Testing out CD 3 - WIP on Small seaside town.

[Elothan]

Had a few feww hours today, so I thought I woud test out CD3 a little bit, and after trying a little bit, I came up with this...
Not exactly Gandwarf quality, but served me nice learning a bit about the software

I know there are a few errors (like the symbol house near the docks) and such, but for a first draft I am content
Thanks to GD for the cliff tutorial.

[Ascension]

Looks pretty good. Bright colors but good. I could see myself using something like this.

[Elothan]

The bright Colours are more a result of the styleset i used in CD 3, I think they will be toned down a bit later

[Mark Oliva]

I switched from CC3 to another mapping program before CD3 was released, so I've never seen the product and don't know what its limitations are, nor do I really have much of an idea what it does and doesn't do. It may be that there isn't much that it will let you do about what seem to be some strange effectsto me. If CD3 lets you do it, you might want to think about changing the scale (or something else, depending upon what CD3 offers) to get rid of the rather pronounced pattern redundancies in the water fill and the grass fill. In the water fill, these redundancies are so strong that it looks like the water is smudged everywhere, and it's always the identical smudge. I've had a question for a long time about CD3 maps. Every one that I've seen so far always has roofs of the most incredible colors. That includes the demo maps on ProFantasy's web sites: Fire engine red, lemon yellow, snow white, parchment creme, etc. I've never seen a real world roof that looks anything like these roofs. That isn't intended as a criticism. We're mapping fantasy RPG locations, for the most part, and these roof colors lend a location a character of being somewhere else than in the real world, which has its merits. Nonetheless, I'm curious. Is a CD3 mapper limited to these roof colors if he or she wants to use the CD3 tools, or is this more or less a preferred style of the CD3 mapping community? Or is there some other reason why these kinds of roof colors are chosen?

[Katto]

Don't mix too many different roof types when working with CD3. Try also to avoid the png buildings if possible. It is a good start for working with CD3 for the first time. I would like to see more CD3 maps here.

@Mark Oliva:
Most users use the predefined backgrounds, houses etc., because it is convenient I think. You can change everything, import textures for roofs and backgrounds and so on. In my opinion most people are scared when they see the UI of this program. Intuitive is a word that don't match with CC3.

[Elothan]

@ Mark Olivia, yeah, I am going to change the water texures and such in the final map, just have to find one I like.
@ Katto, to many colours, While I understand what you are saying, but any other tips on it not getting to monotonous ?
And yeah, the CC3 interface is a bit daunting a first, feling I am starting to get a hang of it now, atleast I know what MOST buttons do :p

[Mark Oliva]

Most users use the predefined backgrounds, houses etc., because it is convenient I think. You can change everything, import textures for roofs and backgrounds and so on.

Does CD3 (as opposed to CC3) fill out streets with buildings made from imported third party symbols, or does CD3 only produce its own generated building symbols? I'm referring to raster symbols only, not fills or textures. With CD2, one could define street autofills only within the range of CC2 Pro's own vector concepts. CD3 might do the same thing, or it might work with actual raster symbols. I'm curious which is the case. I haven't seen a single CD3 (as opposed to CC3) map to date that has any buildings that aren't CD3 style. I'm getting the impression that CD3 can't use anything but its own graphics in making automatically generated streets. That impression comes both from all of the CD3 maps I've seen to date and from reports from people who have downloaded our raster symbols for buildings. They can convert them and use them with no difficulty in CC3 as individual raster symbols, but they say that they can't be incorporated into CD3. They may be right, and then again, they might simply not know how to do it.

In my opinion most people are scared when they see the UI of this program. Intuitive is a word that don't match with CC3.

Right. I learned that the hard way when our group produced the "Northern Journey" adventure several years ago. We used CC2 Pro, CD2 and DD2 to make the editable maps we distributed in maps CC2's FCW format. The great majority of user complaints that we received were from people who didn't want to climb CC2's great learning curve and urged us to find a different mapping program.

[Elothan]

I do not think there is any way to populate a street wit raster symbols, at least using the default generate street tool. I am pretty sure however that it would be possible to write a macro that does somrhing long those lines (people have macros for making symbol based mountain ranges, etc) But since I dont know anything about macros, I would know how to write one.

[Katto]

I agree with Elothan. In the ProFantasy Forum you will find a thread with tutorials:
http://forum.profantasy.com/comments...scussionID=928
Have a look at tutorial 1...

[Mark Oliva]

I agree with Elothan. In the ProFantasy Forum you will find a thread with tutorials:
http://forum.profantasy.com/comments...scussionID=928
Have a look at tutorial 1...

Good. I looked at the tutorial. I don't believe it answers my question, although I might be wrong.

The main reason I'm asking this is because we've gotten some mail from CC3 users who have downloaded our Cartographic Collection, which contains more than 1,000 raster symbols, mostly of buildings. There also are other raster building symbols available free in the CSUAC, at RPG Map Share and in the Dundjinni forums. They're much better quality than the CD3 symbols I see in maps. Our symbols and those work from the CSUAC, Dundjinni users and RPG Map Sharework fine in CC3 after being converted, but only as individual symbols.

People who have CD3 are asking whether there's any way to use our symbols, converted for CC3, together with the CD3 street generation tool. I haven't the foggiest idea. I worked for about a year with CC3 and DD3 before giving them away, but I've never seen CD3. I have told folks to inquire at ProFantasy, but at least some of them found the answers that they got confusing and not helpful.

So ... if the answer is yes, if one can use third party raster symbols with the street generation tool of CD3, and someone can point me somewhere that tells how, I would be delighted to pass that information on when I'm asked and help those CD3 users get more from their program.

Thanks for your replies so far!