Vintyri Cartographic Collection for CC3+ and CC3 Released

[Mark Oliva]

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NOTE: Versions of the Vintyri (TM) Cartographic Collection mentioned here already were released earlier for Fractal Mapper (TM) 8, Dundjinni (TM), The GIMP and Adobe (R) Photoshop (R). For more information go to:

http://www.vintyri.org/vintyri/vccindex.htm

We now have completed release of the entire Vintyri (TM) Cartographic Collection for ProFantasy's Campaign Cartographer 3+ and 3. This is a collection 974 CC3+ and CC3 raster symbols in the VH, HI, LO and VL resolutions and 122 fill styles along with templates and drawing tools, also in the VH, HI, LO and VL resolutions. Additional templates and drawing tools can be downloaded and installed by users of City Designer 3 and Dungeon Designer 3 with CC3+ or CC3.

The cartographic collection can be used with CC3+ or CC3 alone, but it is of full benefit only to users who also have ProFantasy's City Designer 3. The collection is fully integrated into CD3. It uses CD3 roof shading, street alignment, demographic building coloring, automatic layer assignments, etc.

The Vintyri Cartographic Collection is released for private and commercial use under the Open Game License 1.0a. It is a free program. The Vintyri Project is a non-profit, non-commercial organization. We sell nothing. We neither solicit nor accept donations. We do no kickstarters. We're strong supporters of open source gaming.

We have prepared a 30-page, free bookmarked PDF Vintyri Cartographic Collection Installation Guide that will show you step-by-step with screen illustrations exactly how to do things right. PLEASE use the installation guide. A number of users didn't when installing the preliminary releases. We got to read their tales of woe by private E-mail. Think of the old acronym from the early days of PCs: RTFM! (which meant "Read the @!&* Manual!). Save yourself hours of work unmangling a mutilated CC3+ or CC3 installation. It's easy to install the collection, but you have to do it right. You can get the free installation guide here:

http://www.vintyri.org/downloads/vcc_install_guide.pdf (11 MB)

If you're uncertain whether the collection is for you, you can preview it online here:

http://www.vintyri.org/vintyri/preview_01.htm

The preview shows you all 974 symbols and 112 fill styles. The cartographic catalog content is based upon real-world prototypes from the Middle Ages.

The PNG graphics that make up the symbols and fill styles have a total download size of 4.4 GB. Because several users have reported problems downloading huge files, we have split the symbol and fill style downloads up into 13 smaller ZIP files. We know that this is irritating for users with very stable high-speed Internet connections, but it's necessary to make the cartographic collection to all users.

After downloading and installing the collection, the \Data Folder\Documentation folder will contain a 202-page bookmarked PDF book entitled Vintyri Cartographic Collection Guide for CC3+ and CC3. We released an earlier edition of this book several years ago for Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 and Dundjinni (TM), and we received a lot of feedback from users who found it to be extremely useful. This new edition is filled with brand new content and is tailor made for users of CC3+, CC3, CD3 and DD3. Even if you're not particularly interested in most of its content, we STRONGLY urge users to read the back sections regarding known issues and restoring the CD3 integration!

During our test phase, both we and our testers found issues in both CC3+ and CC3. These issues have been reported to ProFantasy, and we'll let ProFantasy decide whether they're bugs. Regardless, these are issues where CC3+ and CC3 did not perform in the manner we thought that they should and where they created some genuine problems while mapping. We managed to duplicate these problems on a new PC upon which the Vintyri products never have been installed, so we're rather convinced that these issues are with CC3+, CC3 or CD3 and not our software. Be that as it may, the collection guide explains these problems and how to solve them or work around them, if possible. If not, the book tells you how to avoid them.

The topic of restoration also is important. It's possible that reinstallations, the installation of CD3 or DD3 after the Vintyri installation and/or future ProFantasy products might overwrite Vintyri files. The section on restoration tells you what to do in such a case to have both the ProFantasy and Vintyri products working properly.

To go directly to the download site, go here:

http://www.vintyri.org/vintyri/vccindex_cc.htm