I first used CC2 when it was a big deal in the late D&D 2e age, maybe very early 3e. Around 2000, I guess. It wasn't my copy, though. It was on a friend's PC. I expected to open a window and drop a beautiful map onto the screen with a few clicks. Boy was I wrong. It was my fault, of course, but you couldn't convince me of that. I think that friend hated it for a similar reason.

Then at Gen Con 2022, I saw the ProFantasy booth. I was again lured in by the fancy maps. I talked to somebody, but I forget who it was! We talked for a while, and he kept pointing at somebody sitting down, saying, "He knows this or that technical situation," etc. They convinced me to buy a package. This person said again and again, "Watch the YouTube videos! That's the key to beginning to learn." Again and again in this 5 minute conversation. That was my first real purchase.

I got home and installed it. I was overwhelmed again. Then, that voice boomed in my head: "Watch YouTube..." I did, and everything clicked. Then, I discovered the forums, and it set me on the right path. I do think these forums are an under-advertised part of CC3, and one of the best parts.

So, whoever that was at the booth: Thank you for convincing me!

Hello. Let me share a lesson that I just learned. I had a problem with transparency acne, and it took me a while to solve. I had an inner fade effect on a sheet, above a bitmap background. The background was green grass, and the poly above it was black so as to suggest a dome-like shape. Of course, the top poly had acne. Nothing new here. So, I made a liner sheet in between that was a copy of the top sheet with the acne. I used an RGB Matrix effect to make the line sheet bright red. I thought this should have solved the problem, as I've *done this before.* At least I thought so...

Here is a shot of the liner and background sheets with no sheet effects:

There's a black poly with red RGB Matrix on top of a greed bitmap background. I have the actual top layer hidden for this discussion. When I turned on the inner fade, I got this:

Yikes! Why would a *red* layer cause acne on top of a *green* background? Any guesses?

Solution: The RGB Matrix effect did *not* help the acne. The acne was caused by the intrinsic color of the poly, not the computed color after the RGB Matrix effect. In other words, even though the poly looked red to me, the edge fade still took it to be black when it came to acne.

I changed the poly to be explicitly red, and I removed the RGB Matrix effect. Drumroll....

The lesson that I learned: Transparency Acne relates to the color of the top layer without any effects applied to it. Don't use an RGB Matrix effect to shortcut a change to the poly color.

I learned a lesson here. Maybe it was just "Dumb Cartographer Day," and I needed to drink more coffee. Either way, I hope this helps somebody someday!

How to make the mountains pop? I'm not sure they need to change. I kinda like it. Maybe a shadow of some kind, but I don't think it's needed.

I like it!

I don't Facebook. Is the CC3 conversation there good enough to reconsider that?

I have been working on an XP command to generate a system map for my conversion of Buck Rogers XXVc to D20. It's coming along, but it's not complete. The game relies on dates so that distances between bodies changes, and thus so do trade and politics. I'll share this once it's finished.

I know you weren't asking for surface maps, but I do have a remake of a spaceport from that game. (I just noticed a few mistakes, so sharing this might be a good thing.)