Mapping the world at half the price

[Droogie]

I did get the character portrait one, mostly to make counters. It was serviceable for that, although none of the included templates were sized properly for my battle mat and I wound up having to cut off the edges of the counters I made with it. If I were buying it now I'd give the character module a miss probably.

The more proficient you get with the program, the less problems you have of this nature. You can edit the included templates to get any counter size you want. If you learn how to use the "blow up" command, you can hack apart existing creature symbols and put them back together as new monsters, change their color, etc.

 

[MaxKaladin]

The more proficient you get with the program, the less problems you have of this nature. You can edit the included templates to get any counter size you want. If you learn how to use the "blow up" command, you can hack apart existing creature symbols and put them back together as new monsters, change their color, etc.

In CC2? You don't even have to do this in CC2. It's as simple as setting the scale when you print. The print command you access from the file menu has a section down near the bottom where you can specify that X units on the map equals Y actual units on paper. Thus, you could print your overland map and specify it should be printed as 30 miles on the map equals 1 inch on paper or that a character portrait should be 6 feet on the portrait = 1 inch on paper. Using this command, he could shrink a portrait down to fit on a little counter or blow it up to be a couple of feet on a side to simulate a portrait of some kind.

I've been using CC2 for years now and it has a steep learning curve because it works very differently from programs like photoshop. Once you start learn to use it though, it will "click" and suddenly you will find yourself with a very powerful tool for making maps or other drawings. I made at least two false starts on this program but gave up each time. When I finally spent a little more time with it, I "got it" and it has become a powerful tool for me when DMing. I attribute my initial difficulty to my stubborn resistance to doing tutorials. There are some excellent tutorials for the CC2 mapping family that a lot of people have said are very helpful and I would urge anyone who gets the software and who isnt' familiar with CAD software to get some of the tutorials (I think some come with the program others can be obtained from the CC2 mailing list). I'm just the type who shuns tutorials (Tutorials? I don't need no steenkin' tutorials!) and plunges in on my own. That was a mistake.

For the record, you can export from CC2 to JPG, BMP and, I think, PNG. You can also export to some other formats used by other programs that I don't recall offhand. The program has an internal note function where you can keep notes in the file. It also has a powerful linking function where you can link hotspots on the map to other maps or external files. Thus, you could set your map up so if you clicked on a city on the overland map, it would bring up the city map you drew and then some buildings on the city map might be hotspots linked to maps of the individual buildings. Hotspots might also link to text or html files detailing things about a particular spot so you could click on a room in a dungeon and get a text file describing the encounter opened automatically in another window. Finally, you can zoom all you want so you could draw a big map of a continent and then zoom in on specific kingdoms and print a map of just them. Since CC2 supports layering and sheets, you could have seperate sheets that store increasing amounts of detail and turn them on and off as you needed to get larger scale maps with less detail or smaller scale but more detailed maps.

 

[Droogie]

In CC2? You don't even have to do this in CC2. It's as simple as setting the scale when you print. The print command you access from the file menu has a section down near the bottom where you can specify that X units on the map equals Y actual units on paper. Thus, you could print your overland map and specify it should be printed as 30 miles on the map equals 1 inch on paper or that a character portrait should be 6 feet on the portrait = 1 inch on paper. Using this command, he could shrink a portrait down to fit on a little counter or blow it up to be a couple of feet on a side to simulate a portrait of some kind.

Sweet. Does that mean I can scan in a dungeon map and print it out in battlemap size?

 

[MaxKaladin]

Sweet. Does that mean I can scan in a dungeon map and print it out in battlemap size?

Technically, yes, but there are a couple of issues with that.

1. A scanned image won't scale as well as vector graphics will no matter what software you use, so it will probably look really terrible when you blow it up to be a few feet on a side.

2. Sizing the image within CC2 to match the CC2 scale to the image scale can be tricky. Unfortunatly, the software doesn't have any way to know what scale your scanned image is supposed to be at, so you have to manually size it to be the right size in CC2. If you aren't worried about absolute accuracy, this works OK but the result will probably be off. See, the scaling commands in CC2 are tied to the CC2 internal grid. So you need to make sure that however wide five feet on your scanned map is will also be 5 feet in CC2 and then it can print it to scale as I mentioned in the previous message.

