Campaign Cartographer 3+

User Manual
 WELCOME
Welcome to the wonderful world of fantasy map-making. Campaign
Cartographer is all about helping you take the maps from your imagination and
creating a visual representation of them. This manual is the guide to get you
started with that process. During these pages I will try to give to the skills and
knowledge to successfully use CC3+ for that purpose.

Credits and Acknowledgements

Manual: written and laid out by Remy Monsen,

based on the CC3 manual and additional work by Allyn Bowker
Original CC3 Manual: written and laid out by Allyn Bowker with contributions from
Simon Rogers, Mark Fulford, Linda Kekumu, Ralf Schemmann, and Joe Slayton
Some documentation based on past works by
L Lee Sauders, Allyn Bowker, Ralf Schemmann, Kevin Thomas, Morgan Olden, Tony Marker, et al
Images by: Ralf Schemman, Allyn Bowker, Aaron Stubbs, Steve Townshend, Erik Nolander and an unknown artist
CC3+ concept and design: Simon Rogers, Mark Fulford
CAD Source Code and CC3+ Engine: Mike Riddle
Programming: Peter Olsson, Joe Slayton
Additional programming: L Lee Saunders
Additional Effects Filters: Joe Slayton
CC3+ PNG Symbols: Dave Allsop, Mike Schley
Varicolour Symbols: Linda Kekumu
Trade Dress: Peter Gifford

Thanks to: The CC3 Users' List and ProFantasy forum members, and the CC3 Beta Test list.
Software and manual ©Copyright 2018 ProFantasy Software, Ltd with the exception of those images whose
copyright is held by the artist

Campaign Cartographer 3+™ and CC3+™ are trademarks of ProFantasy Software Ltd.
Fractal Terrains 3™ is a trademark of ProFantasy Software, Ltd.
Windows® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
TrueType® is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.

CC3PUG-12-17

2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WELCOME 2 Our First Map Review 35
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 THE INS AND OUTS OF TEXT 36
INTRODUCTION 5 Placing Text 36
How to use this Manual 5 Selecting Fonts 37
Not interested in Overland Maps? 5
Taming Text 37
Your Copyright 5
Getting More and Getting Help 6 Text Along a Curve 38
Number Labels 39
WHAT’S NEW IN CC3+ 7
Completing our Map 39
New Style 7
The Map Title 40
Print Wizard 7
Ins and Outs of Text Review 40
Drawing Tools in Symbol Catalog Window 7
PRINTING AND EXPORTING 41
Floating Prompt 7
Printing Your Drawing 41
New Data Directory 7
Printing using the Print Wizard 41
Large Toolbar Icons 8
Printing using the Classic Dialog 45
Other Improvements 8
No Fuss Printing 45
INSTALLATION 9 Printing with Options 45
Installation Wizard 9 Printing Battlemats for Miniatures 47
GETTING STARTED 13 Common printing errors 47
Learning Tips for New Campaign Cartographer Users 13 Exporting Your Drawing 47
CC3+ Interface Overview 15 Settings 47
Pixel Size 48
File Locations and Formats 18
Options 48
Paths 18
File Types 18 Printing and Exporting review 50
The Autosave Feature 18 EDITING 51
Getting Started Review 19 Selection menu 51
Select by Color 51
VIEWING AND NAVIGATING 20
Select by Fill Style 52
File Manager 20 By Entity Tag# 52
Viewing the Drawing 21 Selection by Not 53
Effects Settings 21 Node Editing 54
Hidden Sheets and Layers 21 Node Edit 54
Changing Views 22 Insert Node 55
Find Text in the Drawing 22 Delete Node 55
Viewing and Navigating Review 23 Editing Polygons 55
Trimming 56
OUR FIRST MAP 24 Trim to Entity 56
Defining the Map 24 Trim to Intersect 56
Drawing a Map 25 Break 57
Landmasses 25 Split 57
Terrain Features 26 Trim 57
Adding Symbols 27 Editing with Drawing Tools 58
Symbol Scale 27 Edit 58
Rivers 29 Trace 58
Vegetation 30 Editing Review 59
Structures and Roads 30
Final Tweaks 31 SHEETS AND EFFECTS 60
Effects 34 Sheets 60
Adding Text 35 Sheet Order 60

3
 Managing Sheets 61 Symbol Manager 80
Effects 65 Edit 81
About Units 65 Symbol Catalog Settings and Filters 83
Global Sun 65 Master Filter 83
Adjust Hue/Saturation 65 Symbol Catalog Settings 84
Bevel 65 Symbols and Symbol Management Review 85
Bevel, Lighted 66
Blend Mode 66 DRAWING TOOLS 86
Blur 67 Selecting a Drawing Tool 86
Blur, Alpha 67 Select Drawing Tool 86
Color Key 67 Custom Drawing Tools 86
Displace 68 Sample Width 87
Drop Shadow 68 Editing a Drawing Tool 88
Edge Fade 68
Creating a Custom Drawing Tool 88
Edge Fade, Inner 69
Edge Striping 69 Creating a Macro Drawing Tool 88
Glow 69 Creating a New Set of Drawing Tools 89
Inner Glow 69 Drawing Tools Review 89
Outer Glow 70
RGB Matrix Process 70 OTHER TOOLS 90
Screen Border 70 Symbols Along 90
Spatial Matrix Process (SMP) 71 Examples 90
Texture Overblend 71 Symbols in Area 91
Texturize 72
Transparency 72 Fill with Symbols 91
Wall Shadow 72 CREATING A FLOORPLAN 92
Wall Shadow, Directional 73
Creating a Floorplan Review 93
Wall Shadow, Point Light Finalize 73
Wall Shadow, Point Light Setup 73 CONVERTING YOUR OLD MAPS 94
Working with Effects 73 Converting CC2, CC2 Pro and CC3 maps to CC3+ 94
Effects Speed Tips 74 Getting Hand Drawn Maps into CC3+ 94
Sheets and Effects Review 74 Converting Your Old Maps Review 96
SYMBOLS AND SYMBOL MANAGEMENT 75 WHERE TO GO FROM HERE 97
Symbols 75 The Help System 97
Creating a Symbol Definition 75
Campaign Cartographer Community 97
Importing PNGs as Symbols 76
Symbol Options 77 The Tome of Ultimate Mapping 97
Symbol Parameters 79 Resources 97
Align to edge 80
INDEX 98
Smart Tracking 80

Mountain Pass
This map depicting a mountain pass was created by Pär Lindström using the CC3+ Mike Schley style.

4
INTRODUCTION
Campaign Cartographer 3+™ (CC3+™) is a mapmaking tool built on a powerful CAD engine. It was
developed with the specific intent of enhancing the users’ gaming experience by providing
specialized tools to create:

• Overland maps in a multitude of styles to fit a variety of genres

• Floor plans including dungeons, caves and starship deck plans

• Urban areas

• Heraldic devices
• War game counters
Add-ons
• Character portraits
Add-ons make specialized
CC3+ alone is enough to perform most mapping duties, but joining it with its add-ons will boost its drawing tasks quick and
power and expand your potential. easy. For example, with
CC3+ you can draw a city
house by house. With the
How to use this Manual City Designer 3™ add-on,
Through tutorials and examples, this manual will give you a basic understanding of CC3+. you add complete streets of
houses with just two clicks
Words in dotted underline are referring you to the sidebar for additional information and definitions. of the mouse. Add-ons also
Buttons, dialog box items and menu items are shown in bold text like this: Drawing Properties contain more specialized
The term ‘click’ means to click the left mouse button. The term ‘right click’ means to click the right symbols for the task.
mouse button. The term ‘hit’ refers you to press the indicated keyboard key, such as in, “hit ”,
and the term ‘hover’ means to hold the cursor over the indicated item without clicking. An alert
symbol is displayed where information of particular importance appears. Text to be entered into
the CC3+ command line is written in a MONOSPACE font.

Not interested in Overland Maps?

Campaign Cartographer 3+, the core product, is primarily designed for creating overland maps,
while the various add-ons are designed for other types of maps, like dungeons, cities or starships.
If you are not interested in overland maps, but rather one of the map types offered by an add-on, it
might be tempting to just skip this entire manual. However, all the add-ons build on the principles
in the core product, CC3+. Even if you are not going to make overland maps later, it is highly
recommended that you work through the overland tutorials in this manual, as they will teach you
important skills that you will need when working with the add-on of your choice.
Do not underestimate the power of CC3+ however. Even if it is primarily designed for overland
maps, you can really make any kind of map you want with it. The add-ons make it easier to create
specific kinds of maps, but there is nothing preventing you from drawing a city without City
Designer 3™ (CD3™) or a dungeon without Dungeon Designer 3™ (DD3™). You will need to do more
work yourself when you do not have the tools and artwork the add-ons provide, but after reading
through this manual, you will have learned how to create such tools yourself.

Your Copyright
As the creator, you retain the copyright to the drawings you produce using CC3+. You may freely
distribute them, both privately and commercially, with the following proviso—you may not release
maps which, in the sole opinion of ProFantasy Software, are for the purpose of redistributing CC3+ License Agreement
symbols. Read the license agreement for details. The license agreement can
be read during the
Think about CC3+ as being a word processor, the symbols are fonts and the drawings are your
installation of CC3+, and
documents. Consider that you can use a font in a word processing program to create a document.
can also be found at the
The document is yours and you retain the copyright to it, however, you do not hold the copyright
ProFantasy website at
to the font. You cannot distribute the font nor can you include the font in a font collection for http://www.profantasy.com
distribution. The fonts, like CC3+’s symbols, are tools for you to use in order to create something /service/license.asp
that is uniquely yours.

5
 Getting More and Getting Help
This manual contains a lot of tips that will help you in your mapmaking, but it cannot cover
everything. Perhaps you have your own ideas, but need help getting the map the way you envision
it. Maybe you are just looking for ideas? In any case, the ProFantasy community is the place to find
help. The community forum can be found at http://forum.profantasy.com/. You'll find both helpful
community members, as well as ProFantasy staff here.
Another great resource is the user tutorials page. Here you can find both regular tutorials, as well as
video tutorials. Just visit http://www.profantasy.com/community/user_tutorials.asp. If you are
looking for inspiration, you can find a great collection of user-contributed maps at
http://www.profantasy.com/library. Note that since CC3+ is a very recent product, the majority of
resources found here will be for previous iterations of the Campaign Cartographer series. But don’t
despair, old maps and symbols still works in CC3+, and most old tutorials are still relevant. Even
though Campaign Cartographer has improved a lot over the years, the core functionality still works
the same way.
For technical problems, please visit the ProFantasy technical support area located at
http://www.profantasy.com/service/technical.asp.

The Eastern Jaw Peninsula

This map in the new CC3+ Mike Schley style
is a remake of a map the roots of which go
back all the way to the very first version of
Campaign Cartographer
The Mike Schley style is available in your
CC3+ install.

The image below is from the original DOS

version of Campaign Cartographer from
1993 and depicts the same area.

6
WHAT’S NEW IN CC3+
If you are familiar with CC3 already, you’ll probably know a lot of the tricks in this manual, and might
not want to read familiar information again. In that case, this chapter provides a short overview of
the new features of CC3+ compared with CC3.
If you are new to the Campaign Cartographer range of software, or if you are upgrading from CC2
Pro or earlier, you’ll want to skip this chapter, and read the rest of the manual instead. All the new
features detailed in this chapter will be explained properly in context in other places of this manual.
Note that the new features described here are features that you as a user is likely to interact with
directly. CC3+ has many other changes under the hood which is not directly observable.

New Style
In addition to the bitmap style that was included with CC3, CC3+ also include a new beautiful bitmap
style by Mike Schley, giving you more options for the visual style of your maps. You’ll find this new
style in both imperial and metric variants in the familiar new map wizard as well as predefined
templates if you prefer to use these. This style is available both in full color, and a Black & White
variant.

Print Wizard
CC3+ has quite a few options for printing, like multi-page printings, overlaps, sheets, drawing
distance and so on. Getting all of these settings right can sometimes be a bit challenging. The new
print wizard is designed to help you get those options right every time. To access the print wizard,
simply right click on the print button, then select Print Wizard. If you wish to learn more about the
wizard, check out the chapter on Printing Your Drawing on page 41.

Drawing Tools in Symbol Catalog Window

In earlier versions of Campaign Cartographer, Symbols and Drawing Tools lived in two different
places. Symbols had their symbol catalog window to the left of the drawing, while drawing tools
had their own dialog that popped up listing available tools based on the button you clicked. While
the “old way” of accessing drawing tools still work, drawing tools can now also be included in a
symbol catalog. This means that drawing tools can more easily be grouped along with their related
symbols. For example, if you click the Vegetation button, now the symbol catalog window will show
both trees and other vegetation symbols, as well as forest and other vegetation-related drawing
tools.

Floating Prompt
The prompt (command line) at the bottom of the CC3+ window can be easy to overlook, even if it
is a very important part of CC3+. Through the options dialog (Tools  Options), you can now enable
the floating prompt. This prompt follows your mouse cursor, making sure the prompt is always
highly visible. It can even show more information about the task at hand compared to the command
line, due to more available space.

New Data Directory

In earlier versions of Campaign Cartographer, all the program data was stored in the installation
directory. This included files such as templates, symbols, fills and settings. Many of these files are
user-editable, and the operating system prefers that such files are stored in dedicated data
directories, not in a program directory. CC3+ has moved all such files to the ProgramData directory
instead, in a subdirectory called CC3Plus. It is in this directory you will find menu files for editing,
and where you can store your custom symbols, templates and fills. You should never need to go
into the CC3+ installation directory anymore, and all references to it in older instructions should be
read as to refer to the ProgramData directory instead. Note that the location of the ProgramData
directory varies between versions of Windows. In newer versions of Windows, it is most commonly
found at C:\ProgramData, while in older versions of Windows, it is C:\Documents and
Settings\All Users. If you are unsure what this directory is called and where to find it on your
system, simply hit the Windows key and the R key simultaneously to bring up the Run dialog, then
type in %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\ProFantasy\CC3Plus in the input field, and hit OK. This will bring up
an explorer window on this directory, no matter where it might be located (You can also type this

7
 in in the search box on the start menu, on the start screen, or in the location bar of any explorer
window). Note that this trick will only work if you haven’t change the default location of the CC3+
data files, which you can do from the installer. If you did change it, simply navigate to whatever
directory you chose during install.

Large Toolbar Icons

CC3+ reintroduces large toolbar icons. These can be enabled if you feel that the default buttons are
too small for you. This is an especially useful alternative if you run CC3+ on a small screen with a
high DPI, such a tablet computer. By default, this option is enabled, but you can toggle large toolbar
icons from the Select Screen Tools dialog, which is shown by clicking Screen Tools .

Other Improvements
There are also several other improvements, some visible, like improved dialogs, and some under
the hood, like improvements in the image export routines and effects routines. These improvements
makes CC3+ both faster and more stable than it’s predecessor.

Syrlinia and the Isles of Dread

This drawing was created in CC3 by
Aaron Stubbs. It uses elements and
techniques described in Issue 04-
Sarah Wroot Style Pack in The
Cartographer’s Annual 2007.
This style is provided in the
Cartographers Annual Volume 1
(http://www.profantasy.com/annual/
2007/)

8
INSTALLATION
Before starting your CC3+ installation, make sure that you are logged into an account with
Setup File
administrator privileges, or the installation will not be able to run.
Depending on your
Depending on how you acquired CC3+, you will start the installation wizard in one of two ways
computer settings, the
• If you have the download version of CC3, just double-click on the CC3PlusSetup.exe file filename might not have the
you downloaded from ProFantasy. .exe extension at the end
visible.
• If you got the CD-ROM version, just insert the CD into your drive, and the installation will
normally start automatically. If it doesn't, you will need to start it manually. This is done by
double-clicking the My Computer icon on the
desktop, then double-clicking on your CD-ROM
drive (usually D: or E:). Finally, double click on the
CC3PlusSetup.exe file on the CD
Unless you have User Account Control (UAC) disabled,
you will get a prompt asking you if the CC3+ installer
should be allowed to make changes to your computer.
You will need to say yes to this to properly install CC3+.

Installation Wizard
The installation starts by verifying the setup package. During this set you will see a small dialog
with a progress bar on your screen. Once this is done, this dialog will disappear, and after a few
seconds the installation wizard will appear to take you through a series of screens.

1. The first screen welcomes you to the installer,

and doesn't provide any options. Click Next >
to continue.

2. Make sure to read the license agreement. It

details what you are allowed to do with the
software, and what you aren't allowed to do. If
you wish to read the license agreement again
later, you can either find it in the CC3+ Help file
(search for "license agreement"), or on the
ProFantasy website at
http://www.profantasy.com/service/
license.asp
If you accept the license, place a checkmark in
the I accept the license agreement box and
click Next >. Note that if you do not accept the
license, you are not permitted to continue the
installation.

9
 3. Enter your serial number. If you have an
internet connection, the installer will verify
your serial number online. If not, it will present
you with a page containing a URL and a code.
Use a computer connected to the internet, visit
the URL provided and enter the code. You will
then get a confirmation code to type into the
installer. Once this is done, you will be able to
continue the installation.

4. Next up is the installation location. The

program itself will always be installed into
C:\Program Files (x86)\ProFantasy\CC3Plus,
but you have a choice where to put the user-
customizable data, which makes up the bulk of
the installation.
The default location for this data is
C:\ProgramData\ProFantasy\CC3Plus, but if
you are low on disk space on drive C, you
should place it somewhere else. The numbers
below the path shows how much space it will
require, but keep in mind that if you are
planning to install any add-ons or add large
amount of custom artwork, this directory can
easily swell to 10 times this size, so plan
ahead, especially if you have a small C-drive.
Note that the paths listed above are how they
will appear on an English 64-bit recent version
of Windows. If you have non-english, 32-bit or
an old version of Windows, the default path
will be slightly different.
5. The installer now asks for the name of the
folder on your start menu/screen that will
contain the shortcut icons for CC3+. If you
provide the name of an existing folder, the
icons will be installed into this, otherwise a
new folder with the specified name will be
created. You can also select if this folder will
appear on your start menu/screen alone, or on
the start menu/screen of all the users of this
computer.

6. Ready to install. Click Next > to start installing.

10
 7. This step will show while the installation
wizard installs CC3 on your computer. There is
a progress bar to the left where you can
monitor the installation progress. Once it is
done, it will progress to the next screen
automatically.
Note that this step can take several minutes

8. And you are done. Leave the Run CC3+ now

box checked to launch CC3+ immediately, or
uncheck it if you prefer. Then click Finish > to
complete the installation.
Note that the installer may appear
unresponsive for a little while after clicking
Finish > while it does some final cleanup tasks.

9. Once CC3+ is installed, you can launch it either

from the icon on your desktop, or from your
start menu/start screen.

After installing CC3+ you should visit the ProFantasy

website to get the latest updates for the software.
Updates are available from the registration page at
http://www.profantasy.com/service/entrance.asp.
If you haven't created an account already, you
should start by doing so by going through the
registration process on that page.
Once registered and logged in, click the Downloads
& Updates tab to see your available downloads.
Click the little arrow to the right of the Campaign
Cartographer 3 Plus entry on this page to access the
CC3+ downloads. Here you can grab and install the
latest update (Currently CC3+ Update 14 as of this
writing). Make sure you grab the CC3+ update and
not the CC3 update, which may also be listed here.

11
 Gamma Regina System
This view of a solar system was
created in CC3 by Ralf
Schemmann. It uses elements
from Issue 22-Star Systems in
The Cartographer’s Annual 2008.

This style is provided in the

Cartographers Annual Volume 2
(http://www.profantasy.com/ann
ual/2008/)

Tendril’s Oak Inn

This drawing was created by Ralf
Schemmann with CC3 and the Dungeon
Designer 3™ add-on. Ralf used techniques
explained in Issue 3-The Tendril’s Oak
Inn in The Cartographer’s Annual 2007.
It also uses map linking techniques as
described in Issue 17-Creating a Map
Atlas in The Cartographer’s Annual
2008.
This style is available with the Dungeon
Designer 3 product.

12
GETTING STARTED Photoshop®
CC3+ is easy to use, but there are a few things that make it different from some other software,
especially raster software. If you can grasp these simple concepts early on, you’ll find CC3+ much Photoshop® is a registered
trademark of Adobe
easier to learn. If you’ve used raster programs such as Photoshop® or Paint Shop Pro® in the past,
Systems Incorporated
set aside what you know. CC3+ is going to be different for you. If you go into this as a new learning
experience and don’t try to drag raster techniques with you, the learning curve will be shortened
considerably. If you are familiar with CAD software, you’ll find that CC3+ has a lot of familiar
concepts. Paint Shop Pro®
Paint Shop Pro® is a
Entities registered trademark of
Corel Corp
CC3+ drawings consist of drawing objects called entities. These entities have properties, some
visible and some invisible. You can select entities for editing based on combinations of these
properties.
Properties

Maps Each entity in a CC3+

drawing has certain
CC3+ maps are drawn using vectors. Unlike raster programs, CC3+ stores its maps as lists of drawing
properties. All entities have
objects such as polygons, circles, images and lines. This is both faster and more compact. Even very
color, line width, line style,
large maps will be contained in small file sizes.
fill style, layer, sheet, and
pen width even if the
Double Click and Drag property doesn’t seem to
None of CC3+’s functions expect the user to double click or "drag" the cursor. All functions require affect the entity’s
single left click, single right click, or a typed input. appearance

Sheets and Layers Organized Fashion

If we think about the transparent pages in an old
anatomy book, we get a good idea of how CC3+ By putting all the structures
uses Sheets. Each sheet holds specific parts of the on the STRUCTURES layer
image that are stacked in a determined order. As and all the mountains on
the MOUNTAINS layer, we
we turn the transparent pages of the book, each
can keep the entities
sheet builds on the image. The skeleton is on the
organized. Layers do not
bottom page, the organs on the next page, the
dictate order. You can have
muscles on the next page, and the skin on the top
some mountains on top of
page. In your mind, you may be thinking, ‘no, those
some structures and
are Layers’. Not so in CC3+. In CC3+, those are elsewhere in the drawing,
Sheets. you can have some
To get an understanding of Layers in CC3+, think structures on top of some
of CC3+’s Layers as ‘categories’. CC3+ layers are mountains. The entities on
simply collections of like objects under a category the Layers are simply
heading. These categories allow us to arrange and collected together under a
category heading.
select entities in an organized fashion.
Understanding the difference between and the use
of Sheets and Layers in CC3+ goes a long way to
reducing that learning curve. Windows®
Windows® is a registered
Learning Tips for New Campaign Cartographer Users trademark of Microsoft
Corporation.
We know now that CC3+ is not like the raster or paint programs that users may
be familiar with. Let’s look at some basic beginner learning tips to get us started.

1. Choose what to do, then select what you want. Selecting Entities
In most Windows® programs, you choose the entities that you want to edit, In CC3+, don’t drag the
then choose the commands that you want to apply to them. CC3+’s default mouse. You get finer control
selection method is the reverse of this. In CC3+, you to choose an editing without dragging - click to
function, and then select the entity you want to edit. For example, to remove start a move, then click to
an entity from the drawing, you would click Erase then click on the entity finish.
you want to erase. With the desired entity selected, right click then select Do
it. This may seem awkward at first, but once mastered, it is far quicker for
mapping than the standard Windows method of select then edit. Once a
command has been executed, click to repeat it. Hit or select another command to cancel
the current one.

13
 2. Learn how to select, and how to reuse a selection.
When an editing command is clicked, the cursor changes to a pick cursor.
• Selecting a single entity
The square on the cursor is used to select the desired entity. Select the entity by
clicking the box on the pick cursor on the edge of the entity. When the entity is
selected for edit, it turns grey. You would now right click, then select Do it to
execute the editing command.
• Selecting multiple entities
As with selecting single entities,
you could continue to use the pick
cursor to select entities on which to
apply the editing command. CC3+
will select all entities it finds within
the pick square each time the user
Selection Window clicks the drawing. If CC3+ doesn’t
find any entities within the pick
Don’t drag the cursor. Click box when clicking in the drawing,
to start the window, move it will place the first corner of a
the cursor to the desired selection window. Open the
opposite corner, then click selection window to include all
again to complete the desired entities. In this example, all three entities—the circle, the square and the zig-zag will be
selection window. This selected because their edges are captured within the selection window.
results in a much greater
precision when mapping. • Deselecting entities
To deselect an entity out of a group of selected entities, hold down while clicking to select
the entity we want to remove. Clicking selects the entity. Holding down while clicking
deselects the entity.
• Reusing a selection
There may be times when we want to reselect the same entity or entities in a
series of commands. For example, we may want to Move and then Scale the same
group of entities. To do this quickly, select the desired entities during the Move
command. Once Move is completed, click Scale. Instead of reselecting all the
same entities again, right click then select Prior. This will reuse the same entities
for the Scale command as were selected for the Move command.

Command Prompt
In CC3+, the command prompt is found in two places. It will always be visible as a field in the lower
Floating Command Prompt left section of the screen, but if enabled, you will also have a floating command prompt following
You can enable or disable your cursor. The floating command prompt can optionally also be placed into an expanded mode,
the floating command where it shows extra information.
prompt by selecting Options The Command Prompt, is where CC3+ asks you for input or instruction, gives you instructions, and
form the Tools menu. provides you with information about options.
From here, you can also
toggle the expanded
Watching the Command Prompt is essential, even for expert users, since this is the
information mode.
communication link between you as the user and CC3+.

Clicking Buttons
In CC3+, left clicking a button will launch the default command. Right
clicking the button will open a menu with all options and settings
associated with that command. For example, we can click Scale to
launch the default scale action or we can right click the Scale button to
open a menu with other Scale options and settings.

Getting to CC3+ (Overland Mapping Mode)

After add-ons are added to your core program, you might find that the menu and toolbars are not
what you expect. This is because each add-on has its own menu and toolbars. You can swap back
to the core CC3+ configuration from any add-on by clicking Map Menu on CC3+’s File toolbar.

14
CC3+ Interface Overview
The CC3+ interface may look a little complex at the first glance, but as you learn to utilize, you’ll
find that it is both very powerful, and coherently organized.

Status Bar
View
Symbol Toolbar File Toolbar Tools
Overland Tools
Entity Order
Display Tools Tools

Edit Tools
Draw Tools
Single Edit View Window
and Trim
Modifier
Tools
Tools
Symbol
Catalog Symbol Catalog
Window Screen Grid, Snap,
Color Bar
Tools Ortho Attach,
Command Prompt Locked

Status Bar

This bar shows the current status and settings for tools that will be applied as properties to the
entities added to the drawing.

Color Bar
The Color bar is a quick way of setting the current color. It contains a selection of frequently used
colors. If you need colors not in this bar, you can click the color swatch in the Status Bar.

File Toolbar

The File toolbar contains file function and navigation commands.

Symbol Toolbar

The Symbol toolbar holds the buttons that open the various symbol catalogs associated with the
drawing.

Symbol Catalog Window

The symbol catalog window displays the symbols and drawing tools matching your current drawing
style and type as selected on the symbol toolbar.

View Window
It is in this View Window where the current drawing in progress is displayed.

