Campaign Cartographer - comments, opinions?

I've been looking at the Campaign Cartographer software (http://www.profantasy.com/) and it looks pretty cool, although not necessarily cheap (although it seems that the prices have been reduced). They also sell some bundles as well: http://www.profantasy.com/products/bundle.asp. The World Builder looks cool but again, not cheap.

Does anyone have any experience using any of this software? How easy or difficult is it to use?

I got Campaign Cartographer 2 for Christmas last year and really love it. BUT. It has a rather steep learning curve. I consider myself computer savvy, but it ain't easy. It's a very powerful CAD program, and as long as you don't expect to make incredibly beautiful maps overnight, you won't get too frustrated. This very thread has been going on on the rather active CC2 list on Yahoo, about how hard the program is. The user support is wonderful. The designers participate actively on this list. They've recently done a lot of comparing of programs, too.

I have the Dungeon creation add-on (among others), which can do random dungeons and simple quick dungeons as well as very detailed ones. There are tutorials available to help.

I've thought about getting Dunjinni, since it's so highly advertised, but wasn't happy with what I read about it. For me, CC2 is great. But don't expect perfection overnight.

GlassJaw said:

Does anyone have any experience using any of this software? How easy or difficult is it to use?

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This software is powerful and some really amazing results can be done with it. However like all things, to become a master with CC Pro it takes practice, patience and time.

I've used CC since the first windows version came out. Then I upgraded to CC Pro when it was released. CC Pro is a vast improvement in functionality as well as ease of use. However, the biggest thing to remember with this software is that it is very poweful because it is based on a CAD engine. Therefore, ease of use is relative. If you are familiar with the way CAD programs work, the learning curve is not steep. If you think that everything should work like Microsoft Paint, then you will have a problem because your preconceived notions will not be satisfied.

When I first purchased the software I knew nothing about CAD software and was frustrated to no end. Then I took the small pamphlet that comes with it and spent about 4-5 hours doing the tutorials. I was hooked. The time I took to do the tutorials was time well spent learning to manipulate the interface.

The tutorials are easy and pretty much self explanatory. They show you how the interface works. After you've done the tutorials you will really understand the interface and your mastery of the program can begin.

The big difference between CC Pro and "Paint" programs is that every entity in CC Pro is individual. You can manipulate every object to the very last detail. So "zooming in" or "zooming out" are really indefinite (like a CAD Program). You will see no pixelation the closer you get to an object. This allows you to create indoor maps, outdoor maps and even continent maps using the same software and interface.

Profantasy is currently working on an upgrade that will allow "quasi photo textures" as part of the build process. So if you want to make something that looks "photo realistic" you will have that option too. Unfortunately they are not there yet.

CC Pro has satisfied all my mapping needs for a very long time, so I'm definitely glad that I spent the time to learn how to use it. In addition, the CC user community is second to none when it comes to support and answering questions and Profantasy is superb in their customer support.

I hope you will like the program.

Those are some pretty glowing endorsements. Thanks guys. I've used some CAD in the past (AutoCad) but I'm not sure how much I remember. I'd probably do ok I guess.

Has anyone checked out the free demo on their site?

Would you recommend just getting CC2 or going for one of their package deals? The World Builder has CC2, City, Dungeon, and Fractal.

GlassJaw said:

I've been looking at the Campaign Cartographer software (http://www.profantasy.com/) and it looks pretty cool, although not necessarily cheap (although it seems that the prices have been reduced).

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Not cheap? You don't buy much CAD software, do you?

By comparison, I have just bought AutoCAD Architectural Desktop. A student only offer (limited to to years use) cost me about £115: nearly 4 times what CC Pro costs. A full commercial version would be about £3500.

Admittedly, that is a slightly extreme example, but none the less, if CC is a real CAD package (as it apparently is), a two digit price is amazing.


glass.

I am not a CAD designer and did not have difficulty learning CC2, so find most statements to that effect exaggarated. I will recommend this, though: if you get it, do the tutorials. They give you the basic skills you need to make CC2 submit to your will.

The biggest advantage that NBOS FM had (note tense) over CC2 was it's ability to draw a landmass/island by dragging the mouse. CC2's new landmass command gives it this capability (and more, since FM's fractal landmasses are more difficult to edit.)

Don't think you need Dungeon Designer or City Designer to design dungeons or cities... though they do have tools and more symbols to make it easier and/or prettier. Especially city designer (which has this REALLY NEAT tool that lets you pick a few building styles, draw a road, and it automatically draws all the building.)

Even so, drawing large cities is a task. For this purpose, I rip off the Forgotten Realms atlas liberally, just changing the text tags. It has lots of well illustrated cities, most of them drawn from 2e FR references. I don't think you can get it from Profantasy anymore, but I think you can still get it at some hobby shops and in some distributors still (at least you could last year.)

