Need Help with CC3

[NamelessMan]

Hey guys. I'm new here. I've been messing around with CC3 and I'm getting kinda frustrated. Here's my problem. After laying out my land mass I lay out contours for snowy area's and some bodies of water using the sea contour but when I use the sheet tool to add stuff like blurs or glows it erase my contours and I can't figure out why. I've been at this for about 4 hours and I'm lost. Can anybody help?

[waldronate]

Asking CC3-specific questions at the official ProFantasy forums ( http://forum.profantasy.com/ ) might be the quickest way to get a solid answer. It's hard to diagnose the problem that you describe without seeing an example of the image before effects are turned on and after they are turned on.

A quick question: if you type REDRAW on the command line before messing with the effects, do your contours still disappear? If so, the problem is that a drawing tool is putting the stuff that you want to add behind stuff that's already there due to the ordering of sheets in your drawing and the tools that you are using.

[Mouse]

It could also be that the blur is so strong that its effectively erasing the lines?

But like Waldronate says - we can't see what the problem really is without seeing a pair of 'with' and 'without' sheet effects images to go with the question.

[Robulous]

Personally I can't stand the limitations of CC3, to me the results often look very amateurish unless you're an expert user. It really depends what you want to create. CC3 is a product meant to quickly producing maps for fantasy gaming, using some fairly generic looking templates. So for a gaming map, it's useful. For more flexibility and better aesthetics I'd recommend learning a more full-scale creative tool like Photoshop or Inkscape.

[Mouse]

I think software choice is a very personal thing. Even as you don't like CC3, I don't like PS, but that's more to do with the price rip-off than anything else. I would probably love it... if it didn't cost more per month than running a small car. So I use GIMP instead of PS, but not instead of CC3

I use a huge range of different software - from Blender and Sketchup, to CC3, FT3, GIMP and Genetica - each app for its strongest attributes, and each with its own little niche in my 'graphics toolbox'. With CC3 I like the way the user can create their own catalogues of their own fills and symbols - unique styles particular to me, and me alone... unless I choose to share my stuff in my texture albums linked below in my signature.

While it is difficult to actually draw linework and shade mountains etc in CC3, the resolution problems inherent with any bitmap editor like GIMP or PS simply don't exist with CC3, so I usually use CC3 and GIMP together for most of my maps these days.

To date, only two of the maps I have ever drawn made no use of CC3 at all, and only one of these non-CC3 maps was a compass winner. Though the background was done in GIMP, Scribble Rock (my silver compass winner) would not have been doable for me without CC3 in the space of a month

[ladiestorm]

Hey NamelessMan, I'm also a cc3+ user. Waldronate has given you one reason why your contours are disappearing, and the reason he gave is the most common one. Sheet order can be one of the most confusing things about cc3. Sheet order determines how and when a particular thing is drawn on your map. If you have your sheets in the order of Background, landmass, contour, lakes, rivers, symbols... everything drawn on the background sheet will be drawn first, then everything on the landmass sheet, then contours, then lakes, then rivers, etc.... So if your contour sheet is above your landmass sheet (for example) in the sheet order, the land mass will be drawn on top of your contours, making those contours seem to disappear... they don't, really, they are just under the landmass.

Another reason they might disappear, and I had problems with this one when I first started using cc3+, is because your contours may be on the wrong sheet. If you have all of your contours on the same sheet, they will all be drawn at the same time, meaning your land contours will be drawn the same time your ocean contours are... and as I stated before, if the contour sheet is drawn before the landmass sheet, the contours will be hidden by the landmass. The easy answer to fix this problem, is to have separate contour sheets - one sheet for ocean contours, and one sheet for landmass contours. You would then move your landmass contour sheet to just below your landmass sheet...

Another reason something on your map might disappear, is if the sheet or layer is hidden. If you look at both your sheets, and your layers, you will notice that each sheet has two boxes in front of it in the list order, and each layer has three.

For the sheet list - the first column of boxes indicate which sheet you are using: the sheet that has a check mark in the box is the one that you are currently drawning on. The second column of boxes is to determine whether the sheets are visible. If there is an 'H' in the second box of your contour sheet, for example, then the program will hide that sheet, and everything that is on it.

For the layer list - the first two columns of boxes work the same as the two boxes for the sheet list: the first column shows which layer you are drawing on, the second column shows which layers are visible. The last column in the layer list is for frozen/unfrozen layers. Frozen layers can't be changed or altered.

So if there is an H in any of the boxes in your sheet list, or layer list... that could be the reason things are disappearing.

There could be other reasons why this is happening, and as Waldronate mentioned, ProFantasy has their own forums set up specifically for cc3(+) users. It's a very friendly and helpful community, with varying levels of experience... they can really help you figure out the solution to your issue.

[waldronate]

... the results often look very amateurish unless you're an expert user.

I feel the same way about all art supplies.

[Mark Oliva]

Personally I can't stand the limitations of CC3, to me the results often look very amateurish unless you're an expert user.

Generally, I have to agree with this comment. I'll add too that I have and am experienced with CC3 and CC3+ but use neither of them. However, I would suggest that your comment, that the results often look very amateurish unless you're an expert user, applies just as well to Fractal Mapper 8, Dundjinni, Photoshop or The GIMP. With these products just as much as with CC3 and CC3+, the limitations tend to be with the user, not with the product.

[Mouse]

Hey NamelessMan

Whether you choose to stick with CC3, use a mixture of many different types of software, or go all PS... is entirely up to you and what you feel comfortable with using.

To show you what is possible with CC3, here are two of my earliest examples:

This is the third map I ever drew with CC3 (the first one was the example map contained in the User Manual - which I thoroughly recommend doing, since it familiarises the user with all the main controls, and the second one was a pretty uninspiring regional map that never got finished)

MAP OF ETHRAN.JPG

...and the same map again (just to prove that it IS a CC3 map for anyone who doubts it), this time without the sheet effects turned on...

ETHRAN - no effects.JPG

And this is a dungeon-style map I drew a couple of months later. I think it was my fourth or fifth. The reason it doesn't the slightest bit resemble the first is because it contains many symbols from the CSUAC - a vast collection of mapping symbols that you can use in many different types of software produced by Mark Oliva's organisation - Vyntyri - available here on this page. I believe there are also quite a few rugs and pieces of furniture from Bogies Mapping Objects collection in the interior of the Observatory itself.

Bogies Mapping Objects are also available from the Vintyri page.

10a.JPG

If you want to know the most important thing about mapping EVER, its to have fun, no matter what you map, or how you map it.

Enjoy your mapping

[Kier]

After reading this I am going to have to give my CC3 another look, just recently moved on to only GIMP for my last maps. Just felt I had more control on the little pieces etc, although I will be the first to admit I know I have only touched the beginning of what it can do.