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Wyvern

Wyvern

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Wyvern
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  • And another small map, this time in SS2 / CSUAC2

    So a bazaar of the bizarre? ๐Ÿ˜‰

    JimPDaniel Pereda De PabloJaysOut
  • Searching for Farmland

    Simplest option would be to use the colour drawing tool, and then add an RGB Matrix Process Effect to the whole map, set to "Gray". This will make everything look B&W - so you could design the entire map using the colour set-up, and have it all appear as greyscale in the finished item.

    In case you're unsure about adding the Effect, when you open up the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialogue box (click on the rectangle marked "S:" with the name of the current Sheet in at the top of your CC3+ drawing window), click on any Sheet, then click the "Whole Drawing" radio button above the Sheets list.

    Then click "Add", select "RGB Matrix Process" from the list this will call-up, and then click to highlight the RGB Matrix Process Effect that's now been added to the Whole Drawing list.

    Then click "Edit". Once you're in the RGB Matrix Process dialogue box, click "Predefined", then "Gray" from that list, and finally "OK", and then (assuming you have something already drawn on your map to check), click "Apply" to see what it does.

    Good luck!

    LoopysueAlan Phillipson
  • CA style development - "Darklands City" (issues for September and December 2021)

    @JulianDracos noted: ...I am interested in Hobbit house symbols. I have found a way/map style that I can do OK to demonstrate it is a Hobbit style home city, but I do not have anything for the city level view.

    SS5 Cities of Schley has a selection of Halfling house options (grassy mounds with round doors and windows), and also Elven treehouses, plus rough-looking Orc buildings. The main CD3 Bitmap B style has a larger range of fantasy building options as well, including for Halflings (houses and grassy mounds) and Elven treehouses again, as do the main CD3 vector styles, so there are options there without needing to go down the Annuals route. And the Annuals, being smaller in size than these main products, do tend to concentrate more on providing the basic styles first.

    It is worth noting that you can draw your own house shapes using the CD3 toolset, and give the roofs whatever texture you wish from the range of options you have available. Stacking different shapes on top of one another on different Sheets with variant Effects can also increase the options for how things appear. DIY treehouses by placing a suitably-shaped and textured house in different sized tree and other vegetation symbols, all on separate Sheets, for instance. And things like varicolor wooden roofs can be made to work as market stall awnings with a bit of resizing and choice of suitable colours.

    Sorry for hijacking your thread, Sue! Can't really add much beyond what's already been suggested above for Darklands Cities II, after all that... ๐Ÿ˜ช

    LoopysueJulianDracos
  • [WIP] Community Atlas, 1,000 Maps Contest: Villages in The Whispering Wastes of Haddmark, Peredur

    Halfway point, or map five of the ten, if you prefer, is reached via Hex 1105, Osalin Village:

    One interesting aspect for me as mapper with this sub-project was how readily the places each developed their own character, partly a result of their broader map setting, partly thanks to whatever features the Shadowdark random tables had come up with. In this case, there was the chance to map an unusually extensive area of burials, an aspect which truly defines the settlement, given that the area occupied by the dead is greater than that of the living village. Everything there was placed individually, to make sure things were never too neatly-ordered, although it's perhaps best not to peer too closely at what some of the repurposed symbols involved as the grave markers actually are! What's important at this map-view is the shape, texture and the shadows (or equivalent effects - there are some "Solid 10" shapes with variant Lighted Bevels in places, for instance). While time-consuming, it was rather satisfying to see the whole area growing in a more or less organic manner.

    I'd already decided there might be hints of connections with a couple of the barrow-fields in hexes some way from the settlement on the Whispering Wastes area map, so adding a few more Solid 10 bevelled shapes for a few barrows closer-by seemed simply a natural adjunct. What was perhaps more surprising was the random tables provided by-chance an undertaker, properties hinting further at the ancientness, not to say weirdness, of the setting here, haunted warehouses and a little old temple suitable for hosting celebrations for the deceased (and anyone else at other times, of course). I've mentioned before, there are times when you start to wonder just how "random" these things really are! All I needed to add was a mill, a few contours and those barrow-shapes.

    Onward now to the second half of the ten!

    LoopysueRoyal ScribeRicko
  • WIP Crofton - Darklands Cities and Shassar Tutorials

    @Loopysue commented: "No plans for a Darklands Dungeon just yet, but that's not to say it will never happen."

    Overland, Cities and Dungeons are the three key planks for CC3+ mapping though, and it has been mentioned here now, so... ๐Ÿ˜Ž

    JimPMonsenGlitchEdE
  • [WIP] Community Atlas, 1,000 Maps Contest: Villages in The Whispering Wastes of Haddmark, Peredur

    The eighth small settlement in this set is from Hex 1604, Brightlawn Hamlet:

    No especially fancy elements were required here, although as a major river shown on the Atlas map for this continent, the Torne needed to look somewhat more imposing than the others to feature so far, and I did feel it would be useful to include an outlet into it from the subterranean streams that had been randomly decided-upon as part of this hamlet's layout. The settlement is also relatively close to the edge of the Siljan Hills, so a few more of the style's contour lines were added than normal. I did trial one of the cliff-line symbols for what became the Wend's Hole stream outlet as well, but that just didn't look right, mostly because the better-shaped of the cliff options is intended as a promontory, with the cliffs on its outer side. Instead I simply hand-traced the line of that cliff piece, and drew the little cliff-line markers to make it look more as if this was a hollow than a clifftop, which in combination with the contours and a mild shadow effect (suitably masked in part) seemed to work well enough.

