Campaign Cartographer - comments, opinions?
- Thread starter GlassJaw
- Start date
Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
I've dabbled with this and I agree the learning curve is pretty steep, but running the tutorials can give you a pretty good handle on things.
The other thing to keep in mind is you need to have a decent computer to run this on if you are making larger or more complex maps. The computer I used to run it on used to bog down so badly as my maps got larger and had more elements in them. Now I really cannot even use the software as I now have a Mac and it is way too slow to run using Virtual PC.
The other thing to keep in mind is you need to have a decent computer to run this on if you are making larger or more complex maps. The computer I used to run it on used to bog down so badly as my maps got larger and had more elements in them. Now I really cannot even use the software as I now have a Mac and it is way too slow to run using Virtual PC.
CC-Pro is wonderful, download the demo and play with it, while there is a learning curve if you follow the manuel you will be making makes in no time.
City and Dungeon Designers are add-ons to make the creation of those items easier, you don't need them but they give you tons of symbols and short cuts to perform task.
Something else Profantasy does better than anyone else Customer Support, they have an fantasic and very busy mailing list with also has people with hints, fixes and other ways of doing things.
Check out the Art and Carographer forums to look at what others here have put out.
City and Dungeon Designers are add-ons to make the creation of those items easier, you don't need them but they give you tons of symbols and short cuts to perform task.
Something else Profantasy does better than anyone else Customer Support, they have an fantasic and very busy mailing list with also has people with hints, fixes and other ways of doing things.
Check out the Art and Carographer forums to look at what others here have put out.
NBOS Fractal Mapper is very good but then so is CC2, I have both and like CC2 overall but have found that sometimes one is better than the other at doing somethings and it really comes down to the user. Download both demos and play with them to find the best one for your needs.Bihor said:
mattcolville
Adventurer
I bought the full suite for quite a lot of cash about 4 years ago. Every six months or so I would bust it out and try to figure it out again. I'm someone who's used programs like Quark, Indesign, Photoshop, and Freehand professionally. I design computer games for a living. I could not get this thing to work in any manner that yeilded even only very bad results.
Then I had some kind of breakthrough a while ago, largely as a result of upgrades made to the UI with the last update, and now I love it. It's genuinely fun to use.
It is easily the least intiutive program I've ever used. But, it's very powerful, and if you accept it on it's terms instead of human terms, you'll be well rewarded.
Then I had some kind of breakthrough a while ago, largely as a result of upgrades made to the UI with the last update, and now I love it. It's genuinely fun to use.
It is easily the least intiutive program I've ever used. But, it's very powerful, and if you accept it on it's terms instead of human terms, you'll be well rewarded.
Ranger REG
Explorer
Granted, I have CC2 Pro but I'm not making full use of it yet. I want to but it is intimidating. Hopefully someone could writing a CC 2 Pro for Dummies soon.
D'karr
Adventurer
CC Pro + Add-ons
In that case, what city designer adds is symbols that are readily useable to represent houses and building. The symbols are placed manually and aligned, scaled, etc. in that way. But in addition, it adds many interfaces and commands that tweak the existing functionality of CC Pro and make building a city "easier". For example a command and interface that lets you build a whole row of houses with two clicks of the mouse. You can have the houses follow a road, even a curved road, etc. Something that would be hard and time consuming if done manually.
City Designer also brings with it several Templates with predefined layers specifically for building cities. You want to map the city sewers? Hide all layers except the Sewers layer and get to building. When you are done, simply hide the sewers layer and unhide the rest. Now you have a sewers layer that maps to the contours of your city. Layers work as transparent overlays that are "layered" from top to bottom. They can be turned on or off depending on what view you want to manipulate, view or print. By the way, the command that creates houses automatically, also places different pieces in different layers. So for example if you want to create the slums or the thieves' quarters, the "political" political layer will handle homogeneous placement. If sometime in the future you decide that you want to print a map that contains only the areas considered part of the "thieves' quarter" you only have to hide all layers except the "thieves' quarter" layer and "voila", you have a demographic map. Sheets, let you handle layers of layers and are fantastic to overlay grids or even have separate sheets for separate parts of your city (Sheet 1 - sewers, sheet 2 - grids, sheet 3 - houses, sheet 4 - outerwalls, etc.)
Dungeon Designer does the same thing for dungeons. Since building a dungeon can be as simple as stipulating wall sections and corridors or as involved as placing walls, floors, sublevels, and props (altars, columns, statues, treasure, etc.)
Fractal Terrains is a stand alone add-on to CC Pro. What the heck does that mean? It means that you don't need to have CC Pro to use Fractal Terrains. However, if you have CC Pro you can import your "world" and edit it in CC Pro. So you could essentially create a world coastal outline in Fractal Terrains, then import it into CC Pro to create political boundaries, etc. Then you can break that outline and work to the level of the city by the sea on a specific area of your world. Fractal Terrains is also getting an update and will include some automated geographical features such as rivers that are not part of the package currently.
And finally to the Symbol Sets. I only have Symbol Sets 1 because I didn't need the others which were geared more for indoor maps. Symbol Sets 1 is fantastic, IMO. It has many symbols drawn in a "hand-drawn" style that give the maps a really cool "atmosphere." I don't really know how to explain it but I love Symbol Set 1.
I hope that answers your questions.