15
 Command Prompt Line
Floating Command Prompt
The floating command The Command Prompt is the communication link between you as the user and CC3+. Watch this
prompt is a command
prompt that follows your line as you work in CC3. The Command Prompt displays the current command, it will prompt
cursor around. It contains you as to what input or action CC3 is looking for from you, and your input to CC3 is typed into this
the same information as the line.
main command prompt, but
it is easier to notice when it Note that if you haven’t disabled the floating command prompt,
needs something from you. you will have the command prompt content appearing right next
You can enable or disable to your cursor as well.
the floating command
In this manual, we’ll often quote what the prompt says. However, note that if you have expanded
prompt by selecting
text on, that is too much text to reproduce here, it would only be confusing. Instead, this manual
options from the tools
will always quote the standard prompt text, this is the same text as appears at the Command
menu. Here, you can also
Prompt Line at the bottom of the screen. So if you are using expanded text for your floating prompt,
turn on the expanded text,
just look down at the Command Prompt Line if you need to verify that you have the correct prompt.
which gives you more
verbose explanations in the
floating command prompt. Screen Tools
Screen Tools allow the user to customize the interface by deciding
Snap
which tool bars will be displayed at what positions around the View
You can set snap, locking or Window. You can also choose between large or small toolbar icons by
cursor snap on or off in the accessing this dialog.
middle of any command
using these buttons.
Grid and Ortho
Grid toggles on and off a dot grid display over the View
Significant Point Window. This grid does not print. It is to help judge distances and aid in entity placement in the
The significant point can be, drawing.
for example, the endpoint of
the entity. If no entity is When selected, Ortho (orthogonal locking) temporarily forces new lines to be exactly
found, it behaves as if horizontal or exactly vertical.
Attach is off. Attach is
ignored when you type Snap, Attach and Locked
coordinates or use a
modifier. Attach has When Snap is selected, entities added to the drawing will lock to coordinates at a spacing
precedence over Ortho and that you choose.
Snap locking.
When Attach is selected, you can select a point anywhere on an entity, and the point
will snap to a significant point on that entity.
Group Locking
CC3+ can cause unrelated Locked toggles group locking.
entities to be treated as a
single entity. These can then
be selected and edited as a
whole. These collections of
entities are called groups.

16
Overland Mapping Tools Entity Order Tools
This button group consists of CC3+’s The commands grouped in these
Overland mapping tools and symbol Entity Order buttons allow the user
selection commands. Click the buttons to reorder entities in the drawing by
to launch drawing tools for each changing what entities are in front of
purpose or right click to open all or behind other entities.
available drawing tools in that tool
family.

View Tools
The View Tools button group
Display Tools contains the commands that allow
the user to change views in the
These commands control how images current drawing by zooming in and
and effects are displayed in your maps. out and by changing the central focus
of the drawing.

Edit Tools Draw Tools

These tools let you manipulate The Draw Tools button group
selections of entities, changing their contains the commands that allow
appearance, placement and shape. the user to draw custom entities, add
number labels and add text to the
drawing.
Do not confuse these basic Draw
Tools with CC3+’s drawing tools. The
latter are more complex tool presets
that contains predefined line and fill
Single Edit and Trim Tools styles, and are used to easily draw
The tools in this group are editing larger, more specialized entities like
commands that ask for, and operate landmasses or forests.
on, single entities at a time.

Symbol Display
The elements of the Symbol Display
area of the full interface include the
Symbol Display Window and
buttons to access various symbol
Modifier Tools catalogs and symbol display options.
The Symbol Display Window shows
The commands in the Modifier tools the current symbol catalog. It is from
group work within other commands, this window which the individual
allowing the user to lock to specific symbols are selected for placement
points on existing entities when you in the drawing.
draw or edit other entities. Use these
modifiers whenever you would click to
an exact point. The use of modifiers is
important for precision drawing.

17
 File Locations and Formats
Default
CC3+ uses several file formats in our drawing operations and most are stored in specific folders
The default path may have within CC3+.
minor variations, like the
Program Files may be
localized if you are using a Paths
non-english version of As a user, you need to be aware of the two main folders used by CC3+. The first is the installation
Windows, and the (x86) part directory used by CC3+. By default, this is C:\Program Files (x86)\ProFantasy\CC3Plus. This is
only appears on a 64-bit referred to as the programs installation directory.
installation of windows. If
Windows is not installed on The other folder is far more important, and this is the folder where CC3+ keeps all its data. By default,
the C-drive, then the drive this is C:\ProgramData\ProFantasy\CC3Plus, but you had the option to change this in the installer,
letter may also be different. so it might be different for you. This folder is referred to as the programs data directory. Note that
ProgramData has also been the main ProgramData folder is hidden by default.
known as the All Users
folder in earlier versions of
Windows.
File Types
A FCW file is a map or drawing that has been created in CC3+. When we draw and save the file, it
Hidden is saved as an FCW. When a drawing is first saved, the save dialog will default to the last location
used, which is usually the CC3+ Data directory.
Windows hides some
important folders to prevent An FCT file is a template. A template is used to initialize new drawings. Predefined templates are
accidental deletion or stored in the Templates folder in the data directory.
corruption. If you don’t have
hidden files visible on your The FCS files are symbol catalog files. Symbol catalog files contains references to external images
system, and find yourself used for symbols, as well as various settings related to these symbols.
needing to navigate into it Drawing tools are DTO files. These files are stored in System\Drawtools in the data directory.
from the outside, simply
type Bitmaps and other image files used to create fills are stored in the Bitmaps\Tiles folder in the data
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Pr directory. The Bitmaps folder is also where we’d want to add folders to store image files that we
oFantasy\CC3Plus into want to use in our maps. Bitmap files used for symbols are found in an appropriate subdirectory
the filename field of the inside the Symbols directory. Most bitmap images used with CC3+ are in PNG format.
open/save dialog and hit
enter and you will be taken
directly to the correct The Autosave Feature
location.
CC3+ can automatically save your work at predefined intervals. The default setting for autosave is
Template to prompt you to save every 5 minutes, but if you so desire, you can turn off autosave completely,
or have it automatically save without prompting first. To access the autosave option, select
A template is a regular FCW Autosave… from the File menu.
drawing file that has been
saved as a template. By To open the last autosave, you can simply select Open Autosave Drawing from the File menu.
saving it as a template, we
have a starting point for our The most important bit of information to know about autosave is that it always saves to the file
new drawings. Drawing aids named AUTOSAVE.FCW in your CC3+ data folder. So, if you ever need to load an autosave (for
such as fill styles, line styles, example after a crash), remember to load this file, and not the file you were working on. CC3+ only
drawing tool styles, and save to your working file when you manually click Save. Since there is only one autosave file, you
effects are preloaded so we also need to take care. If you believe you will need the contents of this file, make a copy of it, since
can open the template and the file will be overwritten during the next autosave. In case of a crash, it is important to load (or
start drawing. copy) this file immediately, so that you don't overwrite your valuable autosave with a new map.

Drawing Tools
Drawing tools are tools that
have predefined settings for
creating specific entities in
our drawings. For example,
a landmass tool will have
the fill style, color, sheet and
layer settings already
defined to create
landmasses for the template
we opened to use.

18
Getting Started Review
• You hold the copyright to original maps you make in CC3+.

• All entities in CC3+ have properties which include Line Style, Fill Style, Color, Line Width, Pen
Width, and Layer.
• CC3+ is different than a raster program. Leave your raster techniques behind when
approaching CC3+ and your learning curve will be less steep.
• In CC3+, you choose what to do, then select what you want.
• Actions in CC3+ are performed with right clicks and left clicks. Don’t double click or drag the
cursor.
• Left clicking a command button launches the default action. Right clicking the button opens a
menu of related commands and settings.

• Watch the Command Prompt. It is the communication link between you and CC3+.

The Island of Muirgh

Example map in the CC3 Overland style drawn by Erik
Nolander using the techniques in this manual
This style is available with your CC3+ install.

13th Age
This map from the 13th Age roleplaying game
(http://www.pelgranepress.com/ ?cat=248) from
Pelgrane Press was drawn in the CC3+ Mike Schley
style.
This style is available with your CC3+ install.

CC3 Black & White Overland Style

This example map showcases the CC3 Overland Vector BW
style.
This style is available with your CC3+ install, along with a color
version.

19
 CC3+ Data Folder
VIEWING AND NAVIGATING
Let us have a look on how to open and navigate existing maps. For this, we will use some of the
During the installation of
tutorial files that is supplied with CC3+. These are all stored in a folder named Tutorials, located
CC3+, you were allowed to
within the main CC3+ data folder. The files belonging to the CC3+ manual is stored inside a
place the data folder in a
subfolder, named UserManual. Various other add-ons will create their own subfolders for their
location of your own
tutorial maps. You can also find various example maps in the Examples folder.
choosing. The default
location is
C:\ProgramData\ProFantasy
\CC3Plus. If you didn't
File Manager
change the location during CC3+ allows you to preview drawings and map
the installation, you will find notes before opening the drawings. We can even
all CC3+ data files there. browse through whole folders using the File
manager.

When we click Open , the File manager

launches. From here we can preview and select a
drawing to open.

Use the Look in drop down list and the folder

buttons to navigate to the folder which contains
the desired drawing. Open loads the drawing
Selected drawing selected.
Double-clicking a drawing
file also will open it. Auto-preview
With Auto-preview checked, the selected map will automatically be previewed in the Preview
window.

Auto-zoom all
With Auto-zoom all checked, the whole drawing will appear in the preview window, regardless of
current view in the drawing.

Use Browse file

Browse File
If there is a browse file for the current folder, checking this box allows CC3+ to load the preview
The Browse file is created by from that file. This is a quicker method for browsing files.
caching the drawings in the
Browse files dialog. Click
Browse, then click Cache all
Preview
to cache the drawings. This If Auto-preview is not set, click to select a drawing from the list, then click Preview to display that
takes up disk space but drawing in the Preview window.
makes future browsing
quicker. Zoom all
If Auto-zoom all is not checked, clicking this button zooms the preview to the extents of the
drawing.
Layers
Layers represents a way of Show all
grouping entities in the
drawing, and are discussed Clicking this button will preview the drawing in the Preview window with all layers visible.
later in this section
Browse
Click Browse to open the Browse files dialog. In this dialog, whole folders of drawings can be
Preview previewed at once.
If there are many drawings
in the folder, this may take a
moment to open.

20
Viewing the Drawing
1. On the File toolbar click Open .
2. Browse to CC3+’s Tutorials\UserManual folder,
then select Example.fcw.

Once a drawing is opened, two things are going to directly

affect what we see — one is which sheets and layers are
visible or hidden and the other is the effects settings.
Slow Down
Effects are very resource
Effects Settings intensive, and even if you
The CC3+ sheet effects are one of the most exciting have a very powerful
differences over CC2 Pro. In CC3+, we have the ability to blur, make transparent, add glows, and a computer, you may find that
variety of other effects to make our drawings extraordinary. These effects, however, can slow us editing a map with effects
down while we’re working. Save the effects for the final presentation by turning them off until we’re on is slow. While CC3+ is
ready for them. more efficient compared to
CC3, if you experience any
To turn on or off effects in the current drawing, click Sheets and slowness, you should only
Effects to open the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialog. Set turn them on when tuning
the check from the Activate Sheet Effects box to turn on effects, effects or print/export the
or clear it to turn them off, then click Ok. final map.

To control the global status of effects when a map is loaded, go to

the Tools menu. Select Options, then set the radio knob for Effects Effects on Load
on load to the desired setting. The As drawing setting means that
only maps which are set to have effects on load on will have their This option is available for
effects enabled. individual maps in the
Display Speed Settings
dialog.
Hidden Sheets and Layers
There are times when, for various reasons, the creator of a drawing
will need to hide sheets or layers, and sometimes both in the same
drawing. When we open a drawing to view it, those hidden sheets Hidden from View
and layers are hidden from view. To reveal them, we need to go
Hiding sheets and layers is
into the respective dialog and make them visible again.
used for various purposes. It
might be used to hide secret
Hidden Layers doors and traps from a
dungeon map when
If we click on the Layers indicator , the Select showing it to the players, or
Layer dialog opens. In this dialog, we find a list of layers in the the drawing might contain
current drawing. The boxes in front of each layer’s name show place names in several
whether that layer is the current layer, whether it is hidden and languages. In this case, all
whether it is frozen. In this example, the SYMBOL DEFINITION layer but the desired language
is checked indicating it is the current layer. The boxes in front of the should be hidden.
GAME MASTER ONLY layer have an H and an F indicating that the Hidden sheets and layers
layer is both Hidden and Frozen. Try hiding the will not print or export.
MINERALS/MOUNTAINS layer by clicking in the middle box for
this layer, and click Ok. Then go back into the Select Layers dialog
and unhide it again. Frozen
Frozen layers are visible, but
Hidden Sheets entities on these layers can
Hiding and revealing sheets work very much like hiding and neither be selected nor
revealing layers. Click Sheets and Effects or the Sheets indi- manipulated.

cator to open the Drawing Sheets

dialog. In this example, the check indicates COMMON is currently
selected, and the H in front of the SYMBOLS sheet indicates it is
hidden from view. To reveal the SYMBOLS sheet, click the H to clear
it. Make sure Redraw on OK is checked, and then click Ok.

21
 Changing Views
Locate the Zoom commands in the upper right corner. With these tools, you can
change the focus of the current map. Let’s do a short exercise to demonstrate how
these commands work.

3. Click Zoom Window .

The Floating Prompt reads 1st corner of zoom window: and the pointer
changes to crosshairs.
4. Click at the bottom left of the forest called
Huntswood. The prompt reads Opposite corner
of zoom window:. Now, when you move the
Click mouse you see a box shrink and grow. This is
CC3+ showing you the window to which it will
Click and release. Don’t click zoom.
and hold the mouse button
to drag the cursor. This 5. Put the opposite corner of the window at the top
allows you a far greater right of the forest then click again.
precision when using the CC3+ zooms in to the forest.
mouse. You now have a closer view of Huntswood. You can repeat the command to continue to Zoom
Window and focus tightly on any entity or area of the drawing.

6. Click Zoom Extents to see the whole drawing again.

Zoom Window and Zoom Extents will cover most of the navigation you’ll require, but there
are other zoom buttons if you need them.

Zoom In and Zoom Out will change the magnification of the View Window by 2x

Refresh respectively. Redraw will refresh the drawing. Zoom Last will return the View Window to
the previous zoomed view.
When you use editing
commands, CC3+ erases
affected entities by drawing Find Text in the Drawing
over them in the CC3+ gives us the ability to zoom to text in a drawing. For example,
background color before let’s find Knight’s Landing in the drawing.
drawing the changed
versions of the entities. This
can leave apparent holes in Zoom to Text
other entities and in the 7. Right click on any of the Zoom buttons, then select Zoom to
grid. Redraw recalculates Text.
your drawing from the
database, then redraws the 8. Type Knight, then click OK.
screen, eliminating those The view is now zoomed in on the Knight’s Landing text.
holes.
Zoom to All Text
Zoom to all text gives us a list of all the text that is visible in the current
Knight’s Landing Text drawing.
We could also have typed
9. Right click on any of the Zoom buttons, then select Zoom to all
Landing or *Landing or
text.
Knight* or th’s La. The text
search will look for the text From the list of text, select one and CC3+ will zoom the view to
sample in all visible layers of that text in the drawing.
the drawing.

22
Viewing and Navigating Review
• Use the File manager to preview and select a drawing to open.

• Turn off sheet effects to speed up redraws while the drawing is in progress. Turn them on for
the final presentation.
• Hidden sheets and layers are not visible and do not print.

• Zoom commands are used to move around the drawing.

• Zoom to Text and Zoom to all text can be used to find text in the drawing.

The Known Oceans

This drawing was originally created
in CC2 Pro by Allyn Bowker. It was
updated in CC3. The Known Oceans
uses techniques described in Issue
06-Parchment Backgrounds in The
Cartographer’s Annual 2007.

This style is provided in the

Cartographers Annual
Volume 1
(http://www.profantasy.com
/annual/2007/)

23
 Templates
OUR FIRST MAP
Now that we’ve looked at the interface, let’s begin our first map. Our maps are created from
Templates, either pre-drawn templates. These templates, which are FCT files, give us a foundation of tools on which to create our
or created with the wizard,
drawings.
will contain all the tools
necessary to create our Before we start mapping, let us stop and think for just a minute. Drawing a map is not something
map. It will have we should dive headlong into. Instead, we should have a plan. We need to know what we want to
appropriate drawing tools, draw, and some details about it, like the size of the area. Let me tell you a bit about the map I plan
symbol style filters and to draw here now.
effects already defined.
The map will detail the King’s Coast. This is a stretch of coastline near Snowport, the capital
Add-ons of Windclaw, the largest of the Windclaw Isles, situated in the Maldaric Ocean, located on
a world called Virana. This map is intended to be used for a roleplaying game, and the
Add-ons to CC3+ include, flavor of the setting is a low-magic medieval feel. The area is lightly populated. The island
but are not limited to, of Windclaw is about the same size as a medium-sized European country, so the part we
Dungeon Designer 3 (DD3), will be mapping is just a small piece of the coastline. The island itself is dominated by large
City Designer 3 (CD3), forests and hills, so I want that to influence our map as well.
Cosmographer (Cos3), and
Perspectives. So, the text above should provide some ideas for what we want. I could easily have gone into more
details, and I might even have drawn a sketch on paper, but I am not going to do that. Instead, let
New Drawing Wizard us get mapping, and I’ll get back to details from the description as they become relevant.

The New Drawing Wizard For this map, we will be exploring how to create a basic map using the tools provided, but we will
allows us to make selections also dig a little bit deeper, do some tweaking, and demonstrate how we don’t always have to use
and create a blank map that everything exactly as provided.
is suited for our purpose. We
can select a pre-defined If you have add-ons installed, begin by clicking Map Menu to set the
template from choices in interface to the Overland menus.
useful sizes or we can input
our own settings.
Defining the Map
CC3 Mike Schley Overland
1. Click New .
This list contains all the The New Drawing Wizard opens.
different drawing styles you
Select Overland Maps then click the radio button to select
have available for this type
Decide Settings Myself. Click Next>.
of map. The CC3 Mike
Schley overland style is the 2. Select CC3 Mike Schley Overland. Click Next>.
default CC3+ style, and is The New Drawing Wizard presents us with options.
used for most examples in
Since our map will depict a small stretch of coastline, we’ll stick
this manual, but you are
with a relatively small map. Change the dimensions to 100
encouraged to try the other
Width and 80 Height. For overland maps, these dimensions are
styles as well
measured in miles. So, even if this is a small map as far as maps
go, do keep in mind that 100 miles is still a considerable
Options distance.
From here we can quickly 3. Let’s also add a compass rose. Click
and easily create a custom Bottom Right. From the Select symbol
template by entering the dialog, click to select a compass rose.
width and height
Click OK.
dimensions and also by
adding standard mapping As you can see from the list of symbols,
elements. The Top Left, Top we could also have placed a map title
Right, Bottom Left and and a scale bar at this point. However, I
Bottom Right buttons select want to see more of the map complete
positions on the soon to be before I place these components.
created template for a Note that the Map Title and Copyright
compass rose, scale bar, notice fields in the wizard is only used if
map title and copyright you actually place the Map Title or
notice. If you don’t wish to copyright symbol in the map from the
add those elements at this Select symbol dialog. Otherwise, they are
time, you can click Finish. ignored.
Those elements can be put
into the drawing later by 4. We could click Finish now and our new
adding them as symbols. map would be created. Instead, let’s click Next> just to continue
exploring the wizard. From this page of the New Drawing
Sidebar continue on next
page...

24
 Wizard, we can choose from a selection of backgrounds if we don’t
want the default background. We can also apply a grid with the Grid
Compass Rose
Overlay option if one was desired. For our exercise, we won’t apply
a grid and we will accept the water background. You can select any of the
compass roses that you like.
5. Click Next>. This last screen of the wizard allows us to enable
The example we’ll be
multiple levels. This isn’t normally used for overland maps, but it is
following in this exercise
helpful for floorplan or dungeon maps, where you want many maps
uses Compass Rose 2 n.
of the same size. If you do enable multiple levels, CC3+ will generate There is no functional
one separate map file for each floor/level in the drawing. Hyperlinks difference between the
will also be added to the maps, allowing you to navigate between compass roses. The choice is
them with the click of a mouse. None of this is helpful to us now, so simply artistic preference.
just leave the option unchecked.
6. Click Finish. Choose
7. In the Save your new map Note that any selections we
dialog, enter a name for your make in the New Drawing
new map, then click Save. Wizard can be changed
later. If we decide later that
we don’t want the water
CC3+ will open your new map in the background or if we decide
view window, ready to begin drawing later that we want a grid,
our map. Our drawing at this step can we can make these edits in
be viewed in Tutorials/UserManual our drawing. No selections
/First Map-01.FCW. we make in the New
Drawing Wizard are set in
stone.

Save
CC3+ defaults to the last
directory used. Currently,
this is the CC3+ data
directory. You may want to
Drawing a Map save your map somewhere
else, like your My
Let’s start actually drawing the map. The map will be a Documents folder.
simple map, based on our explanatory text earlier. You Note that in some cases,
have already seen the finished result in the Viewing and CC3+ may suggest the
Navigating chapter. Our first question is what to draw in program installation
what order? directory, you should never
save your maps here,
Entities in a CC3+ map are displayed in the order they are
instead browse to an
added, with more recent entities laying over previous entities on their respective sheets. It is appropriate location.
possible to reorder the entities after they’ve been added, though it is worth trying to draw them in
the right order in the first place. By using the drawing tools which utilize sheets, however, it is easy
Entities
to go back and add things without having to reorder the entire drawing
Entity is a term you’ll see a
The general rule is to add all the solid and bitmap fills first, working from lowest elevation to highest.
lot when talking about
These entities form the foundation for our drawing. Once the landmasses are in, we can add
CC3+ drawings. An entity is
mountains, rivers, vegetation, roads, structures and finally text.
anything that is in or added
to the drawing. Symbols,
Landmasses text, landmass shapes, and
paths are a few examples of
8. Click Default Landmass . Notice that the settings on entities. Entities in the
the Status bar have changed. drawing can also be
The Command Prompt reads Fractal polygon: First point invisible such as Action
Hotspots, Control Points
(E – Edit):. CC3+ is ready for the first point of the landmass.
and External References.
9. Click a starting point for our landmass. These invisible entities are
In this example, we clicked our first landmass point at A. more advanced topics and
Note that this point is slightly outside the map border. This will be explained in later
is intentional, as all drawing tools stop at the map border. chapters.
Thus, by clicking right outside, we ensure that there is no
gab between the map border and the start of our landmass. Sidebar continue on next
page...
The Command Prompt reads Next point: (DEL – back, Space – Randomize, L/R Arrows –
Depth, U/D arrows – strength, T - Trace ):. As the cursor is moved around in the View

25
 Window we can see a segment of fractal coastline
stretching out from our initial point. Watch the shape
Solid and Bitmap Fills
of the coastline trailing from the cursor. Edit it as
Contours, landmasses, lakes desired using the key press options, then click at
and colored regions are points along the line marked B as necessary to set the
made of solid or bitmap fills. coastline. Let the automatic fractalization help you,
don’t try to manually set every minor point long B.
Settings Once the coastline is set, extend the cursor off the
drawing to click at C. Click at D, E and then finally at F.
The landmass will go on the Now right click to complete the landmass.
LAND sheet, on the
COAST/SEA layer and the fill 10. The Command Prompt reads Fractal polygon: First
style will be land dark green point (E – Edit):. CC3+ is ready to draw another
Bitmap. These are the landmass. If we left click in the drawing, CC3+ will begin drawing another landmass. We don’t
default settings for this need another landmass in this map, so right click to end the command.
particular drawing tool.
These default settings are
determined by the Map The Command Prompt reads Command [DRAWTOOLSP]:. CC3+ is waiting for your next action.
Style we picked in the New The current form of the map can be found at Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-02.FCW.
Drawing Wizard.
Terrain Features
Starting Point
Now we have a foundation on which to build the rest of our map. We’ll start by adding some hills
Notice the dots in the and an area of grasslands to our map.
illustration indicating where
to click. These are not 11. Right click Default Terrain .
precise points, but are From the selection of Terrain drawing tools, select Terrain Default,
merely to show that we are Hills Back.
to click outside the map The prompt reads Smooth Polygon: First
border. The drawing tools
point):. Use this tool to add a background for
automatically restrict to the
our hills in the top left corner. Note that this is
border of the template so
a smooth tool, as opposed to the fractal tool you used to draw the
when you reach the edge of
coastline. While a fractal tool adds additional detail by adding
the map, click outside the
frame to ‘set’ the boundary intermediate points in between your points, a smooth tool will use your
for that side of the landmass points as a base for a smooth curve. This means that the final result will
shape. not go through the exact placements of your points, these will only
guide the curve. Just as with the fractal tool, the tool will not progress
beyond the map border, so use this to your advantage to make sure the tool fills in the corner
Fractal Coastline
properly.
You can use the key press
options shown in the 12. Click Vegetation .
prompt to vary the fractal. The symbol catalog window changes to show symbols and drawing tools
For example, press Space to related to vegetation. Find and click the Grassland tool. Do note that we
rerandomize the segment or
DEL to go back a segment. could also have found this tool by right clicking Default Terrain as we
did previously.
Off the Drawing The prompt reads Smooth Polygon: First point):.
For the grassland, we are going to add a swath to the upper right
The drawing tools corner of the map, but I want to add another requirement, I want
automatically restrict to the it to follow the coastline. Trying to do this manually is an exercise
border of the template so in frustration at best, as this is a smooth tool, and the coastline is
when you reach the edge of
fractalized. But we can accomplish this using an advanced
the map, click outside the
feature of the drawing tool – Tracing.
frame to ‘set’ the boundary
for that side of the landmass Click at point A to place the first point. Then place a few points
shape. along the line B to create a smooth curve similar to the
illustration. As you approach point C, look at the
prompt. It currently reads Next Point (DEL – back, T –
Complete the Landmass
Trace):. The text in parenthesizes are options we can
You don’t have to close the invoke. In this case, we wish to start a trace, so hit the
polygon by returning to A. T key on your keyboard. The prompt immediately
CC3+ will close it for you. changes to Entity to trace:. Now, click on the
coastline near D to select it. This will tell the tool that
we want to trace along the coastline. If you selected
Sidebar continue on next the coastline properly, the prompt should change to
page... Starting point of portion:. Click on the coastline near
C to start the trace here.

26
 The prompt now changes to Ending point of portion, and if you move your mouse, you’ll see
that the preview line starts following the coastline. Move your cursor just off the map at point Selection
E, where the coastline ends, and click. This ends the tracing, and let us go back to drawing
normally. Now, simply finish up the grasslands by clicking at F, then at G before right-clicking If the drawing tool window
only shows a list of names
to end the command and complete our polygon. Note that if you zoom real close in to the
and no preview images, you
coastline, you can see some minor imperfections. This is caused by the fact that it is impossible
can check the Display
for a smooth tool to match a fractal line exactly, but don’t worry, these imperfections will turn
Sample checkbox.
invisible when we enable effects in the map.

