Thanks Wyvern - that's good to know.

Most of the detailed stuff you mention is controlled by sheet effects, so it can all be adjusted quite easily.

The colour of the water is causing quite a lot of comments both here and on the FB page. It appears that what one person finds wonderful and perfect is a psychedelic and completely artificial horror to others. So to solve that issue I will include a range of colour palettes with the annual so that you can pick a theme and modify it if it isn't quite to taste. PALLOAD will access them, but to 'fix' them to each map individually mappers will have to 'Attach to drawing' in the Drawing Presets dialog.

There is even a brand new optional distort sheet that distorts the underwater scene as if it really was underwater, but this will be more useful for people more interested in the illustrative side of things rather than the mapping side, since it plays hell with the clarity of the map :P

Hi everyone :)

This week, Ralf uses the latest Annual issue (Watabou City Revisited) to create a city map based on the Watabou random generator.

Come and join the chat with us on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9zTA33D43g

Or watch later here

It's because the symbols on each sheet are redrawn after the sheet effects are applied. However, the whole map effects are applied right at the very end of the rendering process - after all the redrawing has been done.

If you want to cancel that redrawing use the keyboard command DELAYDRAWSYM and enter zero as the value instead of 1. This only lasts for the session and has to be repeated for each session.

While DELAYDRAWSYM = 0 may get you what you want with the symbols, it can cause issues with any semitransparent parts of the symbols. They disappear. So this is not a good thing to do to a style like Marine Dungeon (for example) which has many seaweed symbols that are partly translucent.

Hi :)

If you open the catalogue file (that's the [Foldername].FSC file usually visible in the parent folder of the [Foldername] containing the symbols), you can export an FCW file with all the symbols arranged neatly and ready for printing using the "Create catalog thumbnail file..." option.

In this example I created a Test.FCW file on my desktop which looked like this when opened.

The blank space at the top left is a drawtool and not a symbol, so it's name is there but the sample line is not.

I then exported a jpg bitmap from this and got this result (this is only a 500 px export to preserve the copyright on these symbols on the forum, but you can set it any size you prefer using the Options button in the Save as dialog.

This works for each catalogue at a time, but it doesn't take too long to do, and if you print each one you can make a reference book of them for yourself.

I'm glad you worked it out, Santo :)

For anyone else reading this thread, this video shows how to switch an entire style, and includes swapping symbols out.

Thank you! :)

All the terrain colours are drawn on the same sheet and blurred into one another before they are blended to the parchment background. So the answer is kind of yes and no. Yes it matters if you suddenly cover all your mountain background with lots of green lowland grass colour, but no, because you can easily bring the mountain background polygons back to the front using the bring to front tool.

Similarly, if you wanted to put a general greenish background behind what you have already done to cover all the white (not saying you should, but just as an example), you could draw that map-wide extent and then send it to the back of that sheet.

@grandula - good news for you. I was just discussing the need for an underwater mapping style with another member of the Profantasy team, and the go ahead was given for planning to commence. This will probably be a new style in next year's Cartographer's Annual, so although it is not an immediate solution for you it will be there eventually :)

@Merion - Well, we finally got around to sorting something out at Dungeon scale.

Marine Dungeon is due to be published as July's Cartographer's Annual issue if any of you are still interested in this.

Hi James :)

Go to Options in the Tools menu and check the little box called 'Display floating prompt'.

Does this look better?

The snakes and the fungi are on the same SYMBOLS LOW sheet with the same effects. This is to try and cut down the sheer number of sheets in the template, but there is no reason why you can't put the snakes on a different SYMBOLS LOW sheet - SYMBOLS LOW snakes, for example.

(I think I need to redo the pattern a bit - not a great first attempt at a boa)