    Everything else was much as has become normal for these village maps, with properties of varying sizes and types, scattered vegetation and a few fields. Interestingly, the random options here from the Shadowdark tables came up with an area with a pillory and a "Wanted" noticeboard that wasn't a market place, although it makes such an obvious feature in the settlement, I decided occasional markets could happen there too. I added a well, and a hut by the noticeboard, since it made sense to develop that other local notices might be pinned-up there, thinking of medieval European settlements and how things such as broadsheets were presented publicly. The oracle in the cave below the small temple here adds a further note of mystery to the place, which hopefully helps make it seem a bit more "real"!

    LoopysueRoyal ScribeShessarAleD
  • Wishlist for CC4

    @Glitch - Something else you might try is having a second window with another program (such as Windows Explorer) on full screen mode, so it hides the CC3+ window completely. This helps stop the looping as much, and you can check the thumbnail view to see when the CC3+ screen is showing correctly again. I spotted Ralf did exactly this on this week's livestream at one point, so I know it's not just me who finds this helps sometimes!

    GlitchLoopysueWeathermanSweden
  • Commission Map - Realm of Arduin

    Yeah, this is really big! Presumably going for a wall-hanging poster-sized version if it's to be printed-out, I'd imagine, or all that intricate detail is going to be lost!

    Congratulations on getting the borders to work with the dash and double-dot arrangement with no issues. These things are ever a nightmare in CC3, I know. (And on the more detailed view, all the other dashed lines as well!)

    On the easy-to-view Forum version, I'm losing the knotwork corner details in the mountains especially - the colour's too similar. Maybe try a glow of some kind, or maybe a different shadow to pull-up the decorative elements?

    The "Khorsar" label right beside the "Arduin" cartouche is very distracting; one or other would benefit from moving further away.

    The surrounding nation/area labels aren't as clear as they might be in places, ironically including the Khorsar one, particularly where they overlie the mountains. Again, maybe a glow or shadow would help.

    Is there a particular reason why only the Ozharen border has been colour-highlighted? That name-label might be tweaked slightly too, as the "O" is currently a little too near the map border overall.

    The scalebar and compass rose are partly buried below the lower-left corner decoration currently, and the North point of the compass rose is obscuring part of the "Talafar" label.

    On the more detailed Gallery view (and also on the Forum view version), the watercourses maybe aren't as clear as they could be, notably again in the mountains, plus in the woods at times. In places, they also seem to be impossibly narrow, to the point of almost vanishing, between far broader stretches, which looks odd, if perhaps required as a quirk by the commissioner (given how common these features seem to be). Several lakes appear rather too angular as well, though again this could be simply a required quirk, as they too are pretty frequently-seen.

    The City Cliffs symbols in The Great Rift area could perhaps use some tweaking, as they look rather too angular in places, compared with how nicely curving they are in others. This could be worth considering too in that Devil's Footprint crater.

    In the lower right corner, there's a tiny label that I think reads "Gast Water" which is too close to the corner decoration. The "Maragore" label could be moved lower, to fit within the border lines better, and the "Barbarian Hobbit Tribes" label it's currently partly obscuring should probably be moved as well, and perhaps set-up on two text lines, not just the one, to shorten it to fit with the moved Maragore label.

    That's what I spotted easily in a quick check, at least, though obviously many of the smaller details can't be viewed properly even using the Gallery version.

    Good luck!

    [Deleted User]Octorilla
  • The Expanse rpg; several starships, Annual scifi tiles and Cosmographer

    My big problem with large ships is visualizing the layout/deck plans.

    I forget whether you mentioned having a copy of any of the Metamorphosis Alpha RPG books or not now Jim, though I suspect from this comment probably not, as even the limited floorplans for the two complete decks, and the brief notes on all the others, in the first edition rules from 1976, would have given you a few pointers in this regard.

    In one sense, Remy's right in suggesting it may help to think of the whole ship as like a huge city, actually more like a small country, given its gigantic size. Depending on how you envisage the entire craft as functioning, it's perfectly possible some of the decks might have a single function, or several major functions, each. Something like a farming deck for food production and air recycling, including breeding populations of domesticated animals, for instance, while there could be huge areas given over to parked-up machines on another deck for use on whatever planet the ship eventually reaches to colonise (since that's the primary reason such vast craft were envisaged originally). Elsewhere, there could be factories and machinery for use in them stored on another deck, again to get things functioning once the planet was reached, with maybe one entirely water-filled, for living aquatic foodstuffs, and as a water supply for the ship (could easily be segregated into fresh and sea water parts). Plus power supplies of varying kinds, of course.

    It might help to work out what the total floor area is for the whole craft, and then compare that to a populated area on Earth somewhere, and see exactly what sort of features lie within a similar-sized zone, and what of those would be useful/essential on a ship destined to be in space for hundreds of years or more.

    Hopefully in all this, we can help get you back on course!

    LoopysueJimP
  • How do i know what i currently have installed?

    Go to CC3+, find the drop-down menu "Tools" in the bar along the top of the window, and then go to the "Add Ons" label in that drop-down. That will show you everything you have currently installed, and you can click on any one of those names to access each individual item's description in an HTML file.

    Jacob BLoopysue