13. Click Save . Drawing Tools

There are two ways main to
To continue along using our drawing, open Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-03.FCW. access drawing tools in
CC3+. Either by clicking on
one of the drawing tool
Adding Symbols buttons to the left, like we
Symbols are a special type of entity used for map features such as trees, cities and mountains. They just did, or by finding them
are the little graphic entities that you see in the example maps. in the symbol catalog
window. For example, if you
The symbol catalogs included in CC3 have many features which include: click one of the buttons on
the Symbol Toolbar, like
• Shaded Varicolor (SVC) symbols which, when placed, are shaded in the color that
Minerals/
is currently displayed on the Status bar. SVC symbols are indicated by a color box
in the corner of the symbol’s window. Mountains , you’ll
find the Hills Background
• Random symbol from collection. Some symbols are picked randomly from a here as well, right next to
collection of similar symbols, like a collection of different mountains. This allows the hill symbols in the
you to easily have variation in your map without having to manually pick and Symbol Catalog Window.
place different symbol. A new symbol will be automatically selected from the
collection for each placement. Such symbols are indicated by the letter R in the Hills
corner.
There are different ways to
• Symbol is part of a collection. Symbols with a + in the top left corner are the first in a collection show elevation, like hills
of related symbols. Click the + to expand the collection and see all the symbols it contains. and mountains in our maps.
We can use contours like
To insert a symbol from the catalog, click on the desired symbol in the Symbol Catalog Window.
those we’ll draw with the
A dynamic cursor of the symbol appears, allowing you to see the position of the symbol as you
drawing tools, we can use
place it. hill and mountain symbols,
While holding a symbol on the cursor, the prompt reads: Place symbol (CTRL – scale, CTRL+SHIFT or we can use a combination
– rotate, TAB – next,) [options]: of both. For this exercise,
we’ll use a combination of
The prompt is telling you that you can also: both.

• press and hold while moving the mouse to dynamically scale the symbol on the cursor
Near D
• press and hold and together while moving the mouse to dynamically rotate the The point you select the
symbol on the cursor entity to be traced is
important, as the trace will
• press to go to the next symbol in the collection if the symbol chosen is in a collection. always pass through this
point. If you select a point
• right click or press to accept the default, which in this case is the Options dialog box.
outside the desired section
Click in the drawing to place that symbol. to trace, you’ll find that the
trace goes the “wrong way”
around the entity.
Symbol Scale
You can represent height using contours, symbols or a
combination of both. In our drawing, we added a terrain
contour for our hills, but we’ll also add hill symbols.

14. Click Minerals/ Mountains .

CC3+ changes the current settings in readiness for drawing
hills & mountains. Mountain symbols and drawing tools load
into the Symbol Catalog Window. To get a wider view of the
symbols in the current catalog, right click in the Symbol
Catalog Window to expand the window. Pick a symbol from
the catalog or right click again to collapse the window. Sidebar continue on next
page...

27
 15. Select the Hills 1 symbol from the symbol catalog window
(you may need to scroll down to find it). You’ll find
Symbols
that it attaches itself to your cursor. Start placing a few
Symbols consist of two of these in the upper right corner of the map, don’t
parts: A Definition, which is worry if small parts of the symbol extends beyond the
always hidden from view. map border. You should notice that the symbol on
You only need one your cursor changes between each placement, because this
definition of a particular is a random collection of symbols, as discussed above. After
symbol in a drawing. A placing a few symbols, right click inside the drawing area.
Reference, which is what This will bring up the Symbol Parameters dialog. Click the Finished button to indicate that
you see on the screen. Many you are done placing symbols for now.
references can point to the
same definition, so you can
have many tree symbol Let us talk for a bit about the symbols we just placed, more specifically, about the size, or scale, of
references in a drawing the symbols. It may not be immediately obvious, but for the map I am planning to do here, I believe
without taking up lots of these symbols are far too small. If you open up the completed example drawing from earlier, you
memory. can see that the hills symbols are much larger there.
The reason for the larger symbols in the completed map is that I felt that size fit better with the map
Collection
I envisioned when I started designing it. So, I changed the scale of the symbols.
After clicking on a symbol to
When creating a map, there is a rule of thumb that says the symbol scale should be the map width
select it for placement, you
divided by 1000. Our map is 100 wide, so 100/1000 is 0.1, which happens to the current scale of
can press TAB to move
between symbols in that our hills. For the mathematically inclined of you, you may already have figured out that using this
collection. guideline means that there will be space for exactly the same amount of symbols on a large
10000x10000 continental map as a small 50x40 local map. And yes, that is correct. The reasoning
behind this is that a map is intended to be readable. If you make symbols too small, they are difficult
Completed Example
to make out, and too many symbols often ends up cluttering the map. The idea here is to know
If you open up two instances what details to represent, and how to represent them. First of all is level of detail. If you look at a
of CC3+, you can keep the real world map of the entire world, it does not show every minute detail of every place on earth.
finished example open in Only the big features are represented here. You may see a mountain range represented, but not
one, and the map you are each individual peak. And this should also hold true with CC3+ maps. Yes, you can use tiny symbols
working on in the other. and thus represent every individual mountain in the range. And with CC3+’s zoom feature, the
mountain range will look very nice and detailed when you zoom in to it, but if you zoom out and
Much Larger try to look at the entire map, it is going to look messy. This is why we use larger symbols on a larger
map. We don’t use a single symbol for each individual mountain in the mountain range, instead we
We are going to do some use a couple of larger mountain symbols symbolizing the range. The exact details of the mountain
more tweaking later, so you range is better left to a more local map focused on that mountain range, and not in the world map.
may notice several other
differences as well. When Now, all of the above is a guideline. A sensible one, but no absolute rule. And it is here that we start
working, you should to make the map truly ours. Instead of accepting the defaults, we are going to change things around
compare your results to the a bit.
screenshot in this manual
and the in-progress maps Let us erase the current hill symbols and place some larger ones. We could resize the ones already
provided, and not the there, but that is more work.
finished example. We will
arrive there, but one step at 16. Click Erase . Now, using the pick cursor,
a time. click on the edge of each of the hill
symbols. As you click on them, they should
Not Select get selected, shown by a magenta outline.
If you miss the edge when clicking, you will
Note that if you accidently start a selection window instead. If this
selected other entities, you happens, just move your mouse trying to
can hold down the capture as many hill symbols as possible
key and click on them to within the selection rectangle and then
deselect them, or simply hit click again; everything with an edge inside
to abort the that rectangle will be selected, the
command, then start again. rectangle doesn’t need to encompass the
entirety of the symbol. Be careful not to
select the map border.
Once you have selected the hills, right click within the drawing area and select Do It from the
menu. Once deleted, the hills will leave behind some white areas. To allow the program to
work smother and be more responsive, areas beneath moved/deleted entities won’t be
automatically redrawn. The white spots will disappear by themselves the next time you zoom
or scroll the map, or if you issue a map Redraw .

28
17. Click Drawing Properties . In the Drawing Presets dialog that opens, change the value
for scale from 0.10000 to 0.25. Doing so will set the default scale to use for new symbols. A Selection Window
scale of 0.25 means that that any dimension of the symbol will be one-quarter of its normal
size. A selection window is a way
to select multiple entities, or
18. Click the Hills 1 symbol again. You may notice that the symbol attached difficult to select entities.
to the cursor is still the same size as previously. This is because we When the prompt asks you
changed the default scale, but not the current scale. The current scale to select entities, you can
doesn’t get reset to the default for each symbol, since you sometimes always start a selection
wish to work using a different scale temporarily. Therefore, we need to window by clicking on a
tell it to reset the current scale to the default. spot in the map that is not
You do this by right-clicking in the drawing (with a symbol on your on the edge of any entity.
cursor), to bring up the Symbol Parameters. No click the Set Normal This starts a selection
button, and note that the scale input fields change to our window, and you’ll notice
default scale. Then click More to go back to the map and that a rectangle forms
continue placing symbols. You can read more about the between the first click and
your mouse cursor. Click
Symbol Parameters dialog on page 79.
again to finish the selection
19. Now, it’s time to place some hills. window, and any entities
When adding hills, work from top to bottom so that each that have at least part of
hill covers the base of the one behind and the shadows their edge inside the area
lay correctly. Don’t be afraid to overlap the symbols, defined by the selection
these hills blend together quite nicely, and don’t worry if window will be selected. Be
they extend a little outside the map border either. careful when using a
selection window, you may
Use this technique to add hills to the drawing. While
end up selecting more than
placing symbols, use Zoom Window , Zoom Extents you wanted.
, and Zoom Last to get the best view. I left the little
Adding Hills
gap you can see in my image because I am going to have
a river come through there. Don’t use too many
symbols. The most beautiful
maps are not completely
To continue along using our drawing, open covered with symbols. If you
Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-04.FCW. combine contours and
symbols, don’t completely
Rivers fill the contoured areas.
Leave a gap at the edge so
Now that highlands have been added, we can add rivers. the contour color shows
through.
20. Click Default River .
The command prompt reads Smooth Path: First point):. River Tool
Add rivers to the drawing where you think they should be.
Click points to create a meandering river, guided by the Right click Default River to
high-ground, then right click to end the river. pull up a selection a river
drawing tools in various
The prompt reads Smooth Path: First point):. CC3+ is
widths.
ready to draw more rivers. Right click to end the River tool
now, or continue to add any tributaries, distributaries or
deltas. As with the mountains and hills, use Zoom Window
End the River
, Zoom Extents , and Zoom Last to get the best
view to place the rivers. Note that when you right
click to end the river, it will
end at the last point you
To continue along using our drawing, open Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-05.FCW. placed using left click, not
where you right clicked. This
is because a river is a path,
as opposed to the closed
polygons you have been
drawing earlier, so no
additional lines will be
added automatically when
you end the command.

29
 Vegetation
Start with Forests If you remember the map description from earlier, I said that this area was thinly populated. That
usually means that they haven’t made any large changes to the area, such as deforestation. So, in
If I was mapping a large
modern empire instead, it this case, it makes sense to start with the forests.
would probably be the
opposite, where forests only 21. Click Vegetation . This loads the vegetation catalog into the symbol catalog window,
exist when there is available containing both vegetation symbols and drawing tools. We’ll start by concentrating on the
space between cities and forest.
other structures. If that was 22. Find the Mixed Forest Tool in the
the case, I would have catalog window, and use it to place
drawn manmade structures some forests in the map. This
first, then filled in forests.
drawing tool is used exactly the
same way as other drawing tools you
are used to, but it differs in one
Tree Symbols regard. Once you finish drawing the
In general, a forest made up forest area, it will fill it with actual
from tree symbols looks tree symbols instead of a bitmap fill,
better than one from a flat like for example the grasslands we
bitmap fill. This is primarily drew earlier.
due to the edge of the 23. After placing the major forests, use
forest, where a fill from a the individual tree symbols to place
dense forest wouldn’t a scattering of trees around the map.
contain any visible tree
These represents lighter forested
trunks, while when using
areas on the map. Do remember that
symbols that are individual
this map does depict a reasonably
images layered on top of
sized area, so each individual tree
each other, this is simple to
symbol represents a small forest in itself. When adding trees, we use a technique similar to
achieve.
For very large forests the one used when adding mountains and hills. Work from top to bottom and don’t overdo it.
(typically continent-scale),
the sheer amount of To continue along using our drawing, open Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-06.FCW.
individual symbols can in a
few cases be problematic,
for these cases a forest Structures and Roads
bitmap fill also exists. You Now that the main terrain features are in place, it is time to add a touch of civilization to our map.
can use this, and then
manually place tree symbols 24. Click Structures . This catalog
along the front edge to get
contains a variety of symbols for
a nice forests without all the
villages, towns and cities as well as
symbols. Do note that the
default forests doesn’t use bridges, ruins, monoliths and other
one individual tree symbol man-made structures. Add a
for each tree, if you look in sprinkling of settlements in different
the symbol catalog you’ll sizes to the map.
see lots of large groupings I find it useful to start with the largest
of tree crowns, these are cities, and work my way downward.
used for the interiors of the You’ll note that I didn’t use the city
forests. symbol at all in my map. Even though
Snowport is the capital of the isles, and
certainly the biggest settlement
around, it is too small to be called a city
in this world. Don’t be too bound by the
symbol names though, it is the
symbols themselves which are visible
in the map, not their names.
Don’t be afraid to move or erase some of the trees we placed earlier to make better room for
the settlements and roads.

30
25. Right click Default Terrain and select the Terrain Default, Farmland tool. Use this tool
to add some farmland around the main city.
26. Select the Road Major tool from the symbol catalog, and use it to draw a main road between
two major settlements. Make it go through any smaller settlements on the way. You’ll notice
that this tool draws a solid line.
27. Select the Road Minor tool from the symbol catalog. Use this to connect the rest of the
settlements to each other. The roads drawn by this tool are represented as dashed lines.

To continue along using our drawing, open Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-07.FCW.

Final Tweaks
Except for text labels, which we will cover in the next chapter, we now have a pretty complete map.
All major aspects are in place, and it looks quite ok. But I think we can do better. Let us add some
more minor details to the map, and do some tweaks of the existing visuals. Note that this final
section is slightly more difficult than the preceding part of the tutorial.

Shallow Water
First of all, let us start by adding some shallow water near land, this will serve make the sea a bit
more varied.

28. Click Coast/Sea . Select the Coast Outline tool from the catalog
window, and use it to draw shallow water. Draw this the exact same Approximately
way we drew our landmass back on page 25, but make it extend a
bit from the landmass along the coast. When scaling by moving
You’ll notice when you finish drawing it that it seems to cover the your mouse, it is easy to find
a size that looks good, but it
landmass. However, once you change the view or click the Redraw
is more difficult to get
button it will fall in place behind the landmass. something to an exact size.
If you ever need to be exact,
Compass Rose and Scale bar you can actually type in the
new scale on the command
Our compass rose looks a little bit small, and we have yet to add a scale bar. The simplest option line instead of moving the
right now would be to just delete the existing compass rose and then add a new one, but let us try mouse. So in our example,
rescaling it, since this is a technique you definitely want to use in other cases. to make the symbol exactly
2.5 times larger, you start
29. Click Scale , then select the compass rose by clicking one of its edges. It should be outlined the command the exact
in magenta to indicate that it has been selected, and the prompt should read Select entities same way, but when the
(1 picked):. Right click inside the drawing area, and select Do It from the popup-menu. time comes to move the
The prompt now asks for Scale origin:. Click in the middle of the compass rose to set a mouse to define the new
reasonable position. You can now move the mouse to scale the symbol. Move it towards the scale, simply let the mouse
top of the drawing, and the symbol will get larger, move it downwards, and it will get smaller. be and type 2.5 on your
The symbol itself will be represented as a square outline. You can see the current scale value keyboard, then hit enter.
in the top left corner of CC3+, on a red background. A value larger than one means you are There is also a separate non-
making the symbol bigger, while a value less than one means you are shrinking the symbol. visual scale command which
is designed for this. In
You can make the compass rose any size you want, but I opted for a scale of approximately general, if you see the
2.5. Once you are happy with the scale, keyword non-visual in front
simply click the left button to finish of a command, then that is
scaling. a command that is designed
30. Time to adjust the position of the for typing in data instead of
compass rose. Click Move, Scale, Rotate using your mouse.
and select the compass rose as
before, finishing up with a right click and
Do It.
The prompt asks for Move from point:.
Simply click in the middle of the rose to
set this point. You can now move the
symbol around with your mouse, and
click to place it in the desired location. I
like to put it quite close to the bottom
corner of the map, with equal distance

31
 from the symbol to the bottom and right borders respectively.

31. So for the scale bar. Click the Symbols in Drawing button. You should find a couple
of scale bars near the top. I’ve used Scalebar 1 n for my map.
Before placing the scale bar, it is vital that the symbol scale is correct. The scale bar is supposed
to show the scale of the map, so it is important that the scale of the scale bar itself is correct.
With the scale bar selected from the catalog window and showing at our cursor, right click
inside the drawing window to bring up the Symbol Parameters dialog. Click Set normal to
ensure scale and rotation is properly set, then click More to go back to placing it. Place the
scale bar near the bottom, to the left of your compass rose.
If you noticed the scale values in the Symbol Parameters dialog, you’ll remember that they
were set to 0.25, the same as our default scale from earlier. The scale bars we used are all
100 miles long, but since we use a scale of 0.25, ours is now 25 miles long. We need to label
it as such so viewers of the map can understand the scale. Normally, I would do this
immediately, but we’ll just remember it for now, since we talk about text in the next chapter.

Decorations and Interesting Places

Unless you are going for a realistic modern-day map, most maps can benefit from some decorations.
And if it is a fantasy map, you will probably wish to add some interesting location to pique the
interests of players/readers.
For my map, I’ve added quite a few such
symbols, such as a hill with a cave, a ruined
tower, an obelisk, a burial mound, fish,
windmills, fruit trees, horses, cows, waves, a
ship and various sea hazards. These symbols
both serve as decoration, and illustrate what
you can find in the area. For example, on my
map, the horse means that the immediate area
has a lot of horse farming.

32. Pick and place interesting decorative

symbols from the Borders/Political ,
Coast/Sea , Minerals/ Mountains
, Structures and Vegetation
catalogs.
Select
There are many ways to To continue along using our drawing, open Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-09.FCW.
select entities, for example
based on their color, their
layer, and their existing line Roads
style. In this case, I could I am not 100% pleased by how the dashes for the minor roads turned out. These dashes may work
have selected by the line perfectly fine for a map in a different scale, but I want to tweak their appearance by switching to a
style Road to instantly select different line style. Fortunately, this is simple.
all my dashed roads in one
go without hunting for them 33. Click Change Properties . The prompt now asks you to select entities. Select at least one
or trying to select them of the minor roads by clicking on it with the pick cursor. Be careful not to select anything else
individually. This rely on at the same time. Once you have one or more roads selected, right click and select Do It. The
slightly more advanced Change Properties dialog appears.
techniques and
understanding, so we won’t 34. Change the line style in the box to ecw-3. This is a different kind of dash. You’ll see that a
explore that now. More check mark appeared in the checkbox to the left. This indicates that the selected Line style
details on the various value will be applied to the selected entities.
selection methods in CC3+
35. Click OK. You should now see that the selected roads switch to a different line style. You may
can be found in the Editing
chapter starting on page 51. need to do a Redraw to see the change properly.

Another issue you may notice with the roads is that they appear on top of the various symbols.
When I draw map, I like to just draw a long road passing straight through settlements, and this does
not look good. If you remember the introduction to sheets earlier (page 13), drawing objects are
layered on top of each other based on the order of the sheets. Right now, the roads appear on top
of the symbols because the roads are drawn after the symbols, so let us change this.

32
36. Click Sheets and Effects .
37. In the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialog, find the ROADS sheet and select it. Now press Move
Up twice. This should move it up to just above the SYMBOLS sheet. This means that the roads
will be drawn first, and then symbols, such as the settlement symbols will be drawn next, on
top of the roads. Place a checkmark in the Redraw on OK box, then hit OK. The roads should
now be hidden beneath the settlements.

Fill scale
Change the Scale
The final change I want to do with the map is to change the scale of some of the fill styles. Right
now, I think the scale is a bit small, so let us increase it. For this step, we are going to change the I am increasing the scale
properties of some of the fill styles themselves. But note that in CC3+, all fill styles are defined on a rather drastically on several
per-map basis, which means that our changes here will not affect other maps, past or future. of the fill styles here. You
may fell that the details in
38. Click the Fill Style Indicator in the top right corner of the user interface. This will them become too large for
bring up the Fill Style Properties dialog. your taste. If so, feel free to
use smaller values.
39. Click the Bitmap Files tab. This tab contains all fill styles based Also note that by using a
on raster images. relatively large scale like
40. Select the Grassland_MS fill style from the dropdown. this, especially for the
Ocean and Land fills, I limit
41. If you look near the bottom of the dialog, you’ll see that this how much you can zoom in
fill style has a scaled width and height of 5 each. Change these before you see pixelation. If
values to 50 instead, then click OK. You’ll notice that the this is a concern, use a
texture in the grasslands is no much larger, providing much smaller value. Also
more detail. remember, that if you find
42. Use the process above to set the scale values for Farmland_MS you want to actually use a
to 12, Hills Background_MS and Sea_MS to 50, and Ocean_MS and Land_MS to 125. map at a very high zoom
level, you are probably
better off making a
separate, more detailed
Stuff Outside the Map Border map for that area. That way,
If you look at my in-progress drawings, you’ll you can include all kinds of
notice that I have a small part of a hill visible extra details.
outside the map border. It is not often this
happens, but sometimes it does, so let us
examine this a bit.
Width and Height
First of all, why does it happen at all? Why can
I put anything outside the map border? The Make sure to scale width
reason for this is that the drawing canvas in and height by the same
CC3+ isn’t really limited, or at least not any amount, otherwise the fill
limits you’ll experience during normal use. So will look distorted.
the map border doesn’t really signify the edge
of your drawing area, it only signifies the edge
of your intended map size. Now, drawing tools
do usually respect the map border, you might
remember this from when you drew the landmass. These tools are specifically designed to do just
that because it makes drawing easier, but there is no way to stop a symbol from being partly outside
the map border, since this is a single rigid entity that can’t be deformed to follow the border.
Now, to allow people to place a symbol next to the map border so only half the symbol is visible in
the map, the various CC3+ templates “cheats”. They have a white polygon right outside the map
border (This is called a Screen). This polygon is placed on the last sheet in the drawing order,
basically hiding everything it covers. What you can see in my map is that the hill actually extends
beyond the border of this white polygon. It is partly covered by it, but some sticks out past it.
The most elegant way to fix this is to edit this polygon a bit, but the procedure for that involves
tools we haven’t looked at yet. So, let us instead fix it using one of the basic tools of CC3+. Basic
tools, as opposed to drawing tools doesn’t set everything automatically, so we need to set the
appropriate settings manually.

43. Click Sheets and Effects . Make sure SCREEN is the selected (checkmark) sheet in the list.
Click OK.

33
 44. Click the Color Indicator in the status bar. Choose the last color on the first row (white) in the
Select Color dialog that pops up. Click OK.

45. If the Line Width indicator on the status bar is not 0, click on it and set it to 0.

46. Click the Layer indicator on the status bar, and make sure SCREEN is the
selected (checkbox) layer.

47. Click the Fill Style indicator on the status bar, and select Solid as the fill style from
the Brush Patterns tab, and remove the checkmark in Outlined before clicking OK.

48. Click Box from the rightmost toolbar. This basic tool doesn’t have any default properties,
and will use the various values we just defined.
49. The prompt reads 1st corner:. This basic tool lets you place a rectangle by defining two
diagonally opposite corners. Place a rectangle that covers up that little piece of hill. Don’t make
it too big.

You’ll find my final result (for now) in Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-10.FCW.

Effects
To see the fruits of our labors so far, let’s take a sneak peek at our map with effects turned on. We
don’t need to be graphic artists to make great looking maps in CC3+. It is as easy as clicking a
button.

50. Click Sheets and Effects .

Click to put a check in the Activate Sheet Effects box, then click OK.

Remove the Checkmark

Effects require additional
processing power to show,
and may slow down the
program. If you have a
powerful computer and
don’t overdo the effects use,
you can probably work with
effects on, but if you notice
any slowdowns, it is
Remove the Checkmark
recommended to turn them
off for a it’s
Generally, smoother
easier to work
experience. If you if have
with the drawings the
previously
effects are worked
turned off,with
butCC3
do
before
feel freeusing
to keep CC3+,
it on ifyou’ll
you
find
wish. that CC3+ is much
more efficient with effects.

51. Click Sheets and Effects .

Click to remove the checkmark in the Activate Sheet Effects box, then click OK.

34
Adding Text
Text deserves a chapter all to itself, so we’ll go to the next chapter to begin adding text to our
drawing.

Our First Map Review

• Entities in a CC3+ map are displayed in the order they are added, with more recent entities
laying over previous entities on their respective sheets.
• As a general rule, work from the lowest elevations to the highest elevations, working from the
top of the drawing to the bottom.
• Drawing tools set the sheet and layer for most mapping entities which force proper drawing
order.
• Shaded Varicolor (SVC) symbols are shaded in the color that is currently displayed on the
Status bar.

• Don’t use too many symbols. The most beautiful maps are not completely covered with
symbols.
• Some of the drawing tools, such as the river tools, use Attach. Attach can be enabled or
disabled in mid command. Right click Attach to change its attach mode.
• Zoom functions can be used in mid command to focus on a particular area of the drawing.

• Watch the Command Prompt. Options for using Drawing Tools and placing symbols are
given in the Command Prompt.

The Lost Realm of Astirlerond

The Lost Realm of Astirlerond map
was created in CC3 by Steve
Townshend.

This style is provided in the

Cartographers Annual Volume 2
(http://www.profantasy.com/ann
ual/2008/)

35
 Text Properties
THE INS AND OUTS OF TEXT
Once completed, a map needs labels. Unless it is a highly specialized or very mysterious document,
Height sets the height of a folks looking at it will need to have the features in the map identified. With a few tips and tricks to
capital letter. The default
work with, you can add text to your map to both enhance its usefulness and its appearance.
text height is 0.2 units high.
Angle sets the angle (any
angle) at which text may be
drawn. Spacing sets the
Placing Text
baseline of new text Using either the drawing we just completed in Our First Map or opening a new drawing, let’s explore
entities. The default spacing placing text.
of each new text entity is
specified at 150% of its 1. Click Text Properties .
height below the last text. The Text Properties dialog opens.
Stretch sets the proportion
It is in this dialog that the text properties are set. Labels
of the text entity. The
can be made using the fonts already available in the Font
default stretch is 1 unit. A
list, or fonts can be added to the drawing by clicking
value of 2 would produce
More Fonts.
text that is twice as wide as
normal. Use New Metrics If you’re following along with Our First Map from the
enables enhanced text previous chapter, set the text properties as follows:
handling. Text heights for
• Height: 0.88
TrueType® fonts will be
Height sets the height of a capital letter. The default text height is 0.2 units high.
more closely matched over a
wider variety of typefaces. • Angle: 0
Justify sets text baseline Angle sets the angle at which the text will be drawn
justification. For Character
style, select the checkboxes • Spacing: 120
for the desired effects for Spacing sets the baseline of new text entities. The default spacing of each new text entity is
the selected font. specified at 150% of its height below the last text.
• Stretch: 1.15
More Fonts
Stretch sets the proportion of the text entity. The default stretch is 1 unit. A value of 2 would
The fonts aren’t added to produce text that is twice as wide as normal.
the drawing per se, but are
• Use New Metrics enables enhanced text handling. Text heights for TrueType® fonts will be
made available in the Font
more closely matched over a wider variety of typefaces.
list for use in the drawing. If
the drawing is created using • Justify: Top Left
a non-Windows® standard Justify sets text baseline justification. This will be further explored later in this chapter.
font and the CC3+ file is
viewed on a computer that • Font: Middle Ages .
does not have that font
installed, the text will • For Character style, select the checkboxes for the desired effects for the selected font.
display in Arial. 2. Once the desired text properties have been set, click OK.

Middle Ages 3. Click Text .

