hey Jim! Long time no see, I know... lol

Hello again, everyone! I know... it's been a LONG time since you've seen me! I don't even know if those I knew are still here. I'm hoping, but then I'm also looking forward to seeing all of the new mappers!

Let's just say it's been a few CRAZY years since I was last in here. A lot of things have happened. First, my external hard drive died, the one I used to store ALL of my data... I think I mentioned it the last time I was here. All of my ftws, maps, everything I hadn't already posted... gone. Along with gaming notes, other hobbies I was working on... it kind of defeated and deflated me for a while. I also got burned out on DM'ing, though I still game, just not currently RUNNING anything. Since I was no longer running anything, I quit mapping for a while, to give me a chance to recharge my batteries.

Then, Covid hit. That put my hubby out of work for a while, and we had to shut down all non-essentials, including internet for a while. Both my mom, and my stepdad caught Covid Delta, and they survived it. Then their doctors convinced them to take the vaccines, even though they already had it.

Well, my stepdad died just after Christmas in 2020, within days of taking it. Mom died in Feb of 2021, within 2 weeks of getting the booster. Both died of heart attacks. My brother and I were left to deal with our parents' estate (with the help of the executor who has been worthless), and after almost two years, it's STILL not closed out (it's supposed to be completed in a year), so I've been crazy busy with that.

Finally got to the point where there wasn't any more I could do (what's left has to be dealt with by the executor, see comment above) and I finally got to settle back down...

Only to deal with my laptop getting fried. Again, I lost EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. There is some stuff saved on the other external hard drive I have... but still. Then I had to save up for a new laptop.

Good news, I have one now :). I bought a shiny, new gamer's laptop. Now I just have to reinstall everything. Which has caused another snag, but one I hope to fix soon. So, hopefully, I will be able to ease myself back into mapping... especially since I plan to pick up some of the things I wasn't able to get earlier... like some of the add ons I've been waiting forever to get! But that won't happen until the estate is FINALY settled.

But, it's good to see everyone again! Look forward to hearing from you.

Sue, that is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Especially if we can color some of them to what we want... but yes... that is fantastic!

Part of the problem, Nevermet, is that without the FCW, no one can really tell what's going on with your program. I've had similar problems where I can't get effects to work, or I put something on the map and it disappears, all kinds of things. And a lot of times it's something that's easy to fix, and an easy explanation, once someone that has more experience with the program takes a look at it.

If you can post your FCW, we can take a look at it in our program, and determine whether there is some kind of bug, or it's just a matter of something being in the wrong place for an effect to work.

Oh, and here's a thought, I had a similar problem, once. I was trying to do an inner edge fade to some land contours I had set down. But I was overlapping the contours, and they were all on the same sheet. I learned that the effects clash with each other in that circumstance, because the program is getting interfering commands, or something like that... Remy could explain it better than I can. But the way to fix it, is to put all of the land contours on their own sheets.

Oh! I almost forgot, there is one other thing I would LOVE to see... a 'point to point' fractalization option. We've all created regional maps where we are mapping a smaller portion of a greater land mass, so some of the land mass is past the border of the map. You create the land mass, pushing some of it right up against the map border. You then hit the fractalize button, click on the land mass... and it fractalizes not only the edge of the land mass that's easily visible, but also the landmass that isn't, ie. that portion that is up against the map border. You then have to hide the border and map screen, then go in and move each node, until you get it back to what it was before the fractalization.

It would be nice to be able to do, maybe a right click on the fractalize button, and do a point to point fractalize, where I can click on specific points of my landmass that I want fractalized, and it only works between those points, leaving the rest of my land mass alone.

Anyway, it's just a thought.