Thread: Starting out, my first city (City Designer 3)

Ah yes, much better. Now I can see some details.
You put flags on some of the towers?

Some suggestions:
- You might want to extend the dirt square to the castle building. As people are walking in and out the grass would turn into dirt.
- Also you might want to place another building nearby to act as the stables.
- Finally you could consider giving the roof of the castle a little color, making it stand out more.

Originally Posted by Gandwarf

Ah yes, much better. Now I can see some details.
You put flags on some of the towers?

Yes, I wanted flags at the gates of the city. I guess I cannot change their color, the symbols only come in blue.

Originally Posted by Gandwarf

-Finally you could consider giving the roof of the castle a little color, making it stand out more.

Can I do that now, or should have I done it prior to creating the building? I'll look through the properties sheet, maybe I will find something there.

Originally Posted by Mixpengo

Can I do that now, or should have I done it prior to creating the building? I'll look through the properties sheet, maybe I will find something there.

One way to do this is put the building in its own sheet.

- Create a new sheet, for example: "Castle"
- Right-click on the "Sheets and effects" button and click on "Move to sheet"
- Select the castle buildings and right-click
- Pick "Do it".
- Move the buildings to the "Castle" sheet.
- Now add all the normal building effects to the "Castle" sheet.
- Add a adjust hue/saturation effect. You can use this effect to give the building a blue color for example.
- Having the castle on a seperate sheet gives other bonuses as well. You can adjust the shadows for example, so that the castle casts a longer shadows than the other buildings.

Thank you Gandwarf, very good idea and explanation. I am a bit frustrated with CD3, it lacks a preview for applying effects (a fast preview, on a small part of the drawing), and that makes using and combining the effects difficult.

Sheets are powerful and I try to use them a lot. However, I did not manage to see the power of Layers in CD3. Do you use them at all?

Originally Posted by Mixpengo

Thank you Gandwarf, very good idea and explanation. I am a bit frustrated with CD3, it lacks a preview for applying effects (a fast preview, on a small part of the drawing), and that makes using and combining the effects difficult.

Yes, it's frustrating. If I know I am going to experiment with effects a lot, I start an empty map. Load times are generally fast. When I have found the effects I like, I implement them in my maps. Experimenting with effects on larger maps is not a good idea, as applying the effects takes more and more time.

Sheets are powerful and I try to use them a lot. However, I did not manage to see the power of Layers in CD3. Do you use them at all?

No, I have to admit I have no idea why I would want to use layers. I understand what they do in theory, but that's about it. I am not sure if I am missing out on something. It's also a bit weird that sheets are actually called layers in most other programs