If Middle Ages isn’t in the The current sheet changes to TEXT and the Edit Text dialog
list of fonts already loaded, opens.
we need to add it. To load 4. Type in the text then click OK. For Our First Map, the
Middle Ages into the current example uses Snowport as the first label. The text is held
drawing, click More Fonts, on the cursor at its insertion point.
then select the System Tab.
Scroll down to Middle Ages. 5. Click in the drawing where you wish the text to be placed.
Click to highlight Middle In our example drawing, we put the label at the city
Ages, then click OK. Make symbol.
sure Middle Ages is selected 6. Right click to finish inserting the Snowport text string. The
as the current font. text should disappear from the cursor.

Sidebar continue on next

page...

36
Text Glow
The default sheet effects in CC3+ provide for a soft glow around Edit Text
entities placed on the TEXT sheet, as well as a drop shadow. This
glow provides a background to the text to help make it more legible Put a check in the box for
and stand out from the entities under it. To turn on the sheet effects, Multi-line if you wish the
text label to be more then a
click Sheets and Effects . Click to put a check in the box for single line. Text Properties is
Activate Sheet Effects, then click OK. Unless you experience a also available from the Edit
noticeable slowdown, you may wish to just keep effects on for the Text dialog by clicking
rest of the work. Properties.

Place Text
Selecting Fonts
Zoom commands work
When selecting a font or fonts for your map, consider how they will
within other commands.
be used, what the final presentation for the map will be, and at what Once you have the text label
resolution. Text that looks good in CC3+’s View Window might end on the cursor, you can click
up being dreadfully small or might be dreadfully big when exported on the Zoom commands to
to a raster image. That lovely, scrolling font might be all but illegible zoom in or out or use Zoom
in the final output if it is too small. As a general rule of thumb, Window before placing the
reserve the large, fancy font for large labels such as the map name text into the drawing.
and large, prominent features. Use medium size text for the
intermediate features, and use a plain, highly readable font for the smallest labels on the map. Soft Glow
If you are not happy with
Taming Text the default glow, you'll
Now that we’ve explored the mechanics of placing text, let’s take a moment to explore learn to change it later in
the manual when we take a
Justification (insertion point) and how it affects text position and appearance.
closer look at sheet effects.

Export
The insertion point of any text label is the point which is
the ‘anchor’ of that label. Choosing the best anchor makes If in doubt, do a test print or
the text more easily read. In the example here, all four text a test export to see if your
labels–shown as their respective justification names–are font choice is legible in its
anchored to the structure symbol, but of the four, one is size and placement and it
clearly the most legible. With effects and masking tricks, properly conveys the
any of the labels can be made useable, but starting with significance of the feature it
good text placement will make the drawing easier to read. is identifying.

Best Render
When exploring Text Properties, we find there are many options for This is not a behavior unique
justification, a few of which are shown here. In each line, the dot is the to CC3+. This is a behavior
insertion point and the label is the name of that justification. of all CAD programs trying
to render Windows® fonts.

The question is, why are we so concerned about the insertion point? Vector Fonts
CC3+ is a CAD engine run in a Windows® environment. There are no pixels in the CC3+ drawing,
but Windows® must render the drawing on the computer’s monitor. We might pick the size and FNT Vector Fonts are font
placement of the font, but when displayed on the screen or when exported to a raster image, the types used in the DOS
font is lurched to a size that Windows® can best render for that resolution. As a result of CC3+ version of Campaign
working with TrueType® fonts in Windows®, the text label may grow or shrink a little and might Cartographer. SHX fonts are
overlap areas of the drawing not intended. Normally, this is not a problem since the amount of vector fonts compatible
change is very small, but there may be times when it is necessary to your task that a text label stay with AutoCAD®.
AutoCAD® is a registered
confined within specific constraints.
trademark of AutoDesk, Inc.

Understanding how the text behaves and why it behaves that way allows us to
tame it. To avoid this issue, one solution might be to use FNT or SHX Vector fonts.
Another solution is to Explode the text on placement to make it an entity rather
than text.

Back to the question already posed, why are we so concerned about the insertion point? The text Sidebar continue on next
will ‘grow’ out from the insertion point in the direction of the text. These examples show the page...
direction that text will grow if Windows® lurches it in order to render the image at the selected

37
 resolution. Using a vector font will stop this behavior, but at the cost of appearances since vector
fonts are typically plain and not nearly as diverse in selection as TrueType® fonts. For the large
majority of your mapping needs, regular systems fonts will serve your purpose very nicely. Using
vector fonts or exploding the text upon placement is an option, however, if it is important for your
current drawing to have the text fit exactly where you placed it such as when placing the text in a
tight fitting box and there is no margin for error.

Explode Text Text Along a Curve

Exploding the text changes Rivers rarely run in a straight line. They wind and meander as they cross the terrain on their way
the font characters into downhill. When labeling a river on a map, it is very pleasing to the eye to have the text labels follow
polygons. This has the their curves. Let’s do an exercise to explore Text Along a Curve.
advantage of ensuring the
labels stay exactly the same 7. On the File toolbar click Open .
size no matter what the 8. Browse to CC3+’s Tutorial\UserManual folder, then select
resolution. A disadvantage Curve Text.FCW.
is that the text is no longer Here we have a segment of a river. Let’s add a text label to it so
searchable using features
the label follows the curves. To begin, we’ll draw a path offset from
such as Zoom to text.
the river to use as a guide line for the text.

Text Label 9. Click Smooth Path . The cursor changes to crosshairs

The text label will be added and the Command Prompt reads 1st point.
to the drawing using the Find a segment of the river that has a gentle curve
text properties that are set and then draw a path a little offset.
in Text Properties and the
10. Click to begin the path, then click to place each
entity properties set on the
node of the path.
Status Bar.

Node In this example, we have 4 nodes. Notice how the path

bends between the first node and the last node guided by
A node is a control point. In
nodes 2 and 3.
this example, we have 4
nodes. Notice how the path 11. Right click to end the path.
bends between the first
node and the last node
guided by nodes 2 and 3. With the guide line in place, let’s add our text.
When drawing guide lines
for Text Along a Curve, be 12. From the Draw menu, select Text along a curve. The cursor changes
mindful of the way you want to a pick cursor and the Command Prompt reads Select Path.
the text to be read. The text 13. Click on the guide line path we just drew. The Align Text to Curve
will begin at the first node dialog opens.
and end at the last node.
Type the name of the river in the Text field. Put a radio button
in the desired text position in Special Effects and be sure to
Guide Line check the box for Delete Guide Line on Completion. For this
The size of the font and the example, I am using Winding River as the name and Top for
length of the label will the position.
dictate how long the guide 14. Click OK.
line should be. Experiment Repeat the exercise as many times as you wish to explore
with the font size and guide the different text positions and experiment with different
line length to find the best length guide lines.
combination for your
application.
Troubleshooting Text Along a Curve
If your text label is strung out and the letters are too far
apart, either the guide line is too long or the font size is
too small. . If the font size is appropriate for
the rest of the map, shorten the guide line
and try again. On the other hand, if the font
size is too small compared to the rest of the
labels in the map, change the Height of the
font in Text Properties to a larger value and
try again.

38
If your text label is bunched up and the letters are too close
together or overlapping, either the guide line is too short
Number Label
or the font size is too big. If the font size is appropriate for
the rest of the map, make a longer guide line and try again. Number labels will be added
On the other hand, if the font size is too big compared to to the drawing using the
the rest of the labels in the map, change the Height of the text properties set in Text
font in Text Properties to a smaller value and try again. Properties and the entity
properties set on the Status
Bar.
Number Labels
Adding number labels to entities in the drawing is a quick and easy task. End Command
Using to end the
15. On the File toolbar click Open .
numbering command will
16. Browse to CC3+’s Tutorials\UserManual folder, then close the command cleanly.
select Number Labels.FCW. Right clicking to end this
particular command may
throw the last number
Here we have a map with four city symbols. Let’s imagine attached to the cursor into
for a moment that we’re going to use a legend for this the drawing.
drawing. Instead of putting text labels in the drawing, we
want to number them.
Justification
17. Click Number Label . Justification is discussed in
Take note of the Command Prompt to see what detail on page 37. The keys
number CC3 is going to begin with. If the number is to adjust justification on the
correct, hit . If the number is not correct, type what you fly are listed below. Just hit
the desired key while the
want to be the first number, then hit . That first number text is on your crosshairs.
is now on your cursor. You should see it move to
18. Click in the drawing to place a number label at each city put the justification point in
symbol. Notice that the number held on the cursor advances the center of the crosshairs.
each time you click to place a label. L – Left
C – Center
19. After placing the last number label, hit to end the R – Right
command. T – Top
M – Middle
B – Bottom
Completing our Map
Now that you have learned the basics about text, let us complete our map. If you want to continue
Sidebar continue on next
along using our drawing, open Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-10.FCW.
page...
1. Verify that the text properties we configured on
page 36 is in effect. If not, set them according to
the instructions.

2. Use Text to label all the settlements with

appropriate names. If you need to, you can change
the justification the fly while the text is at your
cursor. Use this to place the text 25 miles above
the center of the scale bar as well.

For the ocean, I want a slightly larger text label. Now, I

could just use Text Properties and change it, but his
particular map style also have a text drawing tool
available for me with predefined text properties. Let us
try it out.

3. Click Structures . In the top right of the Symbol

Catalog window, you should see a drawing tool
named Text Label l. Click it. The Edit Text dialog
should pop up, and from here on, everything is
exactly as before. The big difference here is that by
using the text tool, it automatically configured
some properties for us, most notably the text size.

39
 4. In the Edit Text dialog, place a checkmark in the Multi-line textbox and enter Maldaric Ocean,
one word on each line. Click OK, and place this text somewhere in the ocean above the
compass rose.
We’ll now label the forests and the hills. It can often be difficult to fit the entire text unto such terrain
Text Label l features, so maps will often use text at an angle to do this. And while you can set the angle in Text
If you look in the top left of Properties , it is usually better to do it visually.
the preview image, you’ll
see a small plus-sign. Click it 5. Start the Text Label l tool again, and enter the text Huntswood in the Edit Text dialog and
to expand the collection and click OK. If you are using my map you’ll see that this text doesn’t fit over the large forest
see text tools of other sizes. northeast of the farm area.
6. Instead of placing the text immediately, look at the prompt. It reads Place (Shift=15˚ Rot,
Text Tool Shift+Ctrl=Rot, Ctrl=Scale, Justify):. Press and hold the key while moving the mouse
up or down. This will rotate the text. Once you have an appropriate rotation that will fit the
As of this writing, there is a
minor bug with the text tool forest, position the text and click to place it.
in the Structure catalog, as 7. Label the hills and the other forests. If you are using our map, don’t label the two forests to the
it fails to clean up properly top right, we’ll be covering them up with a map title.
after itself. If you wish to
place structure symbols
after using it, please click The Map Title
Structures again Most maps should have a title, and this is no exception. If I have the opportunity, I normally place
to reset appropriate this in an empty area of the map, but I am all out of those. I don’t want too much clutter where my
settings. map title is however, that doesn’t look good, so we’ll make a box to put it in. We’ll enhance this box
a little later by using effects.

8. Click Sheets and Effects . Hit the Add button on the left side of the dialog to make a new
sheet called TITLEBOX. Select this sheet in the list, and use the Move Up button to position it
right above the sheet TEXT in the list. Make sure the new sheet is selected as the current sheet
before clicking OK.
9. Make sure the rest of the settings on the status bar is as in the below illustration. For anything
that is not correct, simply click the indicator, and change it. Remember that the Solid fill style
is on the Brush Patterns tab of the fill style dialog. The rest of the dialogs should be straight
forward.

10. Use Box to draw a rectangle in the top right corner of the map, like in my illustration on
Shift+Ctrl
the previous page.
Note that since the
key also allows you to 11. Click Text Properties , and ensure that the Angle is set to 0 and justify to Top Center.
change the scale of your
text, it is very easy to scale
12. Use Text to create a text label for the map. For my map, I used a multi-line label, King’s
it inadvertently. If you need Coast.
to rotate with finer 13. With the text on the crosshair, hold down while moving the mouse up/down to scale
granularity than the text to a size that will fit neatly inside the brown box we made.
alone provides. If you intend
to use the + 14. I’ve also added a single-line subtitle to the map using the same procedure, this one reads Year
combination, I recommend 375 after the Founding. Such a subtitle provides a bit more flavor to the map, as well as
to always hold down relevant information.
first, and don’t let it go
again until after you have That’s it. My current map is saved as Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-11.FCW.
let go of .

Ins and Outs of Text Review

Effects
• Select fonts and text sizes that will enhance the appearance of the map and be legible at the
Effects are described in the intended print size and format.
Sheets and Effects chapter
on page 60. • Use the best text justification for the particular task at hand.

• Text Along a Curve is used to add text to a curved guide line.

• Number Label allows us to quickly and easily add consecutively numbered labels to a drawing.

• Watch the Command Prompt. It is the vital link between you – the user – and CC3+.

40
PRINTING AND EXPORTING
CC3+ can print any view of any map either to fit the page or to a precise scale factor. You can also
create oversized prints by tiling across pages. Maps can also be exported to a regular image file, for
whatever purpose you need.

Printing Your Drawing

The print dialog in CC3+ can be a little daunting with all its available options. CC3+ therefore offers
two options, either the classic print dialog with all the options in a single dialog, or the print wizard,
which will guide you through the process of choosing the correct options for your needs.

Printing using the Print Wizard

The Print Wizard is a great tool to help you print out your map exactly as you want it by helping
you to pick the correct option.

To print using the Wizard, right click the Print button and select Print Wizard. This will start the
print wizard, which will take you through a handful of screens to choose your print options.

Step 1
In this step you can choose if you wish to start with the
current print settings, or if you wish to load a saved
setting. If you have previously printed during this CC3+
session, the wizard will use the settings last used,
otherwise it will use the default printer settings. If you
instead chose to start with saved settings, you will be
taken to a new step allowing you to pick which saved
setting to use.
In addition to these options, there are also some parts of
the dialog that will appear for each step:

Thumbnail view: This will show a small print preview

based on the options you have set. The checkbox below
can be used to toggle this preview.

Back, Next: These two buttons allow you to navigate

through the wizard. The wizard will remember the
settings when you go back and forth so you can easily go
back if you need to change a setting on a previous page.
Preview: This button brings up the preview window. If
you are doing a multi-page printout, you can toggle the
printing of each individual page from this window, saving
you from printing pages you don’t need.
Print: This button starts the actual printing.
Cancel: This button closes the print wizard without
taking any action.
Help: Shows relevant information in the help file.
Step 1a – Select Saved Settings
This step is only shown if you chose to load a saved
setting. Simply click on the setting you wish to load from
the list, and the settings will be loaded. Note that until you
have saved any settings yourself, this list will only contain
the Default Settings item.

41
 Step 2 – Select Printer
In this step you select the printer to use. If you need to
change some of the printer properties, such as turning off
duplex or setting print quality options, you can click the
Properties button which will bring up the standard
properties dialog for your printer.
If you need more than one copy, you can also set the
number on this page.
Step 3 – Select What to Print
You can now select between printing active view or
everything:
Active View: Use this to print the view you currently
have in your view window. To use this, zoom into the area
you wish to print before starting the print wizard.

Everything: This will ignore your current view, and

simply print your entire map.
Step 4 – Select Print Scale

Units This step allows you to select the print scale. This is
especially useful when you print battle maps for use with
CC3+ measures coordinates miniatures, but you would use this option whenever you
and distances with a user- wish to print your maps at a certain scale. If you just want
definable system called the map to fill the paper without worrying about an exact
Units. Feet, inches, and
scale, simply chose the Fit drawing to print area option.
meters are common
examples of units, but you Simply choose the desired scale from the list, or select
can create your own, like Choose your own scale to set up a custom scale.
miles, microns, or parsecs.
When you open a new For example, if you’ve drawn a floorplan on which you
template, the units are set have a 5’ grid and you need the 5’ grid squares to equal
for you. Overland templates 1” on the paper, this is where you set the scale. In this
are set to miles or case, you want Distance on Paper = 1” and Distance on
kilometers. Dungeon map = 5’.
templates are in feet. By
default, one unit is equal to If you want the printed drawing to be a certain size, for
one inch. example, let’s say you have a view that is 400 units
across and you want that printed output to be 4 inches
across, set the Distance on Paper = 1” and the Distance
on map = 100. The resulting print will be 4 inches across
Step 5 – Page Setup
Now you can select the paper size and orientation for the
printout.
Additionally, if you need to, you can select the print
margins. If you just wish to fill the page with the map,
leave Use minimum page margin checked, and CC3+
will use the minimum margins supported by your printer.
If you find that parts of your drawing is cut of when using
this option, this is typically due to the print driver
reporting wrong values for the actual margins, in this
case, you must set them manually.

42
Step 6 – Tiled Printing
Sometimes, you need to print your map over multiple
pages, for example if you have a large battle map.

Print everything on one page: this will ensure that the

printout is always exactly one single page. If you picked
scaling options on the previous step, this might result in
the whole map not printing, since it will only print what
would fit on one page, and skip the rest.
Tile printed image across multiple pages: With this option
selected, CC3+ will print exactly the amount of pages you
request. For example, if you print 2 horizontal tiles and 3
vertical tiles, CC3+ will produce 6 pages (2x3). If you
need an overlap (perhaps to help when assembling the
map), you can also specify this here.
Figuring out the exact number of tiles require some
calculation (or guessing), but you can let CC3+ do this for
you by checking the Set Nr of tiles to show everything
at current scale box. This will set the number of tiles to
the required number to ensure everything on your map is
printed.
Draw frame at overlap edge will simply print a frame on
the printout to show where the overlap starts, and you
can set the color of this edge by clicking the Frame Color
button.

Label tiled pages at bottom right will print the

coordinates of each tile at their bottom right. This can be
helpful when assembling a large tiled print.
Step 7 – Print pages
This dialog allows for a few final options to be set before
starting the print job.
Preview: If you are printing more than one page, now is
the time to hit the preview button to check that the layout
looks reasonable, and optionally disable the printing of
individual pages by clicking on them in the preview
window.
Advanced: This button will open a new dialog page
allowing you to set additional options
Save settings: This button will open a new dialog page
where you can save the current settings for later reuse.

43
 Step 7a – Advanced Settings

This step is only shown by clicking the Advanced button

on step 7.
This page generally lets you set advanced options
normally not needed for regular printing.
Scale printer resolution: This option may be required if
you have a laser printer with low memory. Increasing this
value reduces the resolution sent to the printer. This will
not help save ink/toner, so only use it if your printer
needs it, and keep the value as low as possible.
Printed width for 0-widht lines: You may have lines
with zero width in your drawing. These generally look
quite ok on screen, but on a printer with a much higher
DPI than your screen, they can become too tiny, bordering
on invisible. This setting forces such lines to be drawn a
bit wider.

Color Printing: This is primarily useful if you are working

with white/light entities on a dark view-window
background. Since white entities on white paper tend to
be invisible, you can chose how to handle this. For most
normal CC3+ maps, you’ll want to do Print Colors. If you
select to Print white things black you will generally end
up with a thick black border around your map. This is from
the white screen mentioned on page 33.
Sheet Printing: By using this option, you can tell CC3+ to
only print the current sheet, or to print each sheet on its
own piece of paper. For normal CC3+ maps, you’ll always
want to use All as one page (even if you use tiled
printing).

Step 7b – Save Print Settings

This page will only show by clicking Save Settings in

step 7.
This page allows you to save the settings you’ve made so
that you can use them later. Remember to give them a
helpful name and description.

44
Printing using the Classic Dialog
View
On the file toolbar, click Print .
Hidden layers and hidden
sheets do not print. Show or
hide layers and sheets
The Print Drawing dialog has five sections—Printer, View appropriately before
to Print, Scaling, Tiling, and Options. printing or exporting for the
desired output.
• Printer allows you to select the printer to which you
wish to send the drawing.
Scale Factor
• View to Print allows you to select which view to print.
1:72 for miniatures, for
• Scaling allows you to set the scale of the printed example, or 1” grid square
drawing. equals 5 feet.

• Tiling allows you to create oversized prints on sheets of

View to Print
paper. # Horiz and # Vert sets how many sheets the print will use. A value of 1 in each box
gives a 1 page print. Overlap % sets the overlap between sheets. A value of 0 means there is Everything: The whole map
no overlap. To make it easier to stick sheets together, set the overlap to 5%. will print, regardless of the
current view. Active
• Options allows you to set print as black options if you’re working with a dark colored View Window: The current view
Window. Portrait or Landscape orientation is also set here. displayed in the View
Window will print. Named
No Fuss Printing View: If you have previously
saved views of the map
The Print Drawing dialog gives you plenty of options including views and scaling, but what are the (View menu), they will be
best settings if you just want to do a plain print of your drawing? These settings will produce a print listed here. Sheet: The
of your entire drawing on a single piece of paper. normal value is (All visible
sheets as one page).
• Printer: your active printer
COMMON prints on all: with
• View to print: Everything this box checked, the
COMMON sheet will print
• Sheet: All visible sheets as one page no matter what Sheet
option you select.
• Scaling: Fit to Page

• Tiling: #Horiz 1, #Vert 1, Overlap % 0 Scale

• Print White as Black: not checked Fit to page: Scales the
selected view to best fit your
• Print everything black: not checked paper size and orientation.
• Portrait or Landscape: as appropriate for your drawing Scale factor: Allows input of
paper distance and drawing
Then click OK. distance. Paper distance
refers to the printed size on
your paper. Drawing
Printing with Options distance refers to distances
The plain print settings might be fine for many of your drawings, but there will likely be a need to as measured from the
print to a specific scale or make an oversize print. Let’s look at those settings. drawing. To measure
distances on the drawing,
click Info menu then select
View to Print Distance. Pick two points
Normally, you’ll want to print everything. To see a between which you wish to
view of what will be printed, click Zoom Extents measure.
before opening the Print Drawing dialog.
Print
If there is a particular view in the drawing you want
We recommend using Print
to print, click Zoom Window on the CC3+ interface, then zoom in on the view you want printed Preview for any of your
before opening the Print Drawing dialog window. Once in the Print Drawing dialog, select Active drawings before you
Window to print that view. commit paper and ink.
If you’ve previously created a Named View in the drawing and wish to print it, select Named View
and then open the drop down menu to select which view you wish to be printed.
The Sheet drop down menu contains the various sheet printing options. For most situations, the All Sidebar continue on next
visible sheets as one page will suit you. CC3+ will print all visible sheets in the drawing as a single page...
page.

45
 If you want all visible sheets as separate pages or you wish to print only the currently selected
sheet, those options are in this drop down menu.
Named View
When a check is in the box for COMMON prints on all, the COMMON sheet will print on the output
Named views are an
regardless of which Sheet setting is selected.
advanced feature of CC3+.
To find more information on
Named Views, consult the Scaling
Help files. Now that we have our selected
view, we can set our scaling.

Fit to page allows you to print the

Units view selected in View to Print onto a single sheet of paper without worrying about scale or distance.
It simply fits the view onto the paper size.
CC3+ measures coordinates
and distances with a user- Scale Factor allows you to set a specific scale for the drawing. If you’ve drawn a floorplan on which
definable system called you have a 5’ grid and you need the 5’ grid squares to equal 1” on the paper, this is where you set
Units. Feet, inches, and the scale. In this case, you want Paper distance = 1” and Drawing distance = 5’.
meters are common
examples of units, but you If you want the printed drawing to be a certain size, for example, let’s say you have a view that is
can create your own, like 400 units across and you want that printed output to be 4 inches across, set the Paper Distance =
miles, microns, or parsecs. 1” and the Drawing distance = 100. The resulting print will be 4 inches across.
When you open a new
template, the units are set Tiling
for you. Overland templates
are set to miles or Tiling makes it easy to create
kilometers. Dungeon oversized prints of your drawings.
templates are in feet or Set the number of pages horizontally and the number of pages vertically in # Horiz and # Vert. Use
meters. By default, one unit Overlap % to set the amount of overlap between the pages. For ease of assembling the sheets, use
is equal to one inch. at least a 5% overlap.

Options
Check Print White as Black if
you’ve created a drawing with white
entities on a dark View Window
color and you want the output to be
black entities on a white background. For printers that require it, checking this box allows color #15
(white) to print as black.

Checking Print everything black will suppress color information and the drawing will print out
only in black, even on color printers.
For orientation, choose either Portrait or Landscape as is appropriate for your drawing.

46
Printing Battlemats for Miniatures 1"
One inch equals 1/12 of a
Printing battlemats for miniature games is quite easy foot. In decimal, that is
in CC3+. The drawing will have a grid - usually a 5 foot .08333 of one foot. The
square grid. The squares are usually printed so that print dialog accepts both
each 5 foot square in the drawing is 1 inch square on the imperial (1") and the
printed paper. metric (0.8333) values. Use
the one you are most
In Printer Properties, select the size paper onto comfortable with.
which you'll be printing, usually Letter or A4.
Select Scale Factor. Set the Paper distance to 1" and Overlap
Drawing distance to 5'.
An overlap isn't required. A
In many cases, battlemats are larger than a single small overlap, however,
sheet of paper, so you'll need to use Tiling. Set makes it easier to match the
Overlap % to 3. tiles together during
assembly.
For #Horiz and #Vert, you can calculate the number
of tiles needed based on drawing size and scale, but I Preview
find it usually easier to determine these values by
guessing and then use Preview. If it is a small drawing that is wider than it is tall, try 2 and 2 and Turn the drawing effects off
set on Landscape. Check Preview and then adjust the #Horiz and #Vert values accordingly. Once when using Preview to
the preview shows that the tiling values are set appropriately, click Apply. Turn on effects then determine tiling values. The
print the battlemat. preview will draw much
more quickly without
effects.
Common printing errors
BMP, JPEG and PNG
If you print a drawing and the page prints blank then you likely either have the Sheet setting in
View to print set to something other than all visible sheets as one page or you are using a scale The BMP, JPEG or PNG
setting which shows nothing in the current view. Bitmap file exports the
entire drawing. The
If you are using a laser printer, you might find CC3+'s file size is too large for the printer to cope. If Rectangular section BMP,
this is the case, from the Tools menu, select Options. Check the box for Print alpha bitmap. Print JPEG and PNG allows you to
resolution divided by and set it to 2 or higher. Increment the value by 1 until the drawing prints. use crosshairs to designate
an area of the drawing to
export.

Exporting Your Drawing Options

CC3+ supports a variety of file formats in which to save your drawing. A The options dialog shown is
full explanation of each can be found in the Help files. Here, we’ll explain sensitive to the file type
the most common choices for export. chosen. To see the options
dialog for image export, you
1. From the File menu, select Save As. need to select an image file
type first. Options can also
be accessed from the Tools
2. Click to open the Save as type drop down menu>Options>BMP, JPEG,
menu. PNG. The values entered
here will remain until new
values are input.
In the drop down menu, we find a list of the file
formats supported by CC3+. We’ll concern
ourselves with the BMP, JPEG, and PNG formats since these are the most commonly used export
forms.
The steps described here will be for the PNG Bitmap file export. JPEG Bitmap file and BMP Bitmap
file use the same steps, but the export will be in the respective file format.

3. Select PNG Bitmap file, then click Options. The Bitmap Options dialog opens.
Here we input our settings for the desired output.

Settings
This section allows us to save useful settings and reuse them later. To use a previously saved setting,
just select it from the drop-down box.

47
 To save a setting for future use, set the desired options in this dialog,
then hit the Save button. This will pop up a small dialog allowing you
to provide a name for this setting. If you already had a setting selected,
it will suggest this name as the default, allowing you to overwrite this
setting.

