A New Tool?

[Valyar]

Wonderdraft looks amazing and the maps shown in the demo video are fantastic. What I don't see is what kind of assets are included in the base purchase...

[dmbritt]

Originally Posted by Lexin

Brilliant looking program. I will buy that as soon as I'm paid again. Only shows overland maps on the website, so may have to retain CC3+ for dungeons and internal buildings.

Yeah, Im afraid they don't support dungeon maps so you'll have to use something else for those. But, I have seen a very few people starting to find ways to do some basic dungeon style maps...

Originally Posted by Valyar

Wonderdraft looks amazing and the maps shown in the demo video are fantastic. What I don't see is what kind of assets are included in the base purchase...

Their basic assets are fairly well, basic, BUT go here:

https://www.cartographyassets.com/

and you can get a ton of assets created by Wonderdraft users. Wonderdraft supports custom assets and installing them is a simple cut and paste into the asset folders. Tons of extra stuff there that is easy to use.

[Ash Nazg]

I've been playing with Wonderdraft for a while, too. The customizations you can do on the fly are off the charts. But the styles available in CC3+ are too amazing to abandon, and the detailed, granular editing and effects capabilities are still unmatched (plus I'm insanely loyal to ProFantasy after 25 yrs of quality software).

I've been using both. Sometimes I just make the map entirely in Wonderdraft, sometimes just in CC3+. And sometimes, I make the landmass in Wonderdraft because I find it faster (insanely fast) and easier than making it in Fractal Terrains. And then, since Wonderdraft lets you export the map in layers (so cool!), I do that and import the land layer into CC3+. CC3+ has a command that lets you trace contiguous bitmap (e.g. PNG) images, so I can quickly and easily import the landmass into CC3+ and then go to town.

One other awesome thing about Wonderdraft: You can select a portion of your map, say part of a continent, and you can create a new, map of just that selection, which means you can easily make regional maps from larger maps. CC3+ allows this too, and almost as easily, but it's still nice that Wonderdraft lets you do that. Competitors like Inkarnate don't, as far as I know.

[Maidhc O Casain]

Originally Posted by Ash Nazg

CC3+ has a command that lets you trace contiguous bitmap (e.g. PNG) images, so I can quickly and easily import the landmass into CC3+ and then go to town.

Could you tell me what that command is? That would be super useful to me!

[ErinRigh]

Originally Posted by Ash Nazg

CC3+ has a command that lets you trace contiguous bitmap (e.g. PNG) images, so I can quickly and easily import the landmass into CC3+ and then go to town.

Originally Posted by Maidhc O Casain

Could you tell me what that command is? That would be super useful to me!

Me too, please

[dungeonguru]

Originally Posted by ErinRigh

Me too, please

I think it's on Joe Sweeney's tutorials -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVH1fyXPQw8

There is also a way to import a file as a layer and then draw/trace over that layer and when you don't need the layer with the .png you just hide the layer.

[daplunk]

There are two ways to trace that I'm aware of.

1. Using a draw tool you can press T to activate Trace mode. This lets you trace around objects that exist inside of CC3+. Be that land-mass or walls. This is an automatic trace.

How To use the TRACE Function

2. Import an external file (map) and then use the land-mass tool to manually trace around it. This works quite well but it a manual trace not automatic.

How To Trace Overland Map

Another handy thing you can do is put a transparency effect on external maps that you insert. This way you can line things up.

[Ash Nazg]

Unfortunately, as daplunk points out, the TRACE command won't work with bitmaps; it only works on CC3+ entities. And while you can manually trace a bitmap using a variety of techniques, I find them all tedious and imprecise.

The new command I'm talking about is CONTOURSM. It was introduced in CC3+ Update 16. I should point out that it does have some limitations and requirements, but they can all be met by Wonderdraft's export options. I've used it to great effect.

For a really good, detailed explanation of the command and instructions for using it, check out Monsen's excellent article on the ProFantasy Blog.

-Ash

[Maidhc O Casain]

Thanks, guys! I manually trace imported bitmaps frequently, and use the transparency effect to make it as accurate as possible - it's tedious but it gets the job done. So I was looking specifically for something that would improve my workflow.

I'll check out the CONTOURSM command and the documentation and see if it's something I can use - sounds hopeful!

[Lexin]

I didn't know about either the TRACE or the CONTOURSM command so I'm super-grateful for that. I'll try it out tomorrow.