Sometimes when you install the latest update, you may see this error message:

As long as the error message is about the Fcw32.mac file as in the image above, you can safely click ignore here. The error message happened because it failed to make a backup copy of your old macro file. Unless you have manually modified this file (if you are unsure, you haven't), clicking ignore is 100% safe since all that will happen is that the old file is overwritten with a fresh one.

Which sheet is that? You cannot hide the the sheet CC3+ wants to place the symbols on. For example, most regular symbols goes to the SYMBOLS sheet, so that will be unhidden whenever you pick a symbol from the symbol catalog (but the screen isn't immediately redrawn, so it won't be visible until you do an action that redraws the screen, such as zooming in/out)

If this is what's happening for you, you can handle it in two ways. Either turn off the option "Symbols choose their own sheet" from the options button in the symbol catalog, OR make sure your current sheet is named something that starts with the word SYMBOLS since CC3+ will then use that instead of the main SYMBOLS sheet.

(Note that some special symbols defaults to another sheet than SYMBOLS, they would show the same behavior with whatever sheet they were set to go on)

You can run the LISTIMAGENAMESDWG command to do this. It will list all the images in a drawing, and tell you if it is a fill style image (bmpsty) or a symbol/inserted image (pictr2)

You can also use my custom command that list images sorted by addon. Note that the accompanying data file is a bit out of date, so a lot of files will be identified as unknown add-on.

This week I'll entertain you with a short visit to our nearest neighbor in the solar system. I'll be constructing a simple scene of planetary exploration and colonization.

Stream starts Thursday 18th of March at 18:00 CET, click the video below to have YouTube tell you the time in your part of the world and get notifications.

The WBC is a collection of previous published articles. They have been cleaned up, organized, and formatted for publishing in a pdf format, but they don't contain any new information from the original articles. It's a mix of articles that talk about word building in general, and articles that focuses more on the CC3+ side of things.

There's also some additional tutorials bundled with it which I haven't been able to look over, but I believe those are sourced from the annuals.

The issue here is with the wide lines. Unfortunately, symbol fills cannot have lines with a width other than 0, nor can they have solid filled polygons.

If you change the line width to 0, it should work, but that probably won't be the look you are after then.

You're probably better off making that as a png image instead and using it as a regular bitmap fill instead.

I think it is important to realize Steampunk is fantasy though. And with that I mean, they do fantastic things with the steam that isn't possible at all under real world physics. In many cases, you see them approaching semi-modern concepts (while still being in the Victorian age) but using steam instead of electricity and more practical fuels. So when drawing steampunk, it isn't "will this be possible using steam", but more "does this seem cool and somewhat plausible if we ignore actual physics?" all the way to "this doesn't seem plausible at all, but it is damn cool".

Many steampunk settings uses things like automatons, which are large steam-powered robots, both "human-like" and "this-is-a-big-machine" like. Sometimes intelligent, self-operating, in other settings controlled by an operator.

I like the city-building computer game Frostpunk for it's visuals. It' is basically Steampunk in the cold (concept art) (automatons)

Another interesting omputer game that takes the concept pretty far and some more, is Sunless Skies. Here you pilot a flying locomotive through the void between the remains of a broken world floating as islands in the void. Even the sun itself is an artificial steam-powered contraption.

For overland maps, I think the difference lies much in the symbology used. Steampunk likes to say, "Hey, here I am!". A typical steampunk map would be something in between a modern map and a fantasy map, and would use symbols and map decorations with a steampunk flair. Symbols would look more like the fantasy symbols, i.e. drawn from an isometric view, not the minimalist top-down symbols on modern maps. Instead of a caravan representing a trade route, you would see a train symbol, you may have dirigibles instead of ships, the city symbols would probably have some smoke stacks and visible pipework in the artwork, and so on.

Check my recent blog article, it describes ways to fix Red X's.

Do note that moving the files to the installation directory is not really a good idea, the setup with the data files in a separate directory is for a good reason. Also, maps that uses the old relative paths (starting with # meaning installation directory) should also automatically be redirected to the data directory, so it may indicate that your map didn't use proper CC3 paths in the first place, so fixing the path sin the map is a better option for the future compared to moving the files, even though it may take more effort.

One of the main advantages with 64-bit is getting rid of the memory constraint. As a 32-bit program, CC3+ can only address up to 4GB of memory, but with 64-bit it would be able to use all the memory in you machine, no matter how beefy, for a long time to come.

There are other advantages as well, but for CC3+ that is the biggest advantage.

With the Community Atlas village competition ongoing, this seems like a good time to just sit down with a simple village map. Quiet little place without any horrible secrets.

As usual, you can see the start time in your timezone in the left sidebar of the forum, or by visiting the video on YouTube.