Finally, hitting the Delete button will delete the setting currently
selected.

Pixel Size
In Pixel Size, we input the desired maximum size of the export in
pixels. The size of the export directly depends on the intended use of
the resulting file.

Screen Display
If the export is for display on the computer’s monitor, determine the size by how big you want the
Maximum Size
image to appear on the screen. If you want wallpaper size, input the appropriate screen resolution
When you export an image, such as 1024x768, 1280x720, or 1920x1080. If you want a smaller image, perhaps a 4”x3” image
the image ratio is not on the screen, multiple the desired dimensions by 96 to get the size in pixels. A 4”x3” image would
usually the same as the be 4x96=384 and 3x96=288 so you’d input Width=384 and Height=288.
bitmap size ratio. The
Horizontal and Vertical Print Display
Pixels count sets the
maximum size limit for each If the export will be printed, enter a reasonable resolution, such as 300, and then enter the
dimension, not necessary appropriate sizes under Print Size. This will automatically calculate (and update) the pixel sizes
the exact dimensions of the above. For a photo quality image, the resolution could be 300 pixels per inch. Plain line drawings
exported image. and drawings that don’t use bitmap fills will look fine at 150 pixels per inch.

Other Considerations
Screen In addition to considering the intended use of the image, there are also certain limitations we need
Due to the differences to consider. The first of these is time taken. Rendering a CC3+ map to an image file is a resource
between monitors, there are intensive process, and will take time. If you try to export a very large image, CC3+ will need to work
no way to exactly specify for a very long time, perhaps as much as an hour or more, depending on your hardware and the
the dimensions of the image export size requested. During this time, CC3+ will devote all its resources to rendering your image,
on the screen in inches. and will appear to be hung.
Multiplying by 96 used to be
a simple approximation, but The other consideration is available memory on your computer. To export an image of very large
recent developments in dimensions, you will also need a lot of available memory on your computer. If you run out of
screens have made the memory, CC3+ will be unable to complete the export. If you find this happening to you, you should
differences bigger than try to reduce the export size.
ever, especially when we Due to these issues, an export of more than 10000 pixels in either dimension is not recommended,
include tablets and
but depending on map complexity and computer resources, you may be able to go as high as 20000
smartphones into the mix
on some maps, but there is no guarantee that this will be possible with any given map.
which have a very high DPI
compared to desktop
screens. Options
Under options we specify further details about our export, like what will happen if the aspect ratio
of our map is not the same as the aspect ratio of the Pixel Size.

Antialias
Antialiasing is the process of making jagged edges look smoother. CC3+ doesn’t use pixels for its
internal representation of the map, but when we are exporting a map to an image file, we need to
Larger Image convert it to a pixel format. Since pixels are placed on a grid, they do an excellent job of representing
The final image will adhere a vertical or horizontal straight line, but once the line is drawn at any
to the size you specified in angle, we get jagged edges due to the pixel grid. Antialiasing attempts
the Maximum Image to reduce this by mixing the color of nearby pixels. For example, a black
dimensions, but CC3+ need line on a white field will have grey edges after antialiasing is applied.
to start out with a larger This process makes the overall image much smoother and better
image for processing. looking. In the example to the right, the export resolution is the same,
but the leftmost line is exported without antialiasing, while the
rightmost used antialiasing.

48
To enable antialiasing, check the Antialias box, and then provide a strength. The higher the
strength, the better the antialiasing will look, but to be able to apply antialiasing to an image, CC3+
must export a larger image than requested. The size of the image CC3+ needs to export is shown
in the work size label. The higher the antialias strength, the larger these dimensions become. Keep
in mind the “Other Considerations” from above when you select an antialias strength.
The recommended value is 25%, but you may need to reduce it to reach the highest resulting image
sizes.

Crop image to aspect ratio

Usually, the aspect ratio of our map (or
rectangular selection) is not exactly the same
as the aspect ratio of our Pixel Size. We use
the crop setting to determine how CC3+ will
handle this. If crop is enabled, CC3+ treats the
Pixel Size as maximums. It will use an image
size that has the same aspect ratio as our map
(or selection) and is as large as possible
without being larger than the maximum
height or width.
If we turn off the crop setting, CC3+ will treat
our selection as the center of the image, but
will expand the selection either vertically or
horizontally to fit the desired aspect ratio.

Crop Examples
In this example, we're exporting a rectangular
PNG of the area outlined in red. The bitmap options are set for
an 800x800 export.
When we disable Crop image to aspect ratio, we get the
section of the map we chose with the crosshairs; but since the
area we chose for export didn't fill the entire 800 x 800 bitmap
size, CC3+ used the selected section as the center of an 800 x
800 export.
If we use Crop with these
same Pixel Size settings,
CC3+ will export just the
section we selected with the
crosshairs. CC3+ will use the
Maximum Image Dimensions settings as the maximum limit of
the export and ignore any extra outside the rectangular section.
When the crosshaired selection reaches the first limit--in this case, the Horizontal Pixels--it will
ignore the Vertical Pixels size limit because we didn't need it.

Restrict image to map border

Restrict image to map border will crop any entities beyond the map border from the export. This
is useful if your map contains a screen polygon to cover entities extending over the border.

Launch Image Viewer

By checking this option, CC3+ will launch the exported image in your default image viewer
automatically as soon as the export is done.

Progressive JPEG
A progressive JPEG is well suited for displaying over slow connection. It will load a low quality
version of the image first, then will gradually improve it as it loads more data. This ensures that full
image is very quickly visible.

JPEG Quality
The value controls the appearance and file size of JPEG exports. Lower quality JPEGs open more
quickly and have a smaller file size, but have less data and so image quality is lower. The higher the
number value here, the better the image quality for your JPEG exports.

49
 4. Once the option values and selections have been made, click OK to proceed.
5. Click Save to launch the export.
6. If you chose a rectangular selection option, CC3+ now requires you to select two corners for
the export area. Watch the Command Prompt.

Printing and Exporting review

• For no fuss printing, use Everything, All visible sheets as one page, and Fit to page.

• For scaled prints, such as 5’ square grid in the drawing = 1” square grid on the printed page,
use the Scale Factor, Paper Distance=Drawing Distance fields.

• Always use Print Preview before you commit paper and ink.
• For screen display images, calculate your pixel dimensions based on 96 pixels per inch.

• For images intended by printing, fill in print size and resolution instead.

50
EDITING
Drawing tools can handle much of the map creation we’ll do, but there may be times when we’ll
need to create from the ground up, so to speak. In order to do that, we’ll need to understand some
of the basic editing commands. Now that we’ve drawn our first map, and in doing so, explored
drawing tools, let’s look at how we can edit the entities we’ve put in our map.
Of all the things we can add to our CC3+ drawings, they can each be edited in some way, shape, or
form. Every edit that we do involves right clicking to open the Selection menu. That Selection
menu is a very powerful tool in CC3+. Before we move on, let’s look at that menu in more depth.

Selection menu
Pick Cursor
The most basic of edits in a drawing involve isolating an entity into order to move
or delete it. We then open the Selection menu to select Do It to execute the desired
command. In that Selection menu, however, there are several options to modify The pick cursor has the
what entities we have selected. There are times when entities are stacked so square selection box. The
size of the pick box can be
precisely that separating them with the pick cursor is impossible. The most common
changed by changing the
of these times would be separating the outline from the landmass entity to change
value in Tools menu,
the color or fill style of a landmass entity without affecting the outline. With a few
Options, Pick Cursor
short exercises, we can explore that Selection menu and we’ll see how to separate
Aperture.
entities no matter how precisely they are stacked.

Select by Color
1. On the File toolbar click Open .
2. Browse to CC3’s Tutorials\UserManual folder, then select Selection.FCW.

List
List reveals a plethora of
information about the
We see a row of colored blocks here, but in fact, entities that are selected.
each box is a stack of three entities placed This information includes:
precisely on top of each other. The label below Entity type, Color, Layer,
each box indicates what property is different for Line Style, Fill Style, Line
one of the three entities in that stack. We’re going Width, Tag number, Pen
to use the Selection menu to isolate that entity Width, Color 2, Smoothing
and pull it out of the stack. Method, Parameters,
Dimensions, and Nodes.
3. From the Info menu, select List. Click to
select the magenta 'by Color' box. Right click, Color 8
then select Do it.
Note the colors of the 3 entities. We have The numbers are taken from
color 8, color 6, and color 3. We're going to the CC3+ color palette.
pull the color 3 (blue) entity out of the stack. Each position on the palette
has a corresponding
Close the List window.
number.
4. Click Move then click to select the
magenta 'by Color' box.
Right click, Highlight Combine, then select
And out of the side menu. Right click, then
select Color. Type 3 then hit . Right click,
then select Do it. Click on the center of the 'by

51
 Color' box to pick up the selected entity. Move the cursor down a bit then click to place it.
Selected Entity
When we click to select the 5. Click Redraw .
‘by Color’ box, we have We have now pulled the blue box out of the stack. If we check List on the magenta
actually selected 3 entities box again, we'll see that only two entities remain in the original position.
according to the command
prompt. When we execute
the selections Combine- Select by Fill Style
And, Color, 3, Do it, we are We can use fill style in very much the same way we used color to isolate an entity.
telling CC3+ that of the 3
entities selected, we want 6. From the Info menu, select List. Click to
to keep (Combine-And) only select the blue 'by Fill Style' box. Right
the entities that are color click, then select Do it.
(Color) 3 (3). Do it executes The List information shows that all three
the command. colors are the same, so we can’t use color
to isolate an entity. We can see, however,
Right Click that two of the entities are Solid fill style
and one entity is Rock Fill. Let's pull that
In this case, we're right
clicking one more time to Rock Fill entity out of the stack. Close the
open the Fill Styles dialog so List window.
we can select the fill style
7. Click Move then click to select the
out of the drop down menu.
Instead of right clicking blue 'by Fill Style' box.
again, we could have typed Right click, Highlight
'Rock Fill' at the command Combine, then select
prompt like we typed '3' to And out of the side
select color in Select by menu. Right click,
Color. highlight More. Select Fill Style
out of the side menu. Right click,
Entity then select the
Symbol Fills tab.
Let's think about what we Open the Fill Style
did. We selected the blue Name drop down
box which was actually 3 menu, then select
entities. We told CC3+ that, Rock Fill. Click OK. Right click, then select Do it.
of the entities we have Click the center of the blue 'by Fill Style' entity to
selected, we want to keep pick up the entity. Move the cursor down a bit,
(Combine-And) the entities then click to place the entity. The steps make it
that are fill style (More-Fill seem more complicate d, but we really aren't
Style) Rock Fill (Symbols
doing much differently than selecting by Color. By
tab-Rock Fill)
using the right click Selection menu, we tell CC3+
to keep only the Rock Fill entities.)

8. Click Redraw .

Each of the other examples—by Layer, by Entity Type and by Line Style—are performed
the same as we did for color and fill style. Using the same techniques, we can isolate the
different entity in each stack on which to execute a command.
What happens, though, if all the properties are exactly the same? There could be times in
your mapping experience when you have two identical paths or have laid two of the same
symbol on top of each other. The properties such as color, fill style, layer, line style, and
entity type will be identical. What do we do in that case? If all else fails, there is always Entity Tag#.

By Entity Tag#
Each and every entity that is added to a drawing is given an entity tag number. Even if all other
properties are identical, the entity tag# will be unique. For our last example in this exercise, let’s pull
out an entity by tag number.

9. From the Info menu, select List. Click to select the orange 'by Entity Tag' box. Right click, then
select Do it.

52
 According to List, our entities are identical in every
way with the exception of the entity tag number. They
are numbered 92, 93, and 94. Let's grab number 92
and pull it out of the stack. Close the List window.

10. Click Move then click

to select the orange 'by
Entity Tag' box. Right click,
highlight Combine, then
select And out of the side
menu. Right click, then
highlight More. Select
Entity Tag# out of the side
menu. Type 92 then hit
. Right click, then select Do it. Click on the
center of the 'by Entity Tag' box to pick up the
selected entity. Move the cursor down a bit then
click to place it.

11. Click Redraw .

If we check List on the orange, by Entity Tag box again, we'll see that only two entities
remain in the original position.

What about Not?

We can narrow our selection by using Not with the same techniques we
used for And. When using And, we specify which attributes we want to
keep. When using Not, we can specify which attributes we want to
discard.

Let’s use Not and apply the Selection menu methods to a situation in
which we may find ourselves during a mapping session.

Selection by Not
In an ordinary mapping session, we may have drawn a landmass
only to decide that we want to change the color or fill style. The
landmass entity has an outline and it is quite impossible using the Do It
pick cursor to select the landmass without selecting the outline, too.
The steps are nearly
We’ll use Not to isolate only the landmass entity.
identical to the operation
12. From the Info menu, select List. Click to select the landmass. we did with Add, but in this
Right click, then select Do it. case, we told CC3+ to
discard entities with the
specified property instead of
Looking at keeping it. In this case, we
our two entities, we find that color and fill told CC3+ that of the
style are different. The landmass is Solid fill entities we had selected, we
style and color 122. The outline is Hollow wanted to discard
fill style and color 0. We have choices using (Combine-Not) the entities
And or Not and color or fill style. Since we that are color (Color) 0 (0).
want to use Not for this exercise, let’s use
Not by color. Close the List window.
Change Properties
13. Click Change Properties then
In this dialog, we can select
click to select the landmass entity.
which properties to change
Right click, from the Combine and what to change them to
submenu select Not. Right click, then in one step. The check boxes
select Color. Type 0 then hit . allow us to select which
Right click, then select Do it. properties of the selected
entity to change, and the
fields and drop down lists
The Change Properties dialog opens. allow us to designate what
to change those properties
to.

53
 14.Click to put a check in the Color box then type 90 in the #
field. Click OK.

15.Click Redraw .

Using the Selection menu, we left the outline unchanged and only affected the landmass entity

Node Editing
Endpoint
What is a node? A node is basically a point - a one-
An endpoint is, as you might dimensional location specified by its (x,y)
have guessed, the end node coordinates. Each endpoint or vertex in a path or
on a line or path. For a polygon is a node. For example, while drawing a
circle, the endpoint is at the path or a polygon, each time we click, we’re
quarter-circle. For an ellipse, inserting a node at that point. We can edit these
it is at each axis. nodes to change the shape of the entity we created.
Let’s do a short exercise to explore the single node
edit commands.

1. On the File toolbar click Open .

2. Browse to CC3+’s Tutorials\UserManual
folder, then select Node Edit.FCW.

Here we have a simple path. Each numbered dot on

the path represents a node. We’ll use the node
editing commands to affect the nodes and, as a
result, the course of the path will be changed.

3.From the Info menu, select List. Click to

select the path. Right click, then select Do
it.
Using List, we can see the location of the nodes
for this path. Note the x,y positions before we
begin and we can compare after we edit the
nodes. Close the List window.

Node Edit
4. Click Node Edit then click on the node labeled 3. Click on the dot labeled A.
Right click to end the command.
The node that was 3 is now at A, and the course of the path has been changed as a
result.

54
Insert Node
5. Click Insert Node then click on the path between 2 and 3. Click on the dot
labeled B.
We inserted a node that wasn’t there before, and by placing that node at point B, we
altered the course of the path. Notice that the path no longer goes through the point
labeled 3. This is because we moved the node that was located there to A.

Delete Node
6. Click Delete Node then click on the node labeled 6.
The node that was at 6 is no longer there and, as a result, the course of the path has
been changed.
If we look at List now, we can see that the
x,y positions of the nodes are different than
they were when we started. We moved
one, we added one and we deleted one.
Each change to the nodes has altered the
course of
the path.
This short
exercise has
enabled us
to explore
the single node edit commands. These commands can be used to
edit other entities such as polygons. When drawing a map, we can
use node edit commands to adjust the course of a river, for example.

Editing Polygons
All the entities we draw Shape
have nodes. These nodes
dictate the shape of that entity no matter if it is a path or The reference points shown
in this exercise are points
a polygon. Let’s use the node editing commands to
picked at random to
change the shape of a polygon.
demonstrate the effect of
The polygon we have here could be a landmass in a the node editing commands
drawing. After it was drawn, we decided we wanted to on the polygon. By using
change the shape without having to redraw the whole reference points in the
landmass. Let’s use the node editing commands to change exercise, your results should
the shape. match the illustrations
shown. The node editing
7. Click Node Edit then click on the dot labeled C. commands could be used
anywhere around the
While holding the node on the cursor, move the perimeter of the polygon to
cursor around in the View Window to observe how change the shape as
the polygon changes shape. needed.
Click on the dot labeled F. Right click to end the
command.

8. Click Redraw .

9. Click Delete Node then click on the dot labeled

D.

10. Click Redraw .

55
 11. Click Insert Node then click on the dot labeled E.
Click Each While holding the node on the cursor, move the cursor
around in the View Window to observe how the polygon
If you click and miss a path,
changes shape.
the command ends. If this
happens, just right click to Click on the dot labeled G.
relaunch the command,
12. Click Redraw .
click the blue path to
reselect it, and continue.
By using the node edit commands, we were able to alter the
shape of the landmass entity without having to redraw it.

Trimming
As we draw in CC3, we’ll have occasion to trim entities to fit or trim them with precision to meet a
boundary such as a border or another entity. We have trim commands that make these tasks quick
and easy.

13. On the File toolbar click Open .

14. Browse to CC3+’s Tutorials\UserManaul folder, then select Trims.FCW.

Trim to Entity
We can use Trim to Entity when trimming to a
boundary or border or when trimming to another
entity. In these exercises, the blue path will be the
entity to which we will trim using the various trim
commands.

15. Click Trim to Entity then click the blue

path in exercise 1. Click each of the black
paths in succession and note how the path
trims to the chosen entity. In this example,
we clicked each of the black paths across the
bottom of the exercise.

Trimming Navigation Lines

A common use for Trim to Entity would be to trim
navigation lines in a drawing. Let’s use Trim to
Entity to trim the nav lines in our exercise drawing.
Pretend that the blue rectangle is our map border.

16. Click Trim to Entity then click the blue path

at the top of the map border. Look at the nav
lines radiating from the cluster. Click on the nav
lines that look like they will intersect with that
top map border path.
17. Repeat Trim to Entity on the other 3 sides of the
map border.In each case, select the map border
side and then trim the nav lines that will
intersect it.

Trim to Intersect
For exercise 2, we’ll look at Trim to Intersect. This
command takes two intersecting paths and trims
them where they meet.

18. Click Trim to Intersect then click the first two

of the black paths in exercise 2. Click to repeat the
command, then click on the second pair of black
paths. In this example, we clicked each of the paths
across the bottom of the exercise. As with the

56
 previous exercise, the paths don’t have to actually cross to
trim them to intersect. They just have to be on an
Across the Bottom
intersecting course.
Click Undo twice, then try
the exercise again, but this
Break time clicking across the top
Using Break, we take a chunk out of a of the paths to observe the
path or poly. different results.

19. Click Break then click on the

first black path in exercise 3. The
Command Prompt reads Break starts
at point:. Click the first path where one
of the blue paths intersects it, then click
where the other blue path intersects it.
Right click to repeat the command, then
do the next black path. This command
is useful for cutting openings in walls.
Blue Paths
Split The blue paths in this
Split cuts a line or path into two pieces. It will also cut a rectangle into a exercise are guidelines only
path or circle into an arc. Split is not a command that will change the so your results will look
appearance of things in the drawing, so to see the effects of Split, lets look similar to our example. The
at the path in exercise 4 with List first. path can be broken
anywhere along its length.
20. From the Info menu, select List. Click to select path in exercise 4. Right
click, then select Do it. The entity in exercise 4 is a single path with two
nodes. Close the List window.

21. Click Split then click on

the path. The Command
Prompt reads Split entity
at point:. Click somewhere
along the length of the path.
When we look at the drawing, it
doesn’t appear that anything Select Both Paths
changed, so let’s look at the
Because there are now two
resulting split with List.
paths instead of one, we’ll
22. From the Info menu, select have to click to select each
List. Click to select both of them, or we’ll click off the
paths in exercise 4. Right path to open a selection
window that will
click, then select Do it.
encompass both paths.
Even though there is no change
we can see in the drawing, List
shows us that Split, in fact, split
the single path into two paths.

Trim
Using Trim, we can cut off the end
of a path.

23. Click Trim then click on

the bottom of the first black path in exercise 5.
The Command Prompt reads Trim to point
[pick point]:. Click where the blue path
intersects the first black path. Right click to
repeat the command, then do the next black
path.

57
 Editing with Drawing Tools
Drawing tools not only let us draw, they also let us edit entities in our maps. Let’s look at some edits
we can do using drawing tools.

Edit
Let’s pretend we’ve drawn a landmass entity in our map. We
liked it at first, but as the map progressed, we decided we
wanted to add to the landmass to alter its shape. We don’t need
to completely redraw it. We can edit it using the drawing tool
we used to create it.

1. On the File toolbar click Open . Browse to CC3+’s

Tutorials\UserManual folder, then select First Map-
06.FCW.

Here is our map in progress. Let’s add a peninsula to the

coastline.

2. Click Default Landmass .

The Command Prompt reads Fractal polygon: First point (E-Edit):. Type E. The
Command Prompt now reads Pick start node and the cursor changes to a Pick
Copy cursor. Click on the coastline at a place where you want
the peninsula to start.
From the Edit menu, select
Copy. This is a different Once we’ve clicked to pick a start point, the Command
Copy than the Copy button. Prompt reads Next point (DEL – back, Space –
This Copy copies the Randomize, L/R Arrows – Depth, U/D Arrows –
selected entities to the Strength, T – Trace):. Draw the peninsula. When you’ve
clipboard whereas using the almost completed the new coastline, right click just
Copy button only copies the before you reach the old coastline. The Command
selected entities into the Prompt reads Pick end node to connect to:. Click on
drawing. This command can the old coastline in the place you wish the new
also be accessed by right peninsula to end.
clicking the Copy button,
then selecting Copy to 3. Click Redraw .
Clipboard. With very little fuss, we’ve added a new section of coastline to the existing
When doing a clipboard landmass.
copy, make sure to pay close
attention to the prompt. A
common mistake is to Trace
ignore the prompt for Let’s pretend for a moment that we want to take a regional map and pull a section out of it to create
clipboard origin, thus a local, area map. We copy and paste the section of the map we want to show in detail into a new,
ending up with nothing on appropriately sized map, but now we have edits to do. We have the section of the map we want in
the clipboard. The clipboard our new map, but we also have the bulk of the land and sea entities extending outside the map
origin prompt may seem border, and we don’t want that. Let’s get rid of those by using Trace to duplicate the sections of the
strange or unnecessary at entities we want to keep, and then erase the originals.
first, but it is of vital
importance when you need 1. On the File toolbar click Open . Browse to the
to paste something at a Tutorials\UserManual folder, then select Local
precise location.
Map.fcw.
We’ll start with the land entity. We’ll use the same drawing
tools we used to create the entities with, only this time, we’ll
Point A use the Trace function to recreate the section of the
Point A, B, C and D is not an polygon we want to keep.
exact location. It is simply a
spot above the top of the 2. Click Default Landmass then click at point A in
portion of the entity we our example.
want to trace and outside
the template so the
The Command Prompt now reads Next point (DEL – back, Space – Randomize,
landmass tool ‘sets’ to the
map border. L/R Arrows – Depth, U/D Arrows – Strength, T – Trace):. Type T. The Command
Prompt now reads Entity to trace:. Click somewhere on the coastline to select the
landmass entity. The Command Prompt reads Starting point of portion:. Click at
the top of the landmass (where the coastline meets the map border) where we want

58
to start the trace. The Command Prompt reads Ending point of
portion:. Click at the bottom of the landmass where we want the
drawing tool to stop tracing. Click at point B in our example and
then click at point C and finally point D. Right click to end the
command.

3. Click Send to Back . Right click, select Prior, then right

click, select Do it. This step takes the landmass entity we just
drew and pushes it to the back of its sheet.

4. Click Default Terrain then select Terrain Default,

Farmland. Repeat the steps in step 2, but this time, trace the
two farmland entities, one at a time. Outside the Template
5. Click Erase then select the landmass entity, the shallow sea entity and the farmlands Click to select them at
entity outside the template. points outside the map
borders of our current
6. Click Trim then select the river that runs near Snowport. Trim it at the map border. Repeat template. We want to erase
the process for the 3 roads. the entities we copied over,
We now have an area map extracted from our regional map. The text will need to be adjusted, and not the ones we just drew.
the symbols might need to be tweaked a little for scale and placement, but the hard part of the
process is complete using the Trace options of the drawing tools. We have land and sea entities
that are contained within the borders of our Trim it
template.
When selecting an entity to
We can click Numeric Edit , select a text label trim, we must remember to
select it by clicking on the
and then click Properties to adjust the size and font
part of it we wish to keep. If
of the text in our new area map. We can also use
you select the entity by
Fractalise on our coastline to add detail to it, clicking on the part outside
but this is a bit more involved since the landmass the map border instead of
contains of two entities (the main landmass, and the the inside, that is the part
outline). which would remain.

To finish up, use Scale on the symbols to fit

them on the new map, and add additional detail as
appropriate. You may also find that you need to
move the roads a little bit as you scale down the
symbols, which gives you a perfect opportunity to
use the Node Edit command from earlier. The map in the image is very far from done, but the
extraction process from the larger map is done, now all we need to do is to fill out all the extra
detail that the regional map didn’t show.

Editing Review
• Entities that are selected for edits can be filtered by using the And or Not functions of the
Selection menu.

• The editing buttons, like most other buttons on the interface, can be right clicked to open a list
of more options for that command.

• Using node edits, we can alter the shape of paths and polygons.
• Trim commands allow us to edit entities to fit precisely or alter their length and shape.

• Using Drawing Tools, we can trace or edit existing entities in the drawing.

• Watch the Command Prompt. It will tell you what options you have and what input CC3+ is
waiting for from you.

59
 SHEETS AND EFFECTS
One of the very exciting changes in CC3 over CC2Pro was the way CC3 used sheet effects in our
drawings. CC3+ expands on this by introducing additional effects and improved performance. These
effects can transform ordinary drawings into something quite extraordinary. Before we look at the
effects themselves, let’s look at sheets and see how sheets work in our drawings.

Sheets
Symbols or entities placed with drawing tools are placed on an appropriate sheet such as SEA or
LAND FEATURES. Entities added using draw buttons are placed on the current sheet. Sheets can be
thought of as a stack of transparent pages. Like layers, sheets can be hidden or shown. Unlike layers,
however, all entities on each sheet are sorted into order by sheet name. Layers do not dictate entity
order whereas sheets force entity order. When we use Reorder commands like Bring to Front
or Send to Back , the entities can only be reordered within the confines of their sheet.

Let’s begin by looking at sheets and how

they work in a drawing. Click Open
and then browse to the
Tutorials\UserManaul folder. Select
Example.fcw, then click Open.
We see here a small overland map. If we
click the Sheets indicator
, we see the list
of sheets that are in this drawing.

