What are the differences between CC3 and fractal terrains pro?

[Midgardsormr]

Neither one will do much analysis for you. Fractal Terrains works by creating a heightmap using fractal noise algorithms, then it lays in some "guestimate" climates and calculates where the rivers will likely be when generating an image of the world. It has some issues, though, such as always placing mountain ranges in the center of a landmass and being unable to account for terrain contributions to biomes. I don't recall whether it can reproject the world or not. There is, however, a freeware tool that can do that called Flex Projector.

CC3 is a CAD (Computer Aided Design) program customized for fantasy mapping. It can make fractalized lines to quickly create coastline and river features, numerous drawing tools for contours, and it comes with symbol collections for making stamp-based maps. If you look through the Profantasy website, you'll see lots of samples of images created with CC3, which should give you an idea of what it does. It does come with some measurement tools, but that's the extent of its analysis capabilities. It is mostly an image-creation tool.

For actual geographic analysis, you'll need a GIS (Geographic Information System). These take quite a bit of effort to learn, since they are very powerful professional tools. I think there is a free one available, but I don't recall what it is. Even so, a GIS is not a generator, only an analysis tool.

For creating weather, climate, etc, there isn't yet a tool we're aware of that can do it programatically, but there are resources to help you do it manually, such as the Climate Cookbook.

Fractal Terrains and the Campaign Cartographer are excellent tools, but you should be aware of what they do and do not do before purchasing.

[Thereh]

Thx for the info. I'm currently learning to use arcGIS (9.3), but with no avail. So i'm looking for simpler version.

Btw, what's the newest version of CC3 and FT pro? And how big the file size is? I think im going download it, since my country is not listed on the retailer list.

@neonknight: you got wonderful world there.

[NeonKnight]

Thx for the info. I'm currently learning to use arcGIS (9.3), but with no avail. So i'm looking for simpler version.

Btw, what's the newest version of CC3 and FT pro? And how big the file size is? I think im going download it, since my country is not listed on the retailer list.

@neonknight: you got wonderful world there.

Thanx.

If you do go for the Download, see if you can at least get the Disks mailed to you. Even with the disks you can always download.

[Wolf63]

Thx for the info. I'm currently learning to use arcGIS (9.3), but with no avail. So i'm looking for simpler version.

Btw, what's the newest version of CC3 and FT pro? And how big the file size is? I think im going download it, since my country is not listed on the retailer list.

@neonknight: you got wonderful world there.

CC3 is the newest version and its size is 450 mb