Campaign Cartographer Bundle of Holding

[mac40k]

I too am looking to be sold on this bundle. I'm no artist and have found no computer graphics program that can make me one. It's just another tool like a brush or pencil in the hands of an artist, but in my hands, it's not much. That being said, I have used Dundjunni in the past to create some decent battle maps. I've also always understood CC to have a steep learning curve and knowing myself well, I don't see myself investing a lot of time to master it. How much learning does one have to do to get to the point of being able to create usable maps? I'm not really interested in creating dungeons (I'm more into modern and sci fi settings), but DD seems to be the tool needed for floor plans of buildings, etc. Is CC3+ just for geographical maps? Can I create battle maps with it or is the DD add on a must for this? I know a someone that has been using Dungeon Painter Studio to create battle maps and while it is still in early access, it only costs $15. That's far more reasonable to me price-wise if CC can't produce floor plans without the DD add on. OTOH, I'd be interested in hearing what makes DD worth the extra money.

[damned]

DPS is a great product.
If you are happy with DPS then stick with it.
DPS will make maps much quicker than this,
With time and effort you will make much better maps with CC3+ but only you can decide if you have the time and willingness to spend using/learning.

[Trenloe]

I too am looking to be sold on this bundle. I'm no artist and have found no computer graphics program that can make me one. It's just another tool like a brush or pencil in the hands of an artist, but in my hands, it's not much. That being said, I have used Dundjunni in the past to create some decent battle maps. I've also always understood CC to have a steep learning curve and knowing myself well, I don't see myself investing a lot of time to master it. How much learning does one have to do to get to the point of being able to create usable maps? I'm not really interested in creating dungeons (I'm more into modern and sci fi settings), but DD seems to be the tool needed for floor plans of buildings, etc. Is CC3+ just for geographical maps? Can I create battle maps with it or is the DD add on a must for this? I know a someone that has been using Dungeon Painter Studio to create battle maps and while it is still in early access, it only costs $15. That's far more reasonable to me price-wise if CC can't produce floor plans without the DD add on. OTOH, I'd be interested in hearing what makes DD worth the extra money.

Getting Dungeon Designer gives you more symbols and tiles to use - which are always good for battlemaps. It also has some extra tools which make it easier for drawing rooms and corridors. See the info here: https://secure.profantasy.com/products/dd3_detail.asp

CC3+ can be used for battlemaps - it comes with some symbol sets and there are a couple of free symbol sets to download - plus you can use other open source symbol sets.

I have no artistic talent either, but I can product good looking maps pretty easily. As an example, see the map in this post: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post284653 As mentioned in the post, this was produced with CC3+ and the Jon Roberts style. Look at the video done by Xorn that shows how he made that map.

Yes, CC3 has a learning curve - any powerful piece of software has a learning curve, no matter what anyone tells you. People frequently complain about the learning curve of Fantasy Ground - usually because they make no effort to spend even 30 minutes learning it. The same is true for Campaign Cartographer - take a bit of time to learn it, follow some of the tutorials (they'll also produce nice maps as the end result).

The thing to remember about any mapping application - you won't be able to produce an amazing looking map in 5 minutes - with the freedom to do lots of customizations. That is - you're not placing pre-designed tiles one at a time like some mapping applications - which produces maps fairly quickly, but you are very limited to the shape and styles of the tiles available. But, with a bit of work (only a few hours) learning how to use CC3+, you can make very good looking battle maps - the one I reference above took 23 minutes - the video shows that!

EDIT: Some additional info here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post312748

[Trenloe]

Have a look at the individual symbol sets in the bundle of holding - if you like a couple of those (and most of them can be used for non-dungeon battlemaps) then it is worth getting the full bundle - you'll have a lot more options in styles, fills and symbols.

[Jay_NOLA]

Some quick tips and some stuff to help answer some questions:

CC3 by itself can do dungeons but it doesn't give much in the way of tools & symbols for that unless you have the DD3 add-on.

Well over 1000 additional symbols can be gotten for CC3/CC3+ for free so that can give you all the stuff for dungeons, etc without having to get DD3 or other products. Check out the Interesting, Important and Helpful topics - Free Symbols, Resources, Tutorials & More thread (sticky) on the Profantasy forums.


For learning to use the program the various video tutorials on YouTube are your best way to go and start off with. Many people have reported that learned to use the program only after watching and doing the video tutorials as you could follow along step by step and everything was explained in good detail. (Also, always check the comment and notes for the videos as occasionally you may have links to tutorial files or some additional information on the video.

You can make your first full land map in about 2-3 hours with the tutorials and make your first dungeon in about 2.

Also, ProFantasy has this in the works which will be usable with CC3+ to let you customize them:

https://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/?p=4267#comments

[LordEntrails]

Oh auto-CAD as opposed to a photo shop type program or GIMP? Finally something I was familiar with before I got into gaming. I'll have to consider this.