COMMON Sheet Order

For the sake of these The order in which the sheets appear is specific. The
tutorials and explanations, Drawing Sheets dialog shows us that COMMON is
we’ll refer to COMMON as a listed first, followed by a long list of sheets. This tells
sheet, but understand that us that when CC3+ displays our map, it first draws the
COMMON isn’t truly a entities on the COMMON sheet. Then it starts with
sheet. Rather, it is that the next sheet (SEA in our example), and draws that
which is not on any sheet. It on top of what it has already drawn. CC3+ then
cannot have effects applied proceeds down the list of sheets, always drawing the
to it, and it cannot be next one on top of the previous sheets. This means
deleted or hidden. For best that entitles on sheets at the bottom of the list is
results, do not put entities drawn on top of entities from higher up sheets.
on COMMON.
In this drawing, any entities added to the SYMBOLS
sheet, for example, will always be on top of all entities
on the SEA sheet and the LAND sheet as well as all
other sheets above it on the Drawing Sheets list; and
they will always be under all entities on the MAP
BORDER sheet as well as all other sheets below it on
the Drawing Sheets list.

60
If we look at the main sheets individually, we see that each sheet is a transparent ‘page’ that holds
its own entities.
When stacked together, these transparent ‘pages’ form our map.

Sheets
Managing Sheets
If you just want to hide or show sheets, use the checkbox controls to make any one sheet current, There is no practical limit to
or to hide/show any sheet. the number of sheets a
drawing can contain. A
Rename allows us to change the name of a sheet in the list. Click the sheet name to highlight it, single drawing can
then click Rename. Type in the new sheet name, then click OK. accommodate over 30,000.

Add allows us to add a new sheet to the drawing. Click Add, type in the new sheet name, then click
OK.
Delete allows us to remove a sheet from the drawing. Click the desired sheet name to highlight it, Delete
then click Delete. Click Yes. All entities on the sheet will
Move Up/Move Down allow us to reorder the sheets in the drawing. Click to highlight the desired be deleted from the drawing
along with the sheet itself.
sheet, then click Move Up or Move Down as many times as necessary to move the sheet into the
This edit cannot be undone.
desired order position.
Make certain that you are
Show All allows us a quick way to reveal all hidden sheets rather than have to click to remove the prepared to delete a sheet
Hide status from each individual sheet. before you click Yes.

Let’s create a new sheet, put entities on it and then move the sheet in the sheet order. Either open
up the overland map you have been working on throughout this manual, or my map from Reveal All
Tutorials/UserManual/First Map-11.FCW. You may remember that the last thing we did with this
map was to add a map title in the top right corner (see page 40). The background for this title does This function comes in
cover up the map a bit and it does look a bit harsh, so let us start by using some effects to soften it handy if we’d checked the
up. Auto hide all sheets except
current and Common box in
1. Click Sheets and Effects . Select the TITLEBOX sheet in the list, and then make sure order to work on a particular
Activate Sheet Effects is checked. sheet and we now want to
The list to the right showing the currently configured effects for this sheet is blank, meaning that reveal all sheets.
there are no effects defined yet. Let us rectify that.

2. Click the Add… button at the right-hand side of the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialog to
add an effect to the currently selected sheet. In the Add Effect dialog that shows up, pick

61
 Edge Fade, Inner from the list. The effect gets chosen immediately upon clicking on it, so if
you happen to miss-click, simply click Cancel in the
Edge Width
resulting dialog and do this step again.
If you look at the finished 3. In the Edge Fade, Inner configuration dialog that pops
effect, you can see that the up, set an Edge Width of 1 unit, an Inner Opacity of
outer edge of the title
82% and an Outer Opacity of 0%. Also make sure to
background seems to fade
select Map Units as the Effect Units, and enable
into nothingness. Most of
the shape uses the opacity High Quality.
value specified under Inner 4. Click OK to close and confirm the Edge Fade, Inner
Opacity, but the edge area, dialog, make sure there is a checkmark next to
as defined by the edge Redraw on OK, then click OK to close the Drawing
width, have a variable Sheets and Effects dialog.
transparency slowly moving
from the Inner Opacity to
the Outer Opacity value. In The background for the title text should now be a bit transparent, allowing the map behind to shine
this case, we used it to have through. You have just added the first custom effect to the map.
it fade away at the edge,
but we could have set the
Outer Opacity to 100%
instead which would have
caused it to end in a solid
edge instead.

Let us play a bit more around with the sheets and effects, and see what we can do with the grid.

5. Click Sheets and Effects .

This example already has a GRID sheet. We wish
to delete the existing one and create a new one,
as this removes any entities on the sheet, as well
as remove any effects specified. Select the GRID
sheet in the list, then click Delete. Confirm the
deletion by clicking Yes.
Now, click Add. Type GRID, then click OK. Be
sure GRID is selected as the current sheet, then
click OK.

62
 Color Bar
6. Click color 2 (red) on the Color Bar.
The color bar on the left
7. Click Grid . In the Grid Overlay dialog, select Square shows a number of colors
grid. For Grid size and input Grid spacing of 10. Uncheck from a total palette of 256
Labeling outside and then uncheck Labeling. Uncheck Set colors. The current color is
snap grid options. Click Apply. marked with a heavy black
border. Use the Color Bar to
select a different color at
any time, even in the middle
of drawing or editing.
Alternately, we can click the
Color Indicator and select a
color out of the complete
palette.
If you can't see the color
bar, click the Screen
Tools button, and
click to place a left-facing
arrow in the Color bar box.

Labeling
If you uncheck Labelling
before you uncheck Labels
outside and Labels in cells,
these options will be grayed
out, but they will still be
applied to the new grid.
We now have a grid on our map. Let’s order the sheets to put the grid Make sure to uncheck these
below the symbols. individually if you don't
want them.
8. Click the Sheet indicator . With GRID
highlighted, click Move Up several times to position the GRID sheet
above the SYMBOLS sheet in the Drawing Sheets list. Click OK.

9. Click Redraw .

63
 We could be done with the grid at this point, but let’s say we want to make the grid less bold. We’ll
begin our exploration of sheet effects by making the grid semi-transparent.

10. Click Sheets and Effects . In the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialog, be certain the GRID
sheet is highlighted. Click to check the Activate Sheet Effects box, then click Add. Out of
the list of effects in the Add Effect dialog, click Transparency. In the Transparency dialog,
Add set Opacity (%) to 30. Click OK. Click OK.

Do not confuse the Add

button for effects located at
the right-hand side of the
By making it semi-transparent, our grid is now much less
dialog box with the Add
intrusive now.
button for sheets, located at
the left-hand side.

64
Many of the drawings we do will be on templates which have preloaded effects. This makes it quick
and easy to produce nice looking drawings. There will come times, however, when we want to add
Effects
a sheet to that preloaded template and that new sheet might need effects applied. Let’s look at
effects and what they do for our drawings. Each Sheet in the drawing
can have several effects.
The effects settings are
Effects saved with the drawing.
We know that CC3+ drawings are divided up into a stack of sheets. On each
sheet are CC3+'s drawing entities. For each sheet, we can specify one or
more effects to be applied to that sheet. Each sheet is added to the screen
in order, but before it is added CC3+ applies any effects we have specified
for that sheet. When CC3+ has combined all the sheets into a single image,
it applies any effects specified for the Whole Drawing.

About Units
Note that many of the effects takes their size in units. Most of the effect dialogs which uses this
Global Sun
measurement also have an Effects Unit selector where you can choose exactly how the term units
is interpreted for this specific effects. The default in most cases is map units. Overland maps usually
doesn’t use everything the
global sun has to offer, most
Global Sun of the options in this dialog
Several of the effects that involve lighting will allow you to use the is mainly used with the City
global sun, or to set the light source properties manually. By using the Designer 3 addon.
global sun, you will ensure that all effects use the same lighting value,
and you can easily change all the lighting by changing a single value.

To access the Global Sun, right click the Sheets and Effects button.
The global sun is used for several different purposes, so not everything
in this dialog will be useful for all effects. Use Azimuth to set the
horizontal angle of the sun, and Inclination to set the vertical angle.
Intensity controls the strength of the light.

Adjust Hue/Saturation
Hue, Saturation, Lightness (HSL) is way Color Wheel
of representing colors. This effect A color wheel is an
adjusts the hue, saturation and lightness organization of color hues
values of every pixel. around a circle which shows
Hue is the angle of the color and the the relationships between
colors considered to be
color wheel.
primary colors, secondary
Saturation is the intensity of a specific hue. A highly saturated hue has a colors, complementary
vivid, color, while a less saturated hue appears more grey. colors, etc.

Lightness is the perceived amount of light in color. A high value tends

towards white, and a low one towards black. This effect is usually applied to
an entire drawing rather than on a single sheet.

Bevel
Bevel gives and illusion of depth to edges. It
adds a dark area to edges facing the lower
left corner of the screen and a light area to
edges facing the top left corner of the
screen. The edge of the bevel can be faded
to appear curved, and the color of the bevel
inverted to invert the 3D effect. Although
the tops of real walls are not usually beveled,
a bevel in a drawing shows that the wall is
3D, and can look very nice. Cylindrical objects also benefit from long, fading
bevels.

65
 Parameters
Appear Sunken Length is the length of the bevel in units.

This only works if there are For Strength, increase this value to decrease the transparency of the bevel. Increasing the number
other visual queues such as makes the light and shadow appear bolder.
a drop shadow to show
where the light is coming If Invert Colors is checked, it makes the area appear sunken instead of raised.
from, otherwise it just For Fade, increasing values cause stronger fading of the bevel towards the inside of the edge. The
appears that the light is
higher the number, the more rounded is the appearance.
coming from the opposite
direction.
Bevel, Lighted
This effect is essentially the same as Bevel
with the added ability to change the direction
of the light source.

Parameters
Bevel Size is width of the bevel in units.
Intensity is the amount that the base colors
show through the bevel.

Lightness Base refers to the final bevel color

which is computed as Sheet Color. Lowering
this value will control the overall darkness of
the bevel.
Lightness Range controls the range of the final bevel result. Making this
value smaller will result in less overall bevel effect.
Smoothing is used to remove artifacts from the bevel. Applying a
Smoothing value of 2 will generally smooth out these artifacts, but will
round out corners in the bevel slightly.

For Edge Fade, higher values cause stronger fading of the bevel towards the inside of the edge.
Check the box for Global Sun Direction to use the global sun direction setting rather than Azimuth
and Elevation.

Azimuth (0-360) is the horizontal angle of the sun in degrees measured counterclockwise from
east. This takes effect only if Global Sun Direction is unchecked.
Elevation (0-360) is the vertical angle of the sun in degrees measured counterclockwise from east.
Like Azimuth Light, this takes effect only if Use Global Sun is unchecked.

Blend Mode
Blend mode is used to
blend entities on the
current sheet with
those on the sheets
below this one in the
drawing order. You can use this to alter the
coloration of part of the below map, like placing a
circle with inverted or darkened colors.
Blend Mode: Select one of the available blend
modes. Normal will result in no blending, but all the
other options will mix the colors of the current sheet
with those of the below ones.
Opacity: This controls the transparency of the effect. 100% opacity means no transparency, and
results in the strongest mix, while increasing transparency will make the contribution from the lower
sheets less.

66
Blur
Blurring softens and removes noise, as well as
smoothing out hard edges between filled Blur
areas. This effect is frequently used for Blur is one of the slowest
backgrounds, water and contours to blend effects. A lot of blurs in the
areas of color and fill styles. When blur is used drawing will slow redraw
on the entire drawing, it can soften it. A blur time considerably.
of .01 on text might be just enough to antialias it.

Parameters
The Blur radius is the distance around each blurred pixel which is taken into
account. The larger this value, the slower the blur effect.

Blur, Alpha
Alpha Blur uses the color information in the entity
to create a glow around the entity. The entire
Bump Map
outer edge of the entity is affected, blurring an
area of equal area inside and outside the entity A bump map is a grayscale
border. image that represents
height data. These heights
This has several advantages over the regular are used to compute a
glow effect, as Blur, Alpha can create different normal map which is used
glow colors for different entities on the same sheet. Note that this effect is as described above. If you
quite resource intensive, so it should not be turned on while still working on don’t have a handy normal
the map map, using a grayscale
image as a bump map will
Parameters often work well.
Scale is the strength of the effect. Lower values gives a less pronounced,
highly transparent glow, while a high value gives a very visible opaque
glow.

Blur is the size of the glow, in units. The larger the value, the further from
the entity the effect will be visible.
Blur Color Data mixes the glow effect with the underlying image it was created from. This causes
the glow to look like a semi-transparent effect on top of the original entity.
Restore Image places a copy of the original image on top of the effect. Using this option causes the
inside glow on the entity to be hidden, and only the glow around the original image will be visible.

Color Key
This effect can make fully or
partially transparent any specific
color on a sheet. This is
commonly used along with a
green screen when making
videos to put characters into a
location filmed separately, but is very helpful in all instances when
you wish to insert anything into another image. This effect can also
be used to knock out parts of another entity.
Knock out Color is the color you wish to affect.

Replacement Opacity is the transparency you want on the affected

color. A value of 0 means that it will be invisible, while a value of
100 will negate this entire effect.

67
 Displace
Displacement This effect distorts pixels based on another
The displace filter works by sample image. Displace can be used to age or
using a displacement map erode the edge of walls or contours.
to compute the new pixel to
use at the current location. Parameters
Displacement Map Name is the filename of
the raster file to use.
Horizontal Displacement
Image is a bump map will indicate that the image is a bump map. If
Positive values here will unchecked, this item indicates that the item is a normal map.
displace the shadow to the
left of the entities. Enter a Displacement Amount is the size to scale the vector by. A displacement of
negative value for the 1 moves things 1 unit, 2 moves them 2 units, etc.
shadow to be displaced to
the right of the entities. Texture size is the size of a tile in units.

Drop Shadow
Vertical Displacement
Drop Shadow gives the impression that
Positive values here will entities are floating over the background by
displace the shadow above adding a shadow. This effect is primarily used
the entities. Enter a with text and cartouches to make them stand
negative value for the off the background.
shadow to be displaced
below the entities.
Parameters
Offset X is the horizontal displacement in
units.
Offset Y is the vertical displacement in units.
For Opacity, 0% is totally transparent (no effect).

Blur radius softens the edge of the shadow.

Edge Fade
Edge fade finds solid-filled areas on the
current sheet and fades them to or from the
edge. It has no effect on entities with non-
solid fill styles. This effect is ideal for political
borders in a map made up of solid-filled
regions.

Parameters
Distance is the width of the fading area.

If Invert Colors is unchecked it fades towards the interior, otherwise it fades

towards the edge.

Opacity refers to the opacity of the non-faded area.

68
Edge Fade, Inner
This effect is similar to Edge Fade, but with the
added ability to fade toward the middle or fade
toward the edge of the solid areas.

Parameters
Edge Width is the width of the effect in map units.

Inner Opacity is the opacity of the middle of the

solid area.
Outer Opacity is the opacity of the edges of the solid area.

Edge Striping
Edge striping takes a raster image and
repeats it around entities on the effected
sheet, such as a wall or coastline.

Parameters
Edge Image Map is the image to be striped
along the edges.
Size is how far from the edge the effect will
extend out to. Do note that the entire width
of the image will be used, so the image will be stretched to fit.
Blur allows you to add a blur effect to the striping

Striping Placement indicates if the striping should be on the outside or inside of the edges.

Glow
This effect adds a color halo around the
affected sheet. Glow can be used to offset text
or symbols from the background, or do an Value
outline outside a wall or landmass. The glow
will make a copy of the entity in the selected Color values are numbers
color. This is then blurred. Positive values here between 0 and 255
will displace the shadow to the left of the
entities.
Mode gives us the choice of Inside for the
glow to be in the interior of the shape or
Outside to be outside the shape.

In Glow Color, click the colored area to choose a color from the palette, or type an RGB value.
Strength adjusts the density of the glow. 0 gives a minor effect.

Blur Radius sets the width of the glow.

Inner Glow
This effect creates a glow inside an entity which
is less graduated than Glow.

Parameters
Blur Size sets blur width.
Input into R, G, and B the RGB values of the glow
color or click the color swatch to pick a color from
the palette.
Set Opacity between 0 and 100%.

Brightness lightens the glow.

69
 Outer Glow
Effects This effect is similar to Inner Glow, but is
If you’re familiar with Paint applied to the outside of an entity
Shop Pro's® User Defined instead of the inside.
Filters, this works in the
same fashion. Parameters
Blur Size sets blur width.

Current Pixel Input into R, G, and B the RGB values of

the glow color or click the color swatch to pick a color from the
This effect changes each palette.
pixel's color based on its
current color and the colors Set Opacity between 0 and 100%.
of surrounding pixels. The
effect each surrounding Range controls the size of the glow.
pixel has is defined in the
filter matrix. Each pixel's RGB Matrix Process
color value is multiplied by
the coefficient in the matrix This effect adjusts the color of the pixels in
center, and any pixels the affected region. It gives you a linear
within the matrix are combination of the input RGB color
multiplied by the components. This technique lets you
corresponding coefficients. perform color conversions such as sepia
The sum of the products tone, grayscale, pure red, pure blue, pure green, and so on. There are many
becomes the target pixel's possible combinations of operations, but the important idea is that it's one
new value. For a good pixel in, one pixel out. You can also use this filter to darken or lighten an
tutorial on how to create image. The predefined values are commonly used to make the whole
user defined filters in Paint drawing greyscale, or sepia.
Shop Pro which applies
equally well to CC3+, try
Parameters
Lori's Web Graphics
(http://loriweb.pair.com/ The drop list for Predefined on the bottom of the RGB Matrix Data Entry dialog has a number of
howto.shtml). presets, including sepia.

Load loads a saved setting.

Save saves the current setting.

Screen Border
CC3+ can't calculate certain effects — for
example, a drop shadow — from
something off the active window. To
make sure maps look fine in your drawing
window and prints, you can add an
opaque border to the active window. If
you are printing a particular view of a
map, and you can see an edge effect you
don't like, use an opaque white solid
sufficiently big to cover the problem up.
You can also use it to give a fake 3D
button to the edge of your screen by having the border opaque at the outside
fading to transparent on the inner edge.

Parameters
Width is the width of the border as a percentage of the screen width.
Outer Color is the color of the outside of the border.

Outer Opacity is the opacity of the outside of the screen border.

Inner Color is the color of the inside of the border.

Inner Opacity is the opacity of the inside of the screen border.

For Load and Save, you can save the current screen border and add existing ones.

70
Spatial Matrix Process (SMP)
This allows you to define a
multitude of different effects;
blurs, displacements, edge
effects, embossing and
brightness/darkness. This
effect has a wide variety of
uses, usually as a whole
drawing filter. There are a
number of saved settings,
and it is likely you will want
to use these. SMP works on a
pixel basis, so its effects will
vary with zoom levels. Most users will be content with preset values, or
slight modifications of them.

Parameters
Load and Save lets you load saved settings and save the current setting.
Filter matrix values represent the effect surrounding pixels have on the current pixel. They can be
any integer value.
Each value in the filter matrix is divided by the Division Factor before being applied to a pixel.

Unless you want an effect which darkens or lightens the image, you should click Calc Divisor.
Bias shifts the value of each pixel for use in emboss effects.

Texture Overblend
Texture Overblend replaces filled
areas with a selected tileable
texture, and fades that texture
towards its edge. This is useful for
background areas filled with
different fill styles, for example
grass contours. Each type of grass
contour would be on a different
sheet, with the Texture Overblend
file pointing at the correct bitmap
tile. Texture
If you have Paint Shop Pro®
Parameters on your system, you will find
many suitable texture files
In Texture Map Name, select any tileable png or bitmap file, for example
there, as well as online.
from your bitmaps\tiles folder.
Texture Scale sets each tile to be this size in units.

Texture Rotation allows you to rotate the texture used, for example to give some variation if you
use the same texture multiple times, or to match the angle of your entities.
Alpha Blur adds a blur to the edge of the area.

71
 Texturize
This effect adds a semi-transparent
pseudo-3D texture to the affected
area. This can be used, for example,
for adding a paper weave to a whole
map or adding textures to sold filled
areas for interest.

Parameters
Intensity is the strength of the
effect.

Brightness controls the brightness

of the texturized surface.

Size sets the size in units for each tile.

Texture Map Name lets us select a tileable texture.

If you check Global Sun, lighting will be calculated based on the Global Sun parameters, or you can
Symbol Sheets uncheck it to specify Azimuth and Elevation yourself.
Dungeon Designer 3 maps Sun Azimuth is the angle from above at which the texture is lit.
have different sheets for
symbols specifically so you Sun Elevation is the angle around screen from which the texture is lit.
can add different length
wall shadows to different Transparency
types of symbols which will
suggest different heights of Transparency lets us change the opacity of
the objects. entities on the sheet. This effect allows us to see
through entities. For example, add to a grid overlay
to make it less intrusive, or add to shallow water
sheets to show what is underneath. With
Transparency, we can make ghosts and oozes or
we can show what is underneath a forest.

Parameters
With Opacity set to 0, the entities are fully transparent. When set to 100, they are
fully opaque.

Wall Shadow
This effect adds a shadow to all appropriate
edges which looks as if it has been cast from a
vertical surface. This is different from Drop
Shadow in that Wall Shadow gives the illusion
that the entity is sitting on the ground rather
than hovering above it. This is specifically
designed for use with walls, although it works
pretty well on symbols sheets, too.

Parameters
Length is the length of the shadow.

Opacity sets the transparency or opacity from 0% (transparent) to 100%

(solid).

Blur Radius is the length of the blur at the edge of the shadow. For a sharp
edge on the shadow use a value of 0.

72
Wall Shadow, Directional
This effect is the same as Wall Shadow with Floorplan Lighting
the addition of allowing us to specify from Floorplan lighting effects
which direction our light source is coming. are used along with the
Dungeon Designer 3 addon.
Parameters Lighting allows us to define
light sources that cast light
Length is the length of the shadow.
in our map. Areas without
Opacity sets the transparency or opacity from light sources will be dark.
0% (transparent) to 100% (solid). See the documentation for
the DD3 addon for more
Blur Radius is the length of the blur at the details on how to add lights
edge of the shadow. For a sharp edge on the to your floorplan map.
shadow use a value of 0.
Check Use Global Sun Direction to use the Global Sun direction.

Sun Direction (0-360) sets the lighting direction measured in degrees of

rotation around the circle.

Wall Shadow, Point Light Finalize

This effect is a special effect for use
with floorplan lighting. Adding this
effect to a sheet tells CC3+ that this is
the last sheet effected by lighting.
Sheets after this sheet in the list will
show their entities normally, not
affected by light sources.
Shadow Color is the color of the shadow entities will cast. Slow CC3+ Down
Effects have been optimized
Wall Shadow, Point Light Setup compared with CC3, and
As with the Finalize effect above, this you should be able to work
effect is used with floorplan lighting. on your drawing with
Add this effect to the any sheet that effects on. If you find that
redraws take too much
should generate shadows from the
time, you’ll want to turn
light sources. This will cause all entities
effects off while working
on the sheet cast shadows from nearby
however.
light effects Note that if no light sources exist, these sheets will be
Editing drawings with
completely black. effects on can be tricky,
however. For example, it is
Parameters hard to select the edge of a
Shadow Length is the length of the shadows cast by entities. Shadows will fade out when they blurred contour line.
reach this length. A value of 0 will cause the shadows to be cast across the whole drawing

Shadow Color is the color of the shadows cast by the entities.

Working with Effects

Effects slow CC3+ down. Each time we change the view, CC3+ must recalculate the effects for the
current resolution. This allows effects to be very flexible and not limited in resolution, but it means
more work for your computer. CC3+ is more efficient than CC3 in this regard, so feel free to work
with effects turned on all the time, but if you finds that this slows down your work process, you may
consider this workflow instead:

• Add sufficient entities to the map that it is at least 50% finished.

• Click Sheets and Effects, and then check Activate Sheet Effects.

• Add suitable effects to each sheet. Check that you like the results after each effect.
• Finish with Whole Drawing effects if you want them.

• Repeat this until you are happy with the effects on the map.

• Turn effects off until you are ready to print or export the drawing.

73
 Effects Speed Tips
To speed things up when working on effects, try one or more of these tips:

• Hide sheets you don't need to see for the effect you are currently working on.

• Turn off individual effects you don't currently need to see.

• Blur, or any effect with a blur in is very slow. Add these last, and keep them turn off as much
as possible.

• Resize the viewing window to make it much smaller while you are working on effects.

Sheets and Effects Review

• Symbols or entities placed with draw tools are placed on an appropriate sheet such as
Sea/Coast or Terrain. Entities added using draw buttons are placed on the current sheet.

• Sheets force entity order, and can be hidden or shown in the drawing.
• Effects slow down the redraw time of drawing. Turn effects off while working with the drawing
and then turn them on for presentation or printing.

• When working with effects, hide sheets you don’t need to see to speed up redraws.

Italian Hill Town

This drawing was
created in CC3 with
the Perspectives
Pro™ add-on by Ralf
Schemmann. Ralf
created the drawing
using techniques
explained in
Issue05-Panicale
City of The
Cartographer’s
Annual 2007.
This style is available
with the
Perspectives 3
addon.

74
SYMBOLS AND SYMBOL MANAGEMENT Blank Catalog Template
CC3+ symbols are a group of entities that are bundled together as a single entity to represent objects
in our drawings such as trees, mountains, buildings, furniture, etc. Aside from being little graphical We’re creating the symbol
definition in a blank
representations of drawing objects, some symbols have certain attributes that dictate how they will
template so there are no
act and what functions they will perform. They are made available for use in the drawing in
extraneous entities in our
collections called catalogs.
symbol. Everything that is in
the template will get saved
Symbols in the symbol definition.
Ordinary templates have fill
In order to understand what symbols are, we have to understand the difference between a symbol styles and other such
definition and a symbol reference. To use symbols, we create a symbol definition that CC3+ stores niceties saved in them
in an invisible section of the current drawing file. Once the definition is stored, we insert images of which make creating maps
the symbol, called symbol references, throughout the drawing. It is the symbol reference that we easier, but these saved
see when we look at a drawing. The definition for that symbol is stored in the drawing and is not niceties are extraneous
visible. Because each reference is only an image of its symbol definition, we can add hundreds of entities in our symbol. Note
symbols without excessive memory usage. also that the View Window
color is orange in the
catalog. Symbol catalogs
Creating a Symbol Definition are distinguished from
A symbol definition, in its simplest form, is an entity or entities that are ordinary drawing templates
bundled together into a package and identified as a symbol. To create a by a different colored View
definition, we create, in essence, a drawing that we then store in a Window — usually orange
catalog. Let’s create a simple definition, save it to a catalog and then use or dark green.
it in a drawing. To begin, we’ll open a blank catalog template.
Prefix and Name
1. Click New . The New Drawing Wizard opens.
The prefix will be a part of
2. In Map Type, select Symbol Catalogs. Click to select Decide the symbol’s name. In this
settings myself. Click Next. case, I used UG and Box as
the prefix and name. You
3. In Map Style, select Blank Overland Catalog. Click Next. can use your initials for the
4. Accept the dimensions by clicking Next. prefix or use a word or
acronym to indicate the
5. Accept the map background settings by clicking Finish. style of symbols in the
6. In the Save your new map dialog, type in a file name, then click Save. catalog. Be aware that all
symbol definitions in a
7. Set the Status bar to match this: drawing must have unique
names so avoid plain
naming conventions that
8. Click Box . Type 0,0 then hit . Type 1,1 then hit . might be duplicated
between catalogs.
9. Click Zoom Extents .
Catalog
10. On the color bar, click color 15 (white).
This is a very simple catalog
11. Click Box . Type 0.1,0.1 then hit . Type 0.9,0.9 then hit . consisting of a single
symbol. If you were creating
a whole set of symbols, you
We’re created a very simple marker that we can now define as a symbol.
could draw all the symbols
12. From the Symbols menu, select Define Symbol. Select both entities we in the View Window and
drew then right click. Select Do It. In the Define New Symbol once they were all drawn,
dialog, set Bounding entity to none and set Origin to you’d then define them one
at a time. With the whole
Middle,Center.
catalog defined, you’d then
13. In the Name field, type in a prefix and name, then click OK. select all symbols in the
Symbol Manager and save
the catalog.
You will notice that the entities we drew are now gone from your
View Window. That’s okay. When we defined those entities as a
symbol, they were removed from the View Window and placed in
the Symbol Manager.