If your purpose is to build worlds, I find Fractal Terrains indispensible. It is a stand alone program that builds random worlds, but it can export to CC2 and let you add your own features (it can also export jpeg, vrml, and html format worlds.) FT is one of my favorite toys. It makes world building very easy. (It's not quite as useful if you have an existing campaign you want to mape, but I did manage to pull my old continent into an FT generated world and used the other continents FT generated.)

Finally, I'll mention that the CC2 yahoo group is a great resource, with lots of helpful folks and good collected advice.

Edit: I see D'karr has commented on the interface. It really is the biggest hurdle for some folks. It's not complicated, but it's not what you are used to. In a typical windows manipulation program, you select object then select command. In CC2, you select command and then pick what you want to do it to.

So, what value do the various bits add? I've read the ad copies, but some of it is still a bit hazy in practical terms.

I understand what the CC2-Pro application does and have played with the demo. Love it, BTW. The only reasons I haven't picked it up are 1) my wife told me she needed something to get me for Christmas and 2) I'm trying to figure out the packages.

What do the City Designer and Dungeon Designer add? I assume more than just some new symbols. Specifically, what can you do with them that is either not possible or difficult with just the base application?

What about Fractal Terrains? It looks pretty good for a scifi game, but what if I only want to build a single fantasy world? What if it's a bizarre world like airborne islands, a ringworld, or the elemental plane of fire? If I've already got a rough map, will Fractal Terrains help me at all (roughing/finishing coastline, placing mountains, etc.)?

Finally, how valuable are the Symbol Sets?

Just hoping that someone has some experience along these lines.

GlassJaw said:

Would you recommend just getting CC2 or going for one of their package deals? The World Builder has CC2, City, Dungeon, and Fractal.

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I'd say if you want Fractal Terrains, you may as well get the package.

If you want to make worlds from scratch, I recommend getting Fractal Terrains because it makes it easy... you fiddle with the settings and then click "new world" until you find something that appeals to your eye. Save it, and zoom in on portions you like and export it to CC2, and add all your little DM things like nations, races, features, cities, etc.

Here's a raw jpeg of a perspective shot I pulled from FT for a world I am working on:

http://members.tripod.com/~sangrolu/newworld.html

If I do any CC2 work on it (I may - I plan to instert Mindshadows' Naranjan, Freeport, and Bluffside into this world), perhaps I'll post what some of my conversions look like.

The sad part is, some of the work I have done is way too detailed to really show though jpegs on the net. My main continent map for my classic campaign has many layers that I can show or hide, including things like political boundaries, ley lines, etc., so I can hide selected layers to show to the players, or show specific details I need.

I've been using CC2 for several years and while the maps it generates are really of excellent quality, I find it does have a considerable learning curve.

I'm fairly computer savy but not an Autocad designer and even after using the program for a number of maps (in the Atlas section of my campaign website; one was adapted for existing map off the CC2 website), it's still a pain to use for me at least. I'm sure the fact I create maps infrequently (maybe 3 to 4 times a year) is a part of that: it means that I have to "relearn" a lot of the basics each time I create a map, including working a few of the tutorials to "get back in shape" before I can create something worthwhile...which for me, means that to create a good map, I can easily spend a couple of evenings working on it, which is a lot of time to invest in anything except a map I'm planning on using for multiple adventures.

The program is vector based, more like Adobe Illustrator than Photoshop if I can use a general comparison. I'm much more of a Photoshop person, so it might be a left/right brain thing. If that makes any sense at all.

I use FT extensively for my Traveller game, but I would not use it much if I was just creating a single campaign world. Since it's strength is random worlds, it's also going to be pretty tedious to create a beautiful world map that conforms to your sketch in terms of specific shape, continent placement, etc. You would essentially be doing it by hand, drawing all of the landmasses in with a paintbrush. I found it very useful when I was starting from scratch, not so much when I wanted to match something I drawn.

Each of the additions adds new tools, as well as symbols. Dungeon Designer for example, includes automatic room and corridor drawing tools (Ie, choose a floor design, wall designs and thickness, etc, and each room or corridor you draw after that has those properties, and the walls break automatically when you attach a corridor to the room.) City Designer lets you draw houses automatically as you draw the roads. Cosmographer lets you quickly draw oldschool scfi-fi hex maps (a la Traveller, etc.), and includes spaceship drawing tools and sci-fi symbols. I finding I'm using that quite a bit these days.

I only have SYmbol Set 1 - it's beautiful, and includes symbols that can give maps a more handdrawn look.

For a fantasy game, the products I would recommend most (actually, I'd recommend all of them except for Character Artist and Dioramas, which just aren't my thing, YMMV), are:

1)CC2Pro
2)Forgotten Realms Atlas (Pilfer cities and rename them, as described above)
3)Dungeon Designer
4)City Designer (edit those FR Cities further, or make your own)
5)Symbol Sets
6)Fractal Terrains Pro
7)Character Artist and Dioramas, if you are into making counters and terrain type stuff.