City Designer and Dungeon Designer do not add any "functionality" to CC Pro that is not already there. For example you can already build a city with CC Pro. However, depending on how detailed you want to be, it will be a very time consuming and frustrating process as you build symbols to represent the houses or create every house using polygons, etc. Then you have to place everything manually and align it manually, etc.Mercule said:
In that case, what city designer adds is symbols that are readily useable to represent houses and building. The symbols are placed manually and aligned, scaled, etc. in that way. But in addition, it adds many interfaces and commands that tweak the existing functionality of CC Pro and make building a city "easier". For example a command and interface that lets you build a whole row of houses with two clicks of the mouse. You can have the houses follow a road, even a curved road, etc. Something that would be hard and time consuming if done manually.
City Designer also brings with it several Templates with predefined layers specifically for building cities. You want to map the city sewers? Hide all layers except the Sewers layer and get to building. When you are done, simply hide the sewers layer and unhide the rest. Now you have a sewers layer that maps to the contours of your city. Layers work as transparent overlays that are "layered" from top to bottom. They can be turned on or off depending on what view you want to manipulate, view or print. By the way, the command that creates houses automatically, also places different pieces in different layers. So for example if you want to create the slums or the thieves' quarters, the "political" political layer will handle homogeneous placement. If sometime in the future you decide that you want to print a map that contains only the areas considered part of the "thieves' quarter" you only have to hide all layers except the "thieves' quarter" layer and "voila", you have a demographic map. Sheets, let you handle layers of layers and are fantastic to overlay grids or even have separate sheets for separate parts of your city (Sheet 1 - sewers, sheet 2 - grids, sheet 3 - houses, sheet 4 - outerwalls, etc.)
Dungeon Designer does the same thing for dungeons. Since building a dungeon can be as simple as stipulating wall sections and corridors or as involved as placing walls, floors, sublevels, and props (altars, columns, statues, treasure, etc.)
Fractal Terrains is a stand alone add-on to CC Pro. What the heck does that mean? It means that you don't need to have CC Pro to use Fractal Terrains. However, if you have CC Pro you can import your "world" and edit it in CC Pro. So you could essentially create a world coastal outline in Fractal Terrains, then import it into CC Pro to create political boundaries, etc. Then you can break that outline and work to the level of the city by the sea on a specific area of your world. Fractal Terrains is also getting an update and will include some automated geographical features such as rivers that are not part of the package currently.
And finally to the Symbol Sets. I only have Symbol Sets 1 because I didn't need the others which were geared more for indoor maps. Symbol Sets 1 is fantastic, IMO. It has many symbols drawn in a "hand-drawn" style that give the maps a really cool "atmosphere." I don't really know how to explain it but I love Symbol Set 1.
I hope that answers your questions.
D'karr
Adventurer
I understand the intimidation level, I had never worked with a CAD program and accomplishing even the simplest thing on the old interface was so unintuitive that I was extremely frustrated.Ranger REG said:
First piece of advice, do the tutorials. Second piece of advice, do the tutorials. Third piece of advice, register in the CC Pro Yahoo Groups and take a look at the very supportive user community.
As an addendum, if your software is registered with Profantasy you can head over to the Profantasy Website and download the "Ubermanual". It is an updated compilation specifically for CC Pro. Once you get the "UberManual", which I believe is almost 40Mb, do the tutorials.
I'm sorry if it seems I'm making fun, but I'm really serious. The best way to learn how this software works is to do the tutorials. Specially, if like me, you've never worked with a CAD interface or have only passing knowledge of it.
Maerdwyn
First Post
Building on D'Karr's post a little: Fractal Terrains is incredibly useful to me in a Traveller game, because I'm dealing with multiple worlds. It might not be as useful for someone using a single world for a fantasy game. Further, as it's difficult to use FT to replicates the look of a world you have hand drawn, it's also somewhat ledd useful for someone who wan't a world map for an existing campaign. If you need one single map, give me some parameters, and I'd be happy to make one for you in FT.
BTW, D'Karr, the update to FT is already out for those on the Yahoo Group. Go get it. It's very neat.
Re: CC vs. Fractal Mapper.
The two programs now cost exaclty he same amount: $39.95.
CC can do everything that FM can do, plus more. THe most useful feature that CC has an FM doesn't, IMO, is that it can fractilize caostlines and rivers, etc., and it can do it on the fly or after the oject has been placed.
FM has a simpler interface, there is no doubt. But having spent the time with CC and learned how to use some of the more advanced features, not to mention some of the add-ons, CC2 wins easily in my book.
BTW, NBOS(Fractal Mapper) and Profantasy (Campaign Cartographer) have started working very closely together recently. NBOS's Astrosynthesis, a 3D Starmapper, can import and export data to Profantasy' Fractal Terrains, which can in turn link its data with Campaign Cartographer. That allows you to creat a 3D starmap with star system linked to FT planets that are linked to CC2 maps which you can furhter map out in as much detail as you want. Very cool for Traveller.
BTW, D'Karr, the update to FT is already out for those on the Yahoo Group. Go get it. It's very neat.
Re: CC vs. Fractal Mapper.
The two programs now cost exaclty he same amount: $39.95.
CC can do everything that FM can do, plus more. THe most useful feature that CC has an FM doesn't, IMO, is that it can fractilize caostlines and rivers, etc., and it can do it on the fly or after the oject has been placed.
FM has a simpler interface, there is no doubt. But having spent the time with CC and learned how to use some of the more advanced features, not to mention some of the add-ons, CC2 wins easily in my book.
BTW, NBOS(Fractal Mapper) and Profantasy (Campaign Cartographer) have started working very closely together recently. NBOS's Astrosynthesis, a 3D Starmapper, can import and export data to Profantasy' Fractal Terrains, which can in turn link its data with Campaign Cartographer. That allows you to creat a 3D starmap with star system linked to FT planets that are linked to CC2 maps which you can furhter map out in as much detail as you want. Very cool for Traveller.
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