Details of CC3

So how do you go about creating a design with CC3 ?

CC3 provides a great starting point - templates. These are pre-designed blank maps, which are set up for different purposes. They have scale bars, compass roses, map borders, their own drawing tools, as well as styles and fonts appropriate for their application. A map for an underground design might have pre-configured grid to which you can "snap" your walls. A starship deck plan could have a key with iris hatches and a pilot's console. Templates give you a head start on your map making, and CC3 has many. When you've chosen your template, you can start mapping. Here are some examples of how you can approach different types of design.

Overland mapping

Much of what applies to overland mapping also holds true for all designs, so we use it here as an example. With the Landmass tool, CC3 simplifies what could be the most time-consuming part of overland map creation. Either choose the default Landmass tool, or choose from one of the predefined ones. You can even create your own. You can sketch, click or even use a fractal drawing option.

If you prefer, you can simply import a map from Fractal Terrains Pro, or place a scan of an existing map in the background. If you want you can add filled contours using pre-defined height maps, or for a more fantasy feel, use symbols.

Now choose a button for the next map feature you want to add, mountains and hills. This pulls up a catalog of attractive mountain and hill symbols, as well as setting suitable defaults for color, layer and so on. Click on these, scale and rotate visually, then place on the map. The symbols are carefully designed to work together.

The mountains and contours give you an idea where the water might flow - a simple icon click lets you add rivers. Using CC3's precision drawing tools, it's easy to ensure that they line up exactly with the coastline.

With mountains and rