make sure that your default symbol scale is set to 1 in this imperial map, and that you haven't accidentaly adjusted the scale you are pasting them at by right clicking to check the current symbol scale setting.

EDIT: I also notice that the sheet effects on the SYMBOLS 3 (towers) sheet are a little off. If you make the shadow as long as the one on the SYMBOLS 2 (walls) sheet those gaps in the shadow will disappear.

Or alternatively, if you don't like the shadow overlap, you can copy the towers to the SYMBOLS 2 (walls) sheet so they cast the same contiguous shadow as the wall. in the shot below the towers are on thier correct sheet with a glow around them to raise them from the wall a little, but they are duplicated on the SYMBOLS 2 (walls) sheet for the shadow.

That's a really beautiful use of the style - a lovely map :)

Hi everyone! :D

This week Ralf will be using Symbol Set 6 "Isometric Cities" and the free monthly symbols by Mike Schley to build a fortress city under siege. Come along and see it live to join in the chat here on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj6rnnc3xv4

Or watch it here on the forum later if you prefer.

I have noticed that sometimes the sheet effects stop working for reasons I can't quite nail down to being because of A or B (if I could identify the cause I'd have reported it ages ago), but usually unchecking the Activate Sheet Effects checkbox, then checking it again and then clicking Apply will sort it out.

If that doesn't work please can you upload the FCW file, Elfling?

EDIT: to take a screen shot press the "prt sc" button and then paste in a comment by pressing CTRL+V

EDIT2: Also check if you have any layers hidden. If the MERGE layer in particular is hidden the effects aren't likely to work correctly if they work at all.

You've exploded it one time too many, Jim. Each of those lines is shattered into thousands of individual straight lines.

I recommend re-exporting the map and checking if you have multipolies or ordinary polygons before you explode anything. Then only explode the multipolies and only once.

How close a match to that original map are you hoping to get?

The reason for asking is I can make a few suggestions but none of the styles will exactly match that example. I don't want to go recommending a combination of lots of different styles from different annuals (which could get a bit expensive if you don't already own them), only to realise that it might have been ok to go with something less ambitious and a bit cheaper to do.

Don't start moving them, just yet, and check you have sheet effects turned on.

They're on the correct layer, though layers don't have anything to do with the way something appears on the map. It's the sheets and their effects that are more important.

When you move something like this it will create it's own new sheet if that named sheet didn't exist in the new map to start with, but it's created without any effects. Or, if the named sheet was already there it will have it's own effects that may not do quite the same thing.

Find out which sheet they are on by using List in the Info menu, then check the effects on that sheet. If there are any there delete them and copy the effects across from your older map using the copy and paste buttons to the right of the effects panel once you have highlighted them all. You will have to have both maps open at the same time to do that, but you can open the older map by double clicking its file icon without causing your new one to close.

EDIT: I notice that you have hidden the SCREEN. That leaves the bright green map border (the one that CC3 uses to define exports) visible around the edge. It might be a good idea to show the SCREEN sheet, but to use change properties on it to turn it solid white if you want there to be a white border around the edge as shown in your picture above. I think I froze the SCREEN layer that its on, so to work with it you will have to unfreeze the layer. Refreeze the SCREEN layer once you are done with it. Doing that will give you the white border without the green line.

The best way to see how it works is to open a drawing and add a Color Key effect to a sheet that has a polygon you want to cut a hole in. Add a Color Key sheet effect to that sheet, noting the cutout colour (magenta or colour 6 by default). Then draw a magenta poly representing the hole you want to cut on the same sheet as the poly you want to cut the hole in (the one with the Color Key effect) and hit refresh. I didn't understand it to start with, but trying it out suddenly started a whole lot of little sparks in my mind as I saw what I could do with it.

A Color Key will also cut holes in city symbols, though not in symbols in overland or dungeon maps. It works like an inverted mask.

@db2000 - sorry for hijacking your thread just a bit there!