I've no real recollection of what started my interest in maps, mostly because I don't remember a time when I wasn't aware of them. The earliest maps I recall, from when I was very young, were maps of the night sky and maps of the region around where I was born, as my parents had these, and I was encouraged to look over them from then onwards. The particular blue of the 1957 Philips' Star Chart is what I still associate with maps of the night sky. The fact books often had maps in, notably, if not exclusively, fantasy fiction ones, kept that momentum going until I discovered D&D in 1976, along with interests and studies in physical geography and geology, by when drawing my own maps by hand was just something I did. Never quite got round to stopping.

When I started having increasing dexterity issues from 2010, I looked around for computer mapping options to help accommodate those, and discovered CC3, widely-held as the best there was, and still the most powerful fantasy mapping tool from what I've seen. I've been using it since 2013. Most of the maps I draw with it now are items for the Community Atlas, something I'd hope to continue with, although I always seem to have ideas and plans for more that time rarely allows to bring to fruition...

Free League issued a fresh Kickstarter update for their forthcoming "Mythic Carpathia" setting for the Vaesen RPG earlier today. In that are a couple of images of maps that will be coming in that supplement. Those images are linked to higher-res versions, there are folks here I'm sure who would like to see them. The regional map is truly wonderful to my eyes! The KS link to find the two new maps is here.

Are you using a PC with Windows 10 or 11? If so, that shouldn't cause any problems such as you mention, unless there's a problem with one of the files you're trying to open, and that's what's causing the program to crash.

As a test, I opened one CC3+ file I've been using today through Win Explorer - just double-clicked on the file to open it, as Sue said - and then right-clicked the cursor while over the CC3+ icon in the toolbar to bring up the list of recent CC3+ files, picked one of those at random by clicking, and it opened immediately, so I currently have two different maps in two separate CC3+ windows open while I'm typing this.

Again, as Sue mentioned though, you can't open multiple files from an open CC3+ window, as that simply replaces whatever map it's showing with the other one (after asking if you want to save the first one before doing so).

Don't forget to keep a separate copy of your original map file too - let's face it, you'll never be that precise by-chance again! - and it's handy in case you end up with something you're less happy with after making some adjustments to it.

There are more options in the original, vector-style, Character Artist, and it's much easier to draw additional elements when you need them in that. It is a simpler and much less "artistic" drawing style, however. It does though give you more control over what characters drawn using it look like.

In this instance, the map layout left irritating amounts of space around the main, almost octopoid, shape of the caverns, so that provided an opportunity to go more to-town with some decorative elements here than usual.

Of course, they could be used too to illustrate where dangers lie on an overland map, using a similar "roundel" look to the Ancient Realms style, for things instead of places, as another example.

Battlemaps for physical tabletop use shouldn't be labelled at all, because that distracts from the scenic element, and if the map's reasonably clearly drawn, the key features should be obvious anyway - that's largely the point, after all! If you'll need to add hidden elements, use cut-out markers you can drop-in on the map when & where appropriate (or use suitable 3D miniatures/items, like doors, treasure chests, etc.). The process/theory stands for VTT use as well, except everything is digital, of course.

As I've never used VTT, I can't advise much on that element, although hiding and showing features using the CC3+ Layers is straightforward enough in the FCW files, and easy enough too to store as separate digital images of the relevant views. I'd assume swapping between such separate images should be relatively simple in VTT, but I may be assuming too much on the part of such systems' designers, I realise! (Given that Windows still has to catch up with where some of the alternative PC systems then were 30+ years ago...)

The only labelled maps are the ones the GM needs to see, other than any props the players may be given/shown - such as a treasure map - and on such props the labels can be as clear or obscure as the needs of the game require.

Nah!

Once you start using it, you're simply concentrating on what links with the current level you're on, and everything else doesn't really matter. I also found it was really quick to work out how to get from one place to another through several levels rapidly just using this.

I was less sure about using just red and green arrow lines, given red-green colour-blindness is an issue for quite a number of folks, but having set up the portals with those colours already (because they looked a bit clearer on the individual Level maps), I didn't want to change them. Hopefully the single and double arrow heads will help alleviate any issues that way though.

Get some magma flowing under there, and it's a perfect god's frying pan - breakfast time already 😉.

No, it was just as if it were a glitch that happened when I reopened the Dark Fantasy map today Sue. I think it's somehow been a hangover from the Handdrawn Fantasy style I was using the day before, as if the program was somehow "remembering" that, instead of only using the correct set of tool templates.

I wanted to flag it here, since it seems possible there's something going on in the software causing this to occur, as I couldn't think of an alternative explanation for why it happened.

After it switched back to the correct tools, it never happened again, as I was reusing the river drawing tools (as amended) for some time after that. As I said though, weird 😁!