14. From the Symbols menu, select Symbol Manager. Click on the symbol to
highlight it, then click Save as Catalog. Type in a name for your catalog.
For simplicity’s sake, I named the catalog UG Box. Click Save.
Our symbol is now defined and ready to use in a drawing. Let’s use it.

75
 15. Click Open then navigate to the Tutorials/UserManual folder. In the Files of Type drop
Save Changes down menu, select CC3/CC2 FCW Drawing. Select Piadra_Gate.FCW, then click Open.
When CC3 asks you if you want to save changes to the existing drawing, you
You can select No when
can click Yes.
asked to save the map on
exit. Since we already
16. Click Symbol Catalog then navigate to the folder in which you saved
exported the symbol
your catalog. Select the catalog that was created out of our exercise, then click
catalog, the FCW itself with
the symbol in it is just a Open.
backup. The symbol we created is now in the Symbol Display column and ready to use.
17. Click to select the symbol and then place it in the map adjacent to the label
Aldenthorpe Ferry.
Adding the Definition
Simply clicking on a symbol
adds that symbol’s From Definition Creation to Reference
definition to the current Let’s recap the exercise we just did. First, we
drawing. Even if no created the symbol definition and saved it to a
references to that definition
catalog. Then we added the definition to the
are placed, the definition is
current drawing by clicking on the symbol from
still present until it is
the Symbol Display window. The last step we
purged. To purge
did was to add the symbol reference to the
extraneous symbol
definitions, open the drawing by placing the symbol into the map.
Symbol Manager, then click
Purge. Importing PNGs as Symbols
CC3+ allows us to import raster artwork and use them as symbols in our drawings. The raster files
you wish to use for a particular catalog or drawing need to be in a folder, preferably under the CC3+
Raster Artwork
data folder.
Each file should be a 16
million color BMP or PNG Importing PNGs from a Folder
image. The file name of
each image needs to be 28 We don’t have to create catalogs to import PNGs and use them as symbols in our drawings. We can
characters or less. simply open the folder and use them.

1. Click Symbol Catalog .

Symbols 2. In the Symbol Catalog dialog, browse to the
To import the symbols to a folder in which the images are stored. In this
blank symbol catalog, example, we’ve created a folder called My
follow the steps 1 through 6 Symbols in the Symbols/User folder.
on page 75 to open a blank
drawing using Blank Open the folder, then select any of the images stored
Overland or Blank Dungeon there, then click Open.
as is appropriate for your
artwork. Otherwise, import CC3+ will display in the Symbol Display window a
them into the drawing in thumbnail for each of the images in that folder. They can now be added to the drawing.
which you wish to use them.
Importing PNGs into a Catalog
By importing PNGs into a catalog, we have more
CC3+ Data Folder control over options like resolution and symbol
In the Symbols/User folder, origin. Follow the same guidelines as far as creating
create as many folders as a folder to hold the images and be mindful of
you need to keep your adhering to proper naming conventions for the files.
images sorted and give
them a permanent home so
1. In the Symbol menu, select Import pngs....
that they can be used in 2. Input the appropriate settings for the Import
future projects. bitmap files as symbol catalog dialog.

Source folder
Click Browse to find the folder in which the bitmap files reside. Select the appropriate path.

76
Options
The resolution of the image is the number of pixels divided by the real-world width. This setting Path
can be changed after the definition is created, so don’t stress over it. For overland symbols at the
same scale as the ProFantasy ones, use 20. Select Relative to CC3 path
if the folder holding the
Select the layer on which you wish the images in the symbols to appear. This is usually the SYMBOL images is in your CC3+ data
DEFINITION layer. folder. Select Relative to
current drawing if the folder
If you want to add symbol options, tick this box and then click Set to open the Smart Symbol holding the images is stored
Options dialog. You can always change individual settings in the Symbol Manager when import is in the same folder as the
complete. FCW in which they are used.
Select Absolute path if the
Create other resolutions folder holding the images is
separate from both the
We can create lower resolution files that CC3+ can use to speed up redraws. The Files are: CC3+ data folder and the
selection lets CC3+ know what resolution the imported files are - usually Very High (full resolution) FCW file.
or High (often the case with artwork from other software). Choose the folder you created prior to
step one as the output folder.
Resolution

Symbol Origin For example, if the image is

100x100 pixels and the
The symbol’s origin can be simply thought of as its ‘holding’ point. It is the point which is held by intended symbol will be of a
the cursor when placing the symbol. This is the point which will snap to the grid if Snap is turned Dungeon object that is 5’
on. across, then the resolution
will be 20 (100/5 = 20). In
Method this case, 20 pixels equals 1
foot in the drawing.
Method allows us to update an existing symbol catalog with just the new or changed PNGs or we
can rebuild the whole catalog.
Symbol Options

Bitmap Options Symbol Options lets us

define many of the behavior
Clicking Bitmap Options opens the Bitmap Options dialog. In options for symbols. For
this dialog, the transparency of the images to be imported is set. example, this is where we
Usually, Alpha transparency is set. This sets the transparency set the symbol as a member
according to alpha channel values. Select Opaque if you don’t of a collection, as well as
want any pixels in the images to be transparent. When which sheet the symbol
Transparent upper-left color is selected, the color equal to the belongs on.
pixel in the upper left corner of the images is set as transparent.
When Transparent RBG color is selected, the transparent color
equal to a specific RGB value is set. Lower Resolution Files
Uncheck Hide picture outline if you want an outline on the images. CC3+ will open another
program in the background
3. Click OK.
while other resolution files
The images are now defined as symbols in the Symbol Manager. They can be saved as a catalog,
are created. When this
or used in the current drawing by clicking Symbols in Drawing . process occurs, it may take
some time to complete.

Symbol Options
The symbol we have available to use and Origin
those we create can have many functions
and features that make it easier to manage For overland symbols, the
them or easier to place and use them in our origin is usually center
drawings. Now that we’ve explored what down; and for floorplan
symbols, it is middle left.
symbols are, let’s look at the options
available for them.
From the Symbols menu, select Symbol
Options....

77
 Symbol is one of a collection
A Letter Symbols put into a collection will be grouped together in expandable clusters in the
Symbol Display window. Symbols in a collection are designated by a + in the upper
This is generally used for left corner of the display thumbnail. The other settings control how the symbols are
free-standing Perspectives organized and selected from the collection.
Pro symbols. The letters at
the end are compass If Numbers at the end is bulleted, the symbol is one of a consecutive series which is numbered. For
directions--N, S, E, and W. example, symbols names would be Tree 01, Tree 02, Tree 03, etc.
Perspectives Pro is a CC3+
add-on which allows users If Letters at the end is bulleted, the symbol is one of a consecutive series which ends in a letter.
to create drawings in an
With the Randomly select from a collection option checked, symbols will be randomly selected
isometric view.
out of the collection during placement. This feature works well, for example, for placing different
trees to make more visually interesting forest without having to scroll through the catalog and
manually select each different tree symbol.

In this example, these trees are in a collection. The row seen here is the result of consecutive clicks
of the mouse.
With the Arrow keys select different symbols option checked, symbols from a collection can be
selected by scrolling through them using the arrow keys. This feature works well for selecting
symbols out of Perspectives Pro symbol catalogs or when the next symbol randomly selected is not
to your liking and you want to scroll passed it.

If Ignore initials at the end of a symbol name is checked, the collection will ignore a series of
letters at the end of the symbol name.

General Options
The Perspectives wall symbol (sheared) option is only set for Perspectives Pro
wall symbols. It causes them to shear (distort) when they align to a wall so they
align correctly in the 3D-like isometric view.
In this example, the door symbol is a Perspectives wall symbol. When the symbol
finds a wall entity, it distorts to match the angle of the wall and so aligns correctly
for placement.
A Varicolor symbol has a shaded varicolor scheme based on the color set as
current on the Status bar. Check this box to let CC3+ know it is a varicolor symbol.
Varicolor symbols have a small color box in the upper right corner of the display
thumbnail. For more information on varicolor symbols, see the help files.

Symbols set with Random Transformations selected and the Random Transformations Options
entered will place consecutively with random offset, rotate, scale, mirror or sheer properties.
Symbols with a random transformation option will have a small R in the top right of their thumbnail
in the symbol catalog window.

In this example, this tree symbol has its scale set for random transformation. On consecutive
placements, the symbol scales randomly within the scale parameters of .9 and 1.1. This helps avoid
Explode on Placement the dull uniformity that can arise when all the trees in the drawing are exactly the same size.

When exploded in a With Symbol is a connecting symbol checked, the symbols will allow you to drag
drawing, a symbol ceases to them along in a path. By using specifically constructed symbol catalogs, symbols
be a symbol. In the drawing, can be placed in straight or curving patterns to create walls, rooms and corridors as
it is broken into its easily as drawing a path. When a symbol is designated as a connecting symbol,
individual entities. there is a small c in the upper right corner of the display thumbnail. For more
information on Connecting Symbols, see the help files.
When symbols have Explode symbols on placement checked, they will automatically be
exploded on placement.

78
Checking the Hex Symbol option allows easy placement in a hex grid.

If Front on current layer is checked, the symbol will be placed in front of the top most entity on Control Points
the current layer, but below any entities which appear later in the drawing.
Control points are added to
When Convert Line Style names to Sheets is checked, upon placement in a drawing, the symbol regular symbols to create
will broken into its different entities and those entities will be applied to different sheets in the "smart symbols". Smart
drawing according to the Line Style names. This option is useful when making symbols that you symbols work intelligently
wish to break into separate sheets to have different effects applied to its various parts. with other straight-edged
CC3+ entities in that both
In this example, the mountain symbols on the left the symbol and the entity
have their fill color and the black outline entities are aware of each other
separated onto different sheets based on their Line during insertion. This
Style names upon placement in the drawing. The awareness allows the entity
sheet that receives the fill color has a blur effect to automatically create cuts
applied so when Effects are turned on, the symbols to accommodate the
look like those on the right. These are called 2 part symbol, or have the symbol
symbols. align or scale itself to fit
cleanly. Typical uses for
If Force Sheet is selected and the sheet designated, the symbol will always go to the specified sheet smart symbols would be
regardless of what the current sheet is in the drawing. doors and windows aligning
and cutting walls. For more
When Control points only cut on the same layer is selected, the control points for that symbol information on Smart
will only recognize entities on the layer on which it is applied. Symbols, see next page.
If Delete symbol after placement is checked, the symbol will be deleted after it is placed in the
drawing. Drawing Properties
To see the drawing
Symbol Parameters properties for the current
drawing, select Drawing
While holding a symbol on the cursor, if we right click, the Symbol Properties out of the File
Parameters dialog will open. This dialog gives us control over both menu.
the symbol we are holding and future symbols we'll place in the
drawing.
Set Scale

Scale Changing this value will

change the scale for the
Scale X and Y shows the current scale symbol currently being held
value. The usual default value is 1, but on the cursor as well as all
the current scale may be something symbols placed after this
other than 1 if the drawing properties one. The scale value will
set a different default scale value. remain until it is changed
Change this value to set the scale higher or lower. again or reset back to
default.
If Independent X and Y is checked, you'll be able to input a different X
and Y value.
In this example, the symbol is shown with the default value of 1 and
with two independent X and Y samples.

Rotation
The default rotation value is 0. With a 0 rotation, the symbol
will appear in the drawing as it does in the Symbol Display
Window. Each degree of rotation will turn the symbol
counterclockwise.

More
Clicking More will save the values and settings in the
Symbol Parameters dialog, close the dialog, and return to
the cursor with the symbol attached and ready to place in the
drawing.

Finished
Clicking Finished will save the values and settings in the Symbol Parameters dialog, the dialog
will close, but the cursor will now be empty.

79
 Set Normal
The default values for the Symbol Parameters dialog will be restored when Set Normal is clicked.

Mirror
If Mirror is clicked, the scale value changes to
-1 and the symbol is placed as a mirror image
of the original.
In this example, a mirror is placed next to its
original for comparison.

Align to edge
When Align to edge is clicked, CC3+
asks which edge you wish to align
the symbols to and then inputs the
appropriate rotation in the Symbol
Parameter dialog.

Smart Tracking
When this box is checked, the dynamic cursor is enabled with Smart Symbol awareness. The
symbol cursor will align, cut, or scale according to its defined control points. If this option is off, the
control points will still take affect unless the Disable SmartSym option is also off. If Disable
SmartSym is checked, then Smart Tracking will be disabled regardless.

Disable Smart Symbols

If this box is checked, control points functionality is turned off. Symbols will not align/cut/scale
upon insertion, and Smart Tracking is disabled.

Symbol Manager
As we’ve worked through the various exercises, we’ve opened the Symbol Manager to perform
specific functions. There are more functions there that we haven’t yet explored. The Symbol
Manager lets us control all aspects of symbol design and catalog manipulation. It displays all the
symbols in the current drawing or symbol catalog. Let’s open a symbol catalog in the Symbol
Functions
Manager and look at some of those other functions.
Some of the Symbol
Manager functions work on 1. Click Open .
a selection of symbols, In the Files of type drop down menu, select
others only on individual CC3/CC2 FSC Symbol catalog. Browse to the
symbols. You can select a Tutorials/UserManual folder, then select
single symbol in the list by SampleSymbols.FSC. Click Open.
left licking it. Hold down
SHIFT and click two symbols 2. From the Symbols menu, select Symbol
to select a range of symbol. Manager.
Click CTRL and click a Here we have a short catalog of some basic,
symbol to add it or remove monochrome symbols. We’ll use this sample catalog
it from the selection. To to look at the different Symbol Manager functions.
save the selected symbols as
a catalog, click Save as
Display Symbols
Catalog.
With this box checked, the symbols are displayed. If it is unchecked, there will be only a list of the
symbols names.

80
Show fill style symbols
If this box is checked, symbols used for fill styles in the current template Fill Styles
are displayed as well as the catalog symbols.
This catalog was created in
the blank template and so
New no fill style symbols are
New allows us to open an empty editing window to create a new symbol. present. Checking this box
in a mapping template will
3. Click New. In the Create New Symbol dialog, type a name for our reveal the fill style symbols.
new symbol. I used SampleCircle as my new symbol name. Click Ok.
Click in the lower left corner of the View Window, then click in the
upper right corner of the View Window. This will open an editing
window.
4. Click color 15 (white) on the color bar.

5. Click Circle . Type 0,0 then hit . Type 5,5 then hit .

6. Click Zoom Extents .

7. Click Outline in Black then click to select the white circle we just drew. Right click, then
select Do it.
Copied
8. Click Copy then right click. Select Prior then right click. Select Do it. Type 0,0 then hit
. Type 0,0 again then hit . Right click to end the command. Why did we copy the outline
onto itself? When a symbol
This last step copied the black outline onto itself. is held on the cursor waiting
9. Click Close on the editing window title bar. Select Yes when to be placed in the drawing,
asked if you want to save the changes. it is helpful to see an outline
of the symbol so that it is
10. Click Save . easier to place it where we
want it in the map. The
11. From the Symbols menu, reopen the Symbol Manager. Note that our outer edge of the CC3+
new symbol has been added to the existing catalog. symbol must have an odd
number of entities in order
Rename to see the symbol while it is
held on the curser. If it has
Rename allows us to select a symbol and change its name. an even number of entities,
12. Click to highlight the circle symbol we just made. it will be invisible on the
cursor and very difficult to
13. Click Rename. In the Rename Symbol dialog, type in a new name. I place accurately in the
renamed SampleCircle and made the new name Marker. Click OK. drawing. Our white circle
plus the black outline would
We’ll skip Edit for a moment and do Clone next. have been invisible on the
cursor. Adding the extra
outline made 3 entities and
Clone so it will be visible while
Clone allows us to create a copy of an existing symbol. being placed into a drawing.

14. Click to highlight the circle symbol we made.

15. Click Clone. In the Clone Symbol dialog, give the clone a different
name. I named my cloned symbol Marker 2. Click OK.

Edit
Edit allows us to take an existing symbol and open it in the edit window.

16. Click to highlight the circle symbol we cloned.

17. Click Edit. Click in the lower left corner of the View Window, then
click in the upper right corner of the View Window. This will open an
editing window.
18. Click color 0 (black) on the color bar.

19. Click Circle . Type 0,0 then hit . Type 2,2 then hit .
20. Click Close on the editing window title bar. Select Yes when asked if you want to save
the changes.

81
 21. Click Save .
22. From the Symbols menu, reopen the Symbol Manager. Note that our cloned and edited
symbol is in the existing catalog.

Delete
Delete is self-explanatory. We won’t demonstrate it here. To delete a symbol, highlight the symbol
you want to erase from the catalog and then click Delete. Click Save to save the catalog.

Scale
Scale allows us to resize a symbol in the Symbol Manager. To demonstrate Scale, we’ll put our two
marker symbols into the View Window. One was a clone of the other and so we know they are the
same size to begin with.

23. Click OK to close the Symbol Manager.

24. Click Symbols in Drawing then add Marker and Marker2 to the View Window.
Space them a little apart.
25. From the Symbols menu, reopen the Symbol Manager.
26. Click to highlight the Marker symbol, then click Scale. In the Scale Symbol dialog, type 2,
then click OK.
27. Click OK to close the Symbol Manager.

28. Click Save to save the catalog.

29. Click Zoom Extents if necessary to see the newly scaled symbol.
The marker symbol is resized in the View Window. Because the definition was resized, any and all
instances of that symbol in the drawing will reflect that new scale.

List
List reveals the entities that are in the selected
symbol definition.

30. From the Symbols menu, select Symbol

Manager.
31. Click to select the Marker symbol, then click
Edit List.
If you select Options, and
more than one symbol, then If you’d like to print or save the List symbol text,
options which are different click then select Print or select Save As.
between different symbols
will be grayed out. Click the 32. Click Close to close List symbol.
Set button next to any
option and change options Options
which you want to set for
the entire selection. Options lets you edit the smart symbol settings for the currently selected symbol or symbols.

Move Up and Move Down

Replace Move Up and Move Down are self-explanatory. These functions change the order in which symbol
You might use this function definitions are displayed in the catalog window. Click Save to save the catalog after reordering
if you have a certain style of the symbols.
symbol in the drawing, for
example a city symbol, and
Replace
you find another one you
like better. You can swap all Replace swaps out all instances of one symbol reference in the drawing with another. It does not
the old symbols out in one affect symbol definitions.
shot using Replace.
In the Symbol Manager, click to highlight the symbol you want to replace, then click Replace. In
the Replace symbol references dialog, click on the symbol you want to replace the old one, then
click OK.

82
Purge
Purge gets rid of all the all unused symbol definitions from the drawing. Purge
Do not use this function on
Import open symbol catalogs. This
Import allows us to add symbol definitions from another file. Click Import. Open the Files of Type is a housekeeping function
list to choose the drawing type from which to import symbols, then browse to the other file. for your drawing. It does not
affect the appearance of
your drawing, but will get
Import PNGs rid of all those definitions
Import PNGs imports bitmaps and png files and converts them into symbols. For detailed that were added if you
instructions on this function, see Importing PNGs as Symbols on page 76. clicked on symbols to select
them and then didn’t use
them in the drawing.
Convert
Convert allows us to select existing CC3+ files and bring them into the current drawing as symbol
Another File
definitions.
This is usually another
drawing (FCW) or catalog
Symbol Catalog Settings and Filters (FSC). You can use this to
After exploring what symbols are and how to manipulate them in catalogs, build large catalogs from
separate, smaller catalogs.
let’s look at selecting symbol catalogs to make them available for use in our
drawings.
Catalog Styles
When we click Symbol Catalog Settings we see a list of available Your Master Filter list may
symbol catalogs. The list we see here is chosen by the catalog settings filter not be the same as the ones
and master filter. In order to be on the list, the names of catalogs in the shown here.
display window must include the text defined in both filters. Depending on which add-
ons and accessories you
From this list, we can click on a catalog and CC3+ will load that catalog into
have installed, your list may
the Symbol Display Window in the CC3+ interface. It is these catalogs that
be different.
are also available from the symbol icons on Symbol Toolbar. Once the
master filter and the catalog settings filter is set to define the family of
catalogs we want to use, we can switch between Available Catalogs
catalogs using the icons on the Symbol Toolbar. Replace the Master Filter
with "*" to see all available
catalog settings. If you
Master Filter chose to see all, prepare to
We might think of the Master Filter Settings as the list of symbol styles we wait a few seconds
want to have available in the current drawing. especially if you chose to
display the first symbols
Right click Symbol Style Toggle and then note the
list of catalog styles there. Select Master Filter
Settings.
We can edit, save and load different master filter
settings though this Master Filters dialog. The
currently selected master filter is used when we click
Symbol Catalog Settings . In the example shown here, the master
filter selected is ‘CC3MS’. When we click Symbol Catalog Settings
, the settings will look through all available catalogs with "CC3MS" in
the text.

Number of filters to use

The value in this field controls the number of active filters.

Filter 1, Filter 2, etc

These are the catalog filters that are available in this Master Filter. When we click Symbol Style
Toggle , it moves on to the next active filter in this list. When we reach the last filter on the list,
it switches to the first again.

83
 Save
Settings Clicking Save allows us to save the currently selected master filter
settings.
If we save over the
predefined settings, we will
permanently affect CC3+. Load
When we click Load, we open the Load master filter settings dialog.
From the list here, we can load a new set of master filter settings.

Symbol Catalog Settings

When we click Symbol Catalog Settings ,
the Select Catalog Setting dialog opens. The catalogs in this list are the
catalogs currently available for use in the drawing. In this example, CC3
is the current master filter, and we see in this dialog that * is the current
Catalog settings filter. With these filters—master filter plus catalog
settings filter--the Select Catalog Setting list shows us all (*) catalogs
those name contains CC3. In this Catalog settings filter, we could type
a keyword, such as VEGETATION then click Find Now to find all catalogs
that have Vegetation and CC3 in the catalog name.

Display first symbol in catalog

With this box checked,
the list will show the
first symbols in the
catalogs. If the box is
not checked, the
Available symbol
catalogs window
displays a list of
catalog names only.

Advanced>>
If we click Advanced>>, we expand the Select
Catalog Setting dialog.
From this expanded dialog, we can change the
master filter and create new catalog settings.

Just as a demonstration of the Setting name

filters, let’s change the filters to see all the
New Setting vegetation catalogs. In Catalog setting filter,
It is usually best, to select type Vegetation, and in Master filter, type *.
one of the existing ones Click Find Now. With the filters set this way, we
first, as the new one will be see a list of all vegetation catalogs regardless of what style.
based on this. Make sure to
use a name that fits the New
current master filter. If the
name doesn’t fit the current Click New to add a new catalog setting filter based on the
master filter, the new existing one. When the Save Current Settings As dialog opens,
setting will not show up in type in a name for the new setting.
the list because it will get
filtered out. Save
Clicking Save saves the current catalog settings.

Delete
Clicking Delete removes a catalog setting. Note that this may
make predefined symbol settings non-functioning.

84
Properties
Clicking Properties opens the Properties dialog. In the dialog, we can predefine what Status bar
settings to use for a catalog. We can define what color, fill style, line style and layer that symbols in
the catalog will use.

Symbol catalog file

Catalog File
Click Browse to choose a symbol catalog file.
Using the @ character in the
field represents your CC3+
<<Basic data folder.
Clicking <<Basic closes the expanded view of the Select Catalog Setting dialog and returns to the
basic view.

Symbols and Symbol Management Review

• There are two ‘parts’ of a symbol, the definition and the reference.

• The symbol definition is a hidden entity in the drawing. There is only one definition per unique
symbol name in a drawing.
• The symbol reference is the displayed image of its definition. There can be many symbol
references in the drawing.
• Create new symbols in a blank template to avoid having extraneous entities in the symbol
definition.
• Symbol catalogs can be viewed and manipulated in the Symbol Manager.
• Master filters and Catalog Setting Filters determine which catalogs are available for use
when we click Symbol Style Toggle and Symbol Catalog Settings.

Gwynnin
Gwynnin was created by
Ralf Schemmann in CC3
with the City Designer
3™ add-on.
This style is one of the
styles provided in the City
Designer 3 addon.

85
 Two Entities
DRAWING TOOLS
A drawing tool adds either one or two entities to the drawing. Landmass Sea
If the tool adds two entities, Each tool has most or all the properties of the desired entity
the entity underneath is Contour Line River
already set so all the user has to do is select the tool and draw.
usually solid filled, although
it doesn’t have to be, and CC3+ has shortcuts to some of these tools – the Overland Road Terrain
the entity on top can be an mapping buttons for example. Likewise, most add-ons have their
outline or even a symbol fill own drawing tool buttons and drawing tools. There are a number of sets of drawing tools in different
or hatch style. The entities
styles, and each template has its own default style which you can set from Drawing Properties
are stacked on top of each
other. .

Landmass Tool
Selecting a Drawing Tool
To accept the default, simply click on the
Once you have selected the shortcut to the tool that you wish. For example,
tool, observe the Command in a CC3 Overland template, clicking on
Prompt to see what you
need to do. Usually, you just Default Landmass will give you the default
click points to add your CC3 Overland landmass tool. Right clicking on
entity. Some tools will give the button will open the Select Drawing Tool
you an edit ability with dialog.
which you can edit an
existing entity. The
Command Prompt will show
Select Drawing Tool
you these options. From here, you can select one of the other
landmass tools that meet the filter criteria or
you can change the style and filter to display
Select Drawing Tool other drawing tools.

Also note that many

drawing tools are available Tool name filter
directly in the Symbol Type a different Tool name filter, then click
Catalog Window. For Find now to see other drawing tools. For
example, if you click example, if we type SEA* then click Find now,
Coast/Sea , the we’ll see all the sea drawing tools in the
Symbol Catalog Window selected style. If we simply type * in this field, then click Find now, the Select drawing tool dialog
will contain both symbols will display all drawing tools in the selected style.
and drawing tools related to
sea/coastal features. Display Sample
With this box checked, the Select drawing tool dialog will display a thumbnail of the entity the
drawing tool will create. Unchecked, the dialog will list the names of the drawing tools with no
thumbnail.

