Looking for help/suggestions

[Leondegrance]

Hi,

I'm still pretty inexperienced with regard to mapping, so first off I'd ask that any advice given is kept simple Secondly, I'm using CC3 so am limited to what it will do for me (although I know that's quite a lot!).

I want to create a world map, in the black and white style that came out with the Campaign cartographer annual a while ago. It's a long term project for me to play about with, but I'm finding it quite hard to get going with it.

I'm going to be drawing it on a square map. What sort of dimensions should I be using for a slightly smaller than earth size world when choosing the settings. Is 7000 x 5000 reasonable? I'm not too fussy about mercator projection and continent scale relating to where it is on a globe, I just want a square world map that looks believable for some fantasy game playing to allow me to create some lore around the setting where the games will be.

Ultimately I'd like to produce something along the lines of Ystraad, http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2796, but with a couple more continents and small islands/archipelagos. I do realise that as my level of experience I'm not going to get to anything quite this artistic, but this is the idea I am chasing.

Another difficulty I am encountering with CC3 is saving at a high resolution for a map this size. Ideally I'd like to be able to zoom right in on an area and have the clarity remain high, but when i save big maps (this kind of size) the files are always small and lose detail quickly as you zoom in. Anyone know how i can do this? From what i've read here I would expect a finished map of this size to take up about 20mb but I'm not able to save at this detail, through my own lack of familiarity with CC3. Anyone know how I can overcome this?

Any and all advice is appreciated, and thanks for taking the time

[NeonKnight]

Well, first, with CC3 you don;'t lose ANY detail on the map. Now, if you mean saving the map as a PNG/JPEG/BMP then yes, you will lose the details as that is the difference between RASTER graphics (BMPs/JPEGS etc) versus VECTOR graphics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics

SO, keeping your main map as a VECTOR/CC3 version, you do not need to overly worry about losing detail as you zoom in, and the file size stays relatively small.

If however, you are like me and you want to but copies of those same maps into a document you are writing up then you need to convert to a BMP/JPG/PNG format, and then you will be looking at huge file sizes.

So, do not overly worry about the size of your file size if you are working solely in CC3 as you will have ALL the detail you need

[NeonKnight]

Further to what I am talking about above, here is a copy of my old campaign world's main continent Euros. The files size is 2.3 megs, and as you can see loses a lot of the 'fine' details as you zoom in, and looks 'blocky'.

Yet the FCW file (the CC3 map) is only 636 kb, and I can zoom in quite close to areas for better detail.

[Badger]

That said.... you can always zoom in to the areas you want detailed maps of, or closer regional views and save those zoom levels as seperate PNG/JPG files that will retain some of that detail at that level.

But like NK said... with a vector based program like the CAD engine that CC3 uses, you can literally zoom into an ant on the street of your world map if you choose to put that much detail on it...