The good news is that it's pretty easy to crank out a quick dungeon map using the native tools in CC2 and even easier with the Dungeon Designer add on, which has various specialized tools and several sets of "geomorphs" you can use to crank out dungeons. I've been able to crank out a simple dungeon in less than half an hour complete with textured floors and a 5' foot grid overlay.

By the way, the software also tiles things for you if you want. Thus, if you have a map that might take up a sheet of paper two yards on a side if printed at 5' to the inch but you only have a printer that will print on letter sized paper, it can tile it onto a bunch of pieces of letter size paper automatically so you can just tape them together or tape them onto some poster board to assemble a big map. I plan to use this technique with my newest campaign setting to produce a large regional map that's a similar size to the ones that come with published settings.

 

[Ranger REG]

I have always been curious about Campaign Cartographer over the years and I have read a few threads her on the boards but the $80 price tag just always kept me away from a tool that I may or may not take too.

Pro Fantasy has dropped the price to $40.

I would be interested if folks think this product is worth a gamble at this price?

Damn. I can't believe I didn't see the sign. Is it possible that ProFantasy is currently developing Campaign Cartographer version 3?

 

[ergeheilalt]

I have always been curious about Campaign Cartographer over the years and I have read a few threads her on the boards but the $80 price tag just always kept me away from a tool that I may or may not take too.

Pro Fantasy has dropped the price to $40.

I would be interested if folks think this product is worth a gamble at this price?

It's pretty good. Without reading the manual - just diving into the program, I cranked out this map: http://www.thimtona.com/pics/iotis.jpg . I don't play with it much, but then again, I'm not running a game really, so there you have it

Erge

 

[Droogie]

Technically, yes, but there are a couple of issues with that.

1. A scanned image won't scale as well as vector graphics will no matter what software you use, so it will probably look really terrible when you blow it up to be a few feet on a side.

2. Sizing the image within CC2 to match the CC2 scale to the image scale can be tricky. Unfortunatly, the software doesn't have any way to know what scale your scanned image is supposed to be at, so you have to manually size it to be the right size in CC2. If you aren't worried about absolute accuracy, this works OK but the result will probably be off. See, the scaling commands in CC2 are tied to the CC2 internal grid. So you need to make sure that however wide five feet on your scanned map is will also be 5 feet in CC2 and then it can print it to scale as I mentioned in the previous message.

The good news is that it's pretty easy to crank out a quick dungeon map using the native tools in CC2 and even easier with the Dungeon Designer add on, which has various specialized tools and several sets of "geomorphs" you can use to crank out dungeons. I've been able to crank out a simple dungeon in less than half an hour complete with textured floors and a 5' foot grid overlay.

By the way, the software also tiles things for you if you want. Thus, if you have a map that might take up a sheet of paper two yards on a side if printed at 5' to the inch but you only have a printer that will print on letter sized paper, it can tile it onto a bunch of pieces of letter size paper automatically so you can just tape them together or tape them onto some poster board to assemble a big map. I plan to use this technique with my newest campaign setting to produce a large regional map that's a similar size to the ones that come with published settings.

Hmm I actually tried to scan in a map-- it doesn't look half bad if its a big enough bitmap file.

To get the right scale, I put down a square grid with 5' squares and carefully scales the bitmap until it matched.

One prob, though....I'd have to go through and somehow cover up all the secret doors, traps, and those annoying room numbers. I suppose I could just trace the whole dungeon to make a no-frills player version, but now its already becoming more trouble than its worth. Guess I'll just stick to my dry-erase board.

Say, where exactly IS the option to make a poster size map?

 

[Droogie]

Forget it! I found it. Oh. Oh god. Sweet.

 

[argon_the_red]

Damn. I can't believe I didn't see the sign. Is it possible that ProFantasy is currently developing Campaign Cartographer version 3?

That is possible. I think this is more likely a response to Dundjinni coming into the market at $40 with a product that is very easy to use and that has fantastic art.

 

[Hand of Evil]

That is possible. I think this is more likely a response to Dundjinni coming into the market at $40 with a product that is very easy to use and that has fantastic art.

That is the low end product, the high end is $80 ($70 pre-order) but I do think you are right. There are more and more mappers out there.