Drawing Tools Style

Open the drop down list to see the drawing tool styles. Changing the style will change the drawing
Be aware that not all
drawing tools are tools displayed using the Tool name filter.
compatible with all
templates. Some drawing Insert on current sheet
tools are created for specific Check this box if you want the drawing tool to over-ride its default sheet setting and add its entities
templates and using them in
to the current sheet.
templates for which they are
not intended may produce
undesirable results. Advanced
Clicking Advanced opens the Custom drawing tools dialog. It is in this dialog which we can edit
existing drawing tools or create new ones.

Custom Drawing Tools

Drawing tools make repetitive drawing tasks quick and easy. We can edit existing drawing tools or
create new ones custom fit for our necessary tasks. Let’s look at the drawing tool options and then
we’ll create a new tool.

86
Style
Open this drop down list to choose a drawing tool Drawing Tool Style
style. The style will be appropriate for how you
wish to use the tool such as in CC3 Overland maps This setting is saved with
or Dungeon floorplans or cityscapes, for example. the drawing. You can adjust
it here, or in Drawing
Once the style is selected, the Tool name list
Properties. When you next
shows all the current drawing tools in that style.
open the drawing, it will use
this value.
Tool Name
This list contains all the drawing tools available in
the style selected.

Draw method
Under Draw method, we can select Path/Polygon, Sketch or Fractal. Once the desired draw
method is selected, we can click Options to input the settings for that method.

Macro command
Drawing tools can be created to execute macros. Macros are an advanced feature of CC3+.

Closure
The selection in Closure determines whether the drawing tool adds a closed shape such as a
Map Border
landmass, or an open shape such as a road.
In order for this to work
Drawing aids properly, there must be a
map border entity on the
When Restrict to map border is checked, the entity drawn with the drawing tool will stop at the MAP BORDER layer in the
map border and not draw past it. Restrict to map border ensures that when you click points outside drawing.
the map border, they attach to the nearest border edge or corner. A map border entity is a
series of simple lines or a
When Front only on layer is checked, entities are not added last in the drawing list, and on top of
box on the MAP BORDER
everything else. Instead, they are added on top of similar entities.
layer. These serves to define
Open the drop down list for Attach mode to select the desired attach method for the drawing tool. the edge of the map as far
as drawing tools are
concerned.
Outline
Clicking Outline opens the Outline properties dialog. In this dialog, we can specify whether the On Top
entity created by our custom drawing tool has an outline, if so what color the outline will be, and
whether that outline is a separate entity or not. For example, if you were to
add a new landmass, it
would appear below map
Properties symbols and contour
Clicking Properties opens the Custom tool properties dialog. In this dialog, we set up what the regions, but on top of other
Status bar settings will be for the tool. We can control the color, line style, line width layer and fill landmass entities. This is
style of the entity created with the draw tool. These properties can be fixed, or they can match those useful for adding entities
of the current drawing settings. such as landmasses since no
matter when you add a
landmass to the drawing,
Sample Width you’ll never want it to cover
In this field, we can type in a value for the sample width and then click Upd to update the thumbnail terrain symbols, vegetation
in the visual display. or structure symbols.

New
Attach Method
Clicking New allows us to define a new drawing tool based on the settings that are currently
displayed in the Custom drawing tool dialog. If the tool is set up to use an
attach mode, it will use the
current mode selected using
Save the button.
Save saves the current settings in the current tool name. There is no prompting to save the tool.

Delete
Clicking Delete will delete the drawing tool currently selected in the Tool name list.

87
 Basic
When we click Basic, the Custom drawing tool dialog closes and returns us to the Select Drawing
tool dialog.

Editing a Drawing Tool

Editing an existing drawing tool is nothing more than selecting the drawing tool in the Tool name
list, and then changing the properties as we wish. Once the desired changes have been made, click
Save.

Creating a Custom Drawing Tool

Creating a new drawing tool is almost as easy
as editing an existing tool. First choose an
existing drawing tool that is close to what we
want, change the properties as we desire, then
click New to name our new drawing tool.

Closed Path Let’s create a new Political Border drawing tool.

The existing tool creates an open path. Let’s
There is already a Closed add a drawing tool to our collection that
Border drawing tool, but if creates a closed path tool.
you check it out, it creates a
filled polygon. We want just 1. Right click All map drawing tools .
a non-filled path. In the Select Drawing Tool dialog, click
Advanced>>.
2. In the Tool name list, select Border, Default.
3. In Closure, click Closed
4. Click Properties. In the Custom Tool Properties
dialog, open the drop down list for Use fill Style.
Select Hollow. Click OK.
5. Open the drop down list for Attach mode, then
select Current settings.
6. Click New. In the Save
Current Settings as dialog,
type Border, Custom. Click
OK.

7. Click OK. Hit .

We now have a brand new Political Border tool that will
create a closed border in our drawings.

Creating a Macro Drawing Tool

CC3+ has simple macro language that enables us to
automate repetitive tasks. Drawing tools are one way we
can run macros in CC3+.
Macros Start by opening an existing Overland map or by creating
A macro is a list of a new Overland drawing. Before we begin, let’s set the
commands that can loop, text properties to something other than what the drawing
store variables and control tool will do so that we can see that the tool sets the properties for us.
some dialog settings.
Though macros are 1. Click Text Specs . In the Text Properties dialog, set the height to 1 and the font to Arial.
considered an advanced Click OK.
feature of CC3+, a simple Now, let’s create a drawing tool that will add text to our drawing that has a height of 10 and uses
macro will be used here to Verdana font.
illustrate macro drawing
tools.

88
 2. Click All map drawing tools , then click Advanced.
3. In the Custom drawing tools dialog, click New.
4. Type in a name for the new drawing tool. In our example, we named the tool Text, Default.
Click OK.
5. In the Macro Command section, click to put a check in the box for Use macro command.
Click Command to execute.
6. In the Macro Command dialog, erase anything
that might be there, then type these lines:
GL tx ^DEnter Text
TSPECF Tahoma
TSPECH 10
IFERR edtextm
TEXM
tx
^DPlace Text:
:edtextm
<blank line>
Be sure to hit after the last line is typed. Click OK. Macro Lines
These commands set the
7. In the Custom drawing tools dialog, click Save then click OK.
Command Prompt prompts,
Our new drawing tool is created, and if we look at the Command Prompt, we see that we’re set the text height and font
ready to add text. The Command Prompt reads Enter Text. and prompt for text
8. Type text for your label at the Command Prompt. For this exercise, use something fictitious, placement.
such as My Map or Text Test. After the text is typed into the Command Prompt, hit .
The Command Prompt now reads Place Text:. Click to place the text label into the drawing.
We can click to repeat the macro if we want to continue to add labels to the drawing, or we can hit
Last Line
to end the command.
Adding the blank line at the
If we look again at Text Properties, we see that they are now set to a height of 10 and the font is end of the macro lets CC3+
Tahoma. We could have the drawing tool macro also set other properties such as color; and we know the macro has ended.
can have a separate drawing tool for each text label style that we’ll use in the drawing.

Creating a New Set of Drawing Tools

We’ve seen how easy it is to edit existing drawing tools and to create our own. We can now explore
the creation of a new set of drawing tools in a desired style. The easiest way to do this is to create
a new folder in System/Drawtools and name it the new style. Into this folder, copy the .dto files
from one of the other CC3+ styles which closely match the desired new style. Once the draw tools
are in the new style’s folder, open the tools and edit them with the fill styles, colors, line styles, etc,
that will be used to make up the new mapping style.

Drawing Tools Review

• Drawing tools make repetitive drawing task quick and easy.
Closely Match
• Editing existing drawing tools by selecting the tool, changing the tool’s properties, and then
clicking Save. If the new style will be
Overland, pick an Overland
• Create new drawing tools by selecting a tool that is close to what we want, changing the tool’s drawing tool set which you
properties, and then clicking New to assign it a new name. feel would be the easiest to
• Create a new drawing tool style by copying existing tools to a new folder and then editing the edit to the new style.
tools to suit the new style. Likewise, if the new style is
a floorplan, pick an existing
floorplan or dungeon
drawing tool set to copy
over and edit.

89
 OTHER TOOLS
The preceding chapters have provided a detail view on the tools and features you are most likely
to spend most of your time with when using Campaign Cartographer 3+, but there are other tools
as well, so we will spend this chapter to have a brief look at these tools. You can find more
information about these tools in the CC3+ help system, and more details and tutorials can also be
found in the Tome of Ultimate Mapping.

Symbols Along
The symbols along command is used to have symbols
placed automatically along a path, and can be used in
many different scenarios, such as weather fronts,
escarpments, railroad tracks and much more.
Escarpment
The command allows you to specify the symbol to use,
This original command was
named the Escarpment and how to scale it along the path. It can be the same size
command because that was along the entirety of the path, or it can increase in size
what it was made to draw, toward the middle and then decrease again, or anything
but it has way more similar.
potential than that. You can find the command by selecting Symbols Along
from the Draw menu, this will bring up the Escarpment
dialog.
Random Group
Here is a brief breakdown of the sections in the dialog
See the chapter Symbol is
one of a collection on page • Symbol Catalog to Use: Here you can select which
78 for details about symbol symbol catalog and symbol to use. You can only
groups and random select one symbol, but if that symbol is part of a
selection. random group, you can enable the option to have it pick randomly from that group.
• % Chance to place: Symbols are divided evenly along the path. Use this to reduce the chance
for each symbol to be placed, causing random gaps.
• Symbol Angle: This controls how the symbol will be rotated in relation to the direction of the
guideline at each placement point
• Symbol Scaling controls how the symbol will be scaled along the path, some symbols may be
designed to be only scaled in one direction.
• Distance controls the distance between the symbols on the path

• Symbol Scale & Location: Here you can define the starting, center and ending scale of the
symbols. The starting scale is the size of the symbol at the beginning of the path (relative to
the symbol’s normal size), then the symbol will gradually change size until they reach the
center of the guideline. They will keep the same size along the entire center section, before
they will then again change size until they reach the ending scale at the end of the path. The
two %along boxes define how far along the path the center section is.

To use this command, make sure to draw your guideline first, then start the command, fill in your
settings, and when you click ok, select your path as prompted by the command line, and finish with
the regular Do It.

Examples

90
Symbols in Area
Symbols in Area is similar to Symbols Along,
but it will fill a polygon with symbols, using
random placement.
Starting this command will bring up a dialog
very similar to the Escarpment Dialog:

The main difference here is that sizing is done

not along the path, but distance from the edge,
and that you can specify a layout pattern, such
as Random to fill an area randomly with
symbols. The distance options will control how
tightly packed this area will be.
To use this command, first draw a polygon covering
the area you wish to fill (unless this area is already
represented by a polygon, such as a terrain feature),
then go to Draw  Symbols in Area, assign your
settings, hit OK and then select the polygon as
prompted by the command line, and finish with Do It
as usual.

Forest Options
Fill with Symbols Just as with the Symbols
Along command, this
The fill with symbols is a more technical command, originally
command was named for its
made for filling forests with tree symbols automatically. Compared
original purpose. Drawing
to the Symbols Inside command, it is primarily designed to fill the
forests are still it’s main
area tightly packed, and use a very regular placement. The main purpose, but it can also be
advantage to this command is the ability to specify several used with other kinds of
symbols. symbols that require regular
This command is stared from Draw  Fill with Symbols, which placement.
will bring up the Forest Options dialog.
This dialog allows you to select the symbol catalog to use, and
then provide up to 10 symbols to use. The Unit Size is intended to
be the size of a single symbol, and the CX/CY setting for each
symbol in this list is a multiple of this size to tell CC3+ how large
the symbol is. The Single checkbox is used for symbols that looks
normal when placed at the edge of the area, the other symbols can
only be used in the interior. There are a lot of predefined settings
available, just hit the Load button to access them.
Note that the
most common way to use this command is
through one of the predefined forest drawing
tools in CC3+ which will call this command
automatically as part of the drawing process, but
you can also start it manually. In that case, make
sure to draw a polygon for it to fill before starting
the command, since using it will require you to
select a polygon to fill.

91
 Basic Floorplan
CREATING A FLOORPLAN
CC3 can be used to create floorplans with the same ease with
Our floorplan for this which it creates overland maps. Let’s make a basic floorplan.
example will be simple, but
you will see the potential for 1. Click New .
making large, intricate
floorplans quickly and easily In the New Drawing Wizard, select Dungeons, then
with the dungeon drawing select Decide Settings Myself. Click Next. Select CC3
tools. Dungeon. Click Next. Input template size 100 x 80,
then click Finish. Name your drawing, then click Save.
5' Grid, 1 Snap
Grid and Snap make 2. Make sure that Snap and Grid are
drawing floorplans quick enabled (buttons should be depressed). Right click on Grid, then
and easy. The cursor will select 5’ Grid,1 Snap. Click OK.
‘snap’ to the nearest grid
point—in this case, every 5 3. Click All map drawing tools , then
feet is a grid point. select Room, Stone wall, Chequered
Floor.
Draw a Floorplan
4. Using the visible grid as a guide, draw a
Note how the Snap feature floorplan. The sample drawing shows a simple 2 room floorplan
works to guide the cursor with a connecting corridor. Click in the view window to begin.
and allows you to make Right click to end the command once the floorplan is complete.
clean corners while the grid
allows you to quickly judge
size. 5. From the Symbol Display Window, select Door Wood.
As you hover the symbol over the drawing, note that it
Align Itself aligns itself to the walls. Click to place the door at a
location of your choosing. Note that when placed into the
The door symbol is a Smart drawing, the door automatically cuts the wall.
symbol. These symbols will
automatically rotate and
6. Click Snap to disable the snap feature.
scale to fit the entities you
attach them to. 7. Scroll down in the Symbol Display window. Click to select
Sconce with Torch3.
Place the Sconce As you hover the sconce symbol over the drawing, note that it
also aligns itself to the walls. Click to place the sconce at a
Like the door symbol, the location of your choosing. Place as many scones are you feel
scone aligns itself to the
are needed for your floorplan.
wall. Unlike the door
symbol, however, placing 8. From the Symbol Display Window, select symbols to add to your drawing.
the sconce is a two part Enable or disable Snap as needed to position the symbols as desired.
process. The first click sets
the location for the sconce.
Once the location is set, 9. Click Sheets and Effects .
moving the cursor will slide Click to put a check in the Activate Sheet Effects
the sconce away from the box, then click OK.
wall. The second click places
the symbol. This two click
process allows us to make This is a simple floorplan, but the tools are here to do much
adjustments for wall grander things. Explore the other dungeon tools found in All map drawing tools to complete
thickness prior to placing
the symbol into the
drawing. Note also that we
could leave Snap enabled in
order to precisely place the
scone symbols. Once the
location of the symbol is set,
click to disable Snap before
moving the symbol out to
accommodate wall
thickness. Snap can be
enabled or disabled in mid
command or in the middle
of an action such as placing
symbols.

92
the scene by adding terrain features and outdoor elements to the drawing. Text can be added to
the drawing in the same way we added text to our overland map.

Creating a Floorplan Review

• Use Grid and Snap to make creating Floorplans quick and easy.

• Grid and Snap can be enabled or disabled in mid action or in mid command.

• Smart symbols can align themselves to walls or cut openings in the walls for us.

A section of Hermach – Dungeon Map

This drawing was created by ProFantasy
Software in DD3 based on an old DD2 map of
the same region.
This style is available from the Dungeon Designer
3 addon.

93
 Convert Maps
CONVERTING YOUR OLD MAPS
You have CC3+ and you’ve gone through the tutorials. Now you’re ready to take your old world and
When the conversion is
remap it in CC3+. But where to start?
over, we recommend that
you click Sheets and Effects.
Hide all
MISCELLANEOUS
but the
sheet.
Converting CC2, CC2 Pro and CC3 maps to CC3+
Right click Sheets and If your old maps are in FCW files from a previous version of Campaign Cartographer prior to CC3,
Effects, then select Move to the conversion is easy. Open your old FCW file in CC3+, then from the File menu, select CC2 to CC3
Sheet. Select entities to conversion.
move from the
This converts maps created in CC2, CC2 Pro and earlier add-ons into CC3+ drawings sheets and
MISCELLANEOUS sheet to
appropriate sheets, and draw tools. It moves entities to the appropriate sheet by looking at their layers. Any entities on
repeat the process until the unrecognized layers are placed on a new MISCELLANEOUS sheet.
MISCELLANEOUS is empty. If your map was made in CC3, it already works fine in CC3+ with one exception, because of the new
You can then show all the CC3+ data directory location, automatic resolution of bitmaps doesn’t work correctly. You can type
sheets. If any of your entities the command FFIX on the command line to upgrade all raster references. Note that once you do
are obscured by other
this, the map will not work in CC3 anymore.
entities, you'll need to use
Move to Sheet to move What do you do, however, when your old maps are hand drawn on paper or they’re in a raster
them above whatever it is format such as a BMP or a JPG? How do we get them into an FCW file?
that is hiding them.

Scan the Map Getting Hand Drawn Maps into CC3+

If you don’t own a scanner If the maps are drawn on paper, scan them into a BMP, JPG or PNG image. We’ll take that raster file
or have access to one, check and import it into a template. Once the map is in a template and sized properly, you can use CC3+’s
with your local print shop. drawing tools to trace the coasts, add the terrain features and place your cities and landmarks.
They sometimes have
scanning services to convert
images on paper into Begin with a BMP, JPG or a PNG of the old map. For this exercise, we’ll use a JPG of an old CC2 Pro
electronic files. map and put it on a 125x100 CC3 Overland template.

Above the LAND Sheet 1. Click New .

In the New Drawing Wizard, select map type
Positioning the bitmap’s
sheet below the LAND sheet Overland and click to put the radio button in Decide
will allow us to see the old settings myself. Click Next. Select CC3 Standard
map image while we draw Overland. Click Next. For the dimensions, enter
the landmass. Once the width 125 and height 100. Click Finish. Type a
landmass is drawn, the name for your map, then click Save.
bitmap’s sheet can be
repositioned so it is above Now we have a new template. Let’s prepare it to receive
the landmass’ sheet so we the JPG file.
can see it while we add the
terrain features. 2. Click Sheets and Effects , then click Add.
Type a name for new sheet. For this example, we’ll
use the sheet name BITMAP. Click OK. Click Move Up several
Current Layer times until our new BITMAP sheet is right above the LAND
The TEMPORARY layer is a sheet on the Sheets list. Be sure BITMAP is selected as the
good choice because the current sheet, then click OK.
image will not have a
permanent home in the 3.Click the Layers indicator .
drawing. Once the map is Select TEMPORARY as the current layer, then click OK.
traced and the terrain
features, towns and
landmarks are in, you would
delete the old map image
from the template.

Sidebar continue on next

page...

94
These steps set up a place to put our bitmap. Let’s proceed with importing the file.

4. From the Draw menu, select Insert File. Type 0,0

Browse to CC3+’s Tutorials/UserManual folder, We typed the coordinates in
then select Piadra_Gate.JPG. Click Open. Tell CC3+ but we could have used the
to use an absolute path, and instead of clicking to crosshairs on the cursor to
place the image, type 0,0 then hit . Type 125,100 insert the bitmap. The initial
then hit . placement of the image
does not need to be precise.
Just slap it in there. We’ll
Our old map is in the template now, but we can see that it
position it and scale it
needs to be positioned and scaled properly. We’ll do that
properly once it has been
next.
inserted.
On every CC3+ template, the coordinates 0,0 are in the
lower left corner inside the frame. We inserted the map at Select it
0,0, but we inserted the lower left corner of the image file there. We see that the lower left corner
The bitmap won’t highlight
of the old map itself is at about 3.3,4.2. Let’s position the image so the corner of the map matches
to show that it has been
the corner of the template frame.
selected. Watch the
Command Prompt. When
5. Click Zoom Window , then zoom in close to the lower left corner
you click to select the
of the template. bitmap, the Command
6. Click Move , then click the edge of the bitmap to select it. Right Prompt should show that 1
entity has been selected.
click, then select Do it. With the crosshairs, click in the lower left
If you have problems
corner of the old map. The old map image is now on the cursor. Type selecting only the bitmap,
0,0 then hit . We’ve now placed the lower left corner of the old try selecting by layer.
map at the coordinate 0,0 in our template. Remember that our bitmap
is the only thing on the
7. Click Zoom Extents . TEMPORARY layer. See
page 51 for more details
To finish the positioning of the old map image, let’s scale it. about selections.
We’ll use the scale bar in the bitmap image as our reference.
Reference
8. From the Info menu, select Distance.
Most maps have a scale bar
On the old map’s scale bar, click on first
which makes an easy
tick which would be 0 and then click on
reference for us to properly
the last tick which would be 30. Distance
size the image in the
shows us that the scale bar is 27.3 miles
template. If your old hand
long. Let’s resize the old map image. Click drawn maps don’t have a
OK. scale bar, use two points in
the map for which you know
9. Click Scale then click the edge of the old map image to select it. Right click, then select
the distance. For example,
Do it. The Command you may know the distance
Prompt is looking for a between two cities or the
scale origin. Type 0,0 distance a landmark is from
then hit . The a village. Use any two
Command Prompt is points in the map to
now looking for a ‘Scale reference distance.
to’ value. Let’s have
CC3+ do the math for
us. Type 30/27.3 then Do the Math
hit .
If we express our scale value
as a fraction, CC3+ will
Our old map is now properly calculate it for us. In this
sized and positioned to begin case, our reference is 30
tracing. With the bitmap file miles, but the measured
on its own sheet, we can value is 27.3 so we input
draw the landmass, then 30/27.3.
bump the bitmap’s sheet
forward. We can add terrain
features and then bump the
bitmap’s sheet forward. We’d
then add symbols and rivers;

95
 and when we’re done, we can delete the BITMAP sheet leaving only the newly completed CC3 map.

Converting Your Old Maps Review

• Convert your old CC2 and CC2 Pro maps to CC3+ drawings by using the conversion in the File
menu.

• Scan your old hand drawn maps into BMP, JPG or PNG.

• Use the scale bar or use the distance between two known points on the image to scale the
image properly in the new template.

Journal Page 23
This drawing was originally created in
CC2 Pro by Allyn Bowker. It was
updated in CC3. Journal Page 23 uses
techniques described in Issue 06-
Parchment Backgrounds in The
Cartographer’s Annual 2007.

This style is provided in the

Cartographers Annual Volume 1
(http://www.profantasy.com/annual/
2007/)

96
WHERE TO GO FROM HERE
Where the Essentials Guide was a quick start, the User’s Guide takes a more in depth look at CC3+
and its features and functions. The documentation provided here gives the user the information
needed to create maps and drawings for many of the most common applications. This is not,
however, all there is to know about CC3+.

The Help System

CC3+’s Help system is very extensive. From the Help menu on
the interface, you can access the Help files as well as view a
Quickstart Guide, view tips, and get contact information for
Technical Support.

Campaign Cartographer Community

Campaign Cartographer has an active and very helpful community of users whose interests cover
a broad range of genres and styles. These friendly folks will be able to answer most of your
questions. From our website, you can sign up for a mailing list as well as join a community forum.
Check out the Community menu on www.profantasy.com for links to the various community
elements.

The Tome of Ultimate Mapping

The Tome of Ultimate Mapping is an in-depth guide to Campaign Cartographer and all its addons. On the Web
This book consists of more than 700 pages of guides, tutorials and tips. Check
https://secure.profantasy.com/products/tome.asp for details. When scouring the web for
resources, be mindful of the
artists’ proviso for use of his
Resources or her work for your
purposes. Please respect
The availability of resources starts right at our webpage. From the Downloads menu and from the artists’ rights.
Community menu, you can access tutorials, download user created symbols to add to your maps
and drawings, download user created drawings, and more.
There is a wealth of resources on the web where you can find symbols, artwork and textures to use
for your maps and drawings. The list provided here is just a small beginning to all that can be found.
atlas.monsen.cc
forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1230
www.mapsandmore.com
www.freetextures.org
www.imageafter.com
www.davegh.com

97
 INDEX

Adjust Hue/Saturation, 65 Inner Glow, 69

autosave, 18 Installation, 9
interface
Bevel, 65 Attach, 16
Bevel, Lighted, 66 Command Prompt, 14, 16
Blur, 67 Display Tools, 17
Blur, Alpha, 67 Draw Tools, 17
Break, 57 Edit Tools, 17
Entity Order Tools, 17
Change Properties, 32, 53 File Toolbar, 15
Clicking Buttons, 14 Grid, 16
Converting, 94 Locked, 16
Modifier Tools, 17
Displace, 68 Ortho, 16
Double Click, 13 Overland Mapping Tools, 17
Drag, 13 Screen Tools, 16
Draw Single Edit and Trim Tools, 17
Landmasses, 25 Snap, 16
Rivers, 29 Status Bar, 15
Structures, 30 Symbol Display, 17
Terrain, 26 Symbol Toolbar, 15
Vegetation, 30 View Tools, 17
Drawing Tools, 86 View Window, 15
Creating, 88
Custom, 86 layers
Edit, 58 Hidden, 21
Editing, 88 Layers, 13
Macro, 88 List, 51
Selecting, 86
Drop Shadow, 68 Map Menu, 14, 24
DTO files. See Formats Master Filter, 83

Edge Fade, 68 Node

Edge Fade, Inner, 69 Delete, 55
Effects, 21, 60, 65 Edit, 54, 55, 59
Speed, 74 Insert, 55
Entities, 13
Erase, 13, 28 pick cursor, 14
Exporting, 47 PNG. See Raster
Antialiasing, 48 Polygon, 55
Crop, 49 Printing, 7, 41
Battlemats, 47
FCT file. See Formats errors, 47
FCW file. See Formats Scaling, 45, 46
File Formats. See Formats Sheet, 45
File manager, 20 Tiling, 46
Floorplan, 92 View, 45
Fonts, 37
Formats, 18 raster artwork, 76
RGB Matrix Process, 70
Glow, 69
Grid, 63 Screen Border, 70

98
selection, 14, 51 Symbol Manager, 75
by Color, 51 Symbols
by Fill Style, 52 Adding, 27
deselecting, 14
Entity Tag#, 52 text
multiple entities, 14 Along a Curve, 38
reuse, 14 insertion poin, 37
single entity, 14 Justification, 37
using And, 51 Number Labels, 39
using Not, 53 Text
sheets Glow, 37
hidden, 21 Placing, 36
Sheets, 13, 60 Text Properties, 36, 39, 40
Managing, 61 Texture Overblend, 71
Order, 60 Texturize, 72
Spatial Matrix Process, 71 Tips for New Users, 13
Split, 57 Trace, 58
Symbol, 75 Transparency, 72
collection, 78 Trim, 56, 57
connecting, 78
Creating, 75 Wall Shadow, 72
Definition, 75 Wall Shadow, Directional, 73
Edit, 81 Wall Shadow, Point of Light Finalize, 73
Import, 76 Wall Shadow, Point of Light Setup, 73
Manager, 80
Options, 77 Zoom, 22
Parameters, 79 All Text, 22
Rotation, 79 to Text, 22
Scale, 79 Window, 22, 29, 45, 95
Smart, 80
Symbol Catalog, 83

The World of Dyra

The World of Dyra map was
created in CC3 by Ralf
Schemmann. The map uses
techniques and includes
elements provided in Issue 01-
Mercator Style Pack of The
Cartographer’s Annual 2007.

This style is provided in the

Cartographers Annual Volume 1
(http://www.profantasy.com/an
nual/2007/)

99