That CC3+ uses a CAD (Computer Aided Design) as opposed to a image manipulation program means that, for the most part, instead of working with pixels, you are working with geometric shapes. So you don't make a make that is 5000 x 4000 pixels in size, rather you create a map that is 400 x 500 feet in size. When you place a chest symbol, you can scale it to 2x3 feet or such. When you draw a room or street, you draw it in the actual size (i.e. 20 feet wide and 100 feet long). When you go to export or print, you decide what the scale is, so you can print 5 ft of map to 1 inch of paper, or for FG 5 feet is 50 pixels etc.

This means that you can do something like I am with Undermountain. These maps are something like several thousand feet across, yet I can export it to print a wall poster 24 x36 inches at 600 dpi, but I can also zoom in and export a 100 x 150 foot section at 20 pixels per foot so that I have a high resolution battle map. All in handled in one file. So if I change the location of the furniture in the room because I've changed the encounter for the battlemap, it changes on the overall map so when I export the poster, it's "correct".

Now what this means when you go to try and create a map, is you don't necessarily approach things in the same order. Commands are done in what is called the Action-Object approach, so you select the command you are going to do (erase, change properties, draw a circle, etc) and then you select the object (line, etc) that you are going to do the command on. And when you "draw" things, their is a recommend approach. For a regional map you draw the background land, then you the elevations and seas/lakes. Then then you place symbols for cities, forests, etc. Then the roads and rivers. CC3+ uses "Sheets" like Gimp uses layers, so something on a higher sheet is drawn over the top of what's on a lower sheet.

Don't be worried that you can't blend or fade things like rivers into the background or can't have highly detailed symbols (or "brushes" as PSP I think calls them) because you can use both vector symbols or bitmap symbols. Bitmap symbols don't scale infinitely like a vector symbol, but it also means you can use any image you have as a symbol (or can find online with appropriate usage restrictions). And those Sheets I mentioned before can have effects on them that apply to everything on that sheet. Such as glows, edge fades, textures, blurs, etc. So all those lakes I put on a the Lakes sheet can have a nice blue inner fade so they go from light to dark in the middle and apply a wave type texture to give variations to the color. These effects also mean that if I don't like the color blue of the glow, I can just change it in an interface and it affects ALL lakes (or roads, or mountains, or dungeon walls/floors, etc).

The learning curve.... It's a powerful program. And I learn new stuff all the time. You won't learn everything about it in a week or a month. But, if you can drop any "bad" habits you have from other programs, and do the tutorials, you can start making pretty cool maps in a few hours. For example, this post has the maps I made as part of the tutorials, most of these probably took me 30-90 minutes each to do the related tutorial and create the map. In my opinion, most people with the right attitude and no particular artistic skill can, using CC3+, in about 12 hours of practice start making a couple of different types of maps that are completely new and to their design that are easily better than 80% of the maps you will find in products on the DMsGuild.

EDIT: Oh, and the PF forums are as friendly and helpful as the FG forums are. Not as active, but still a great group of folks.

[Ellspeth]

Thank you Lord Entrails, this was really helpful. I want something I could build an entire village or community within, as well as broader terrain. I find GIMP nice for building single rooms etc, but not so much for larger scale stuff. I have a few programs like Dungeon Painter etc but have a little difficulty translating how I was trained to them.
One other question, since I am creating for digital, can I build the map and after saving it load it into something like Corel Artist Essentials for adding specialized effects?

[LordEntrails]

...
One other question, since I am creating for digital, can I build the map and after saving it load it into something like Corel Artist Essentials for adding specialized effects?

You won't be able to load the native file, since it is a .fcw file. But, you can export it as a png, tif, jog etc and then do what you want to the image in another program.

But, imo, as you learn the program, I think you will find you will be able to achieve most of those specialized effects in CC3+ itself. I'm sure there are a few things you won't be able to do or might find is done better in something else, but you might be surprised by how versatile the effects are.

[Jay_NOLA]

One quick thing about Photoshop brushes, since they got mentioned, and CC3/CC3+ you can turn them into symbols for CC3/CC3+ one of the old Annuals (September 2010) dealt with this.

To better under stand how layers and sheets work in CC3/CC3+ see this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co8JtqGPTCU

@elspeth One thing to remember before you export to a jpeg, png, etc. to work on a map in a photo editor is that you can do a good bit of effects in CC3/CC3+ you have to turn on and set up effects. So do be a aware of this as it can be less time consuming to have CC3/CC3+ do it than going and doing it in nother program. Joe Sweeny does this in a few of his video tutorials

For stuff like cities you'll eventually want to get the CD3 expansion as that is dedicated to that and has a lot of city building symbols. (Although, you can get a ton of free city building symbols online for the program that will let you make a good large town/city.)

[LordEntrails]

Oh, I'll also add, if you like Mike Schley's maps, you can get the Symbol Set 4 add-on. Which has a bunch of symbols done by Mike and has various templates that setup effects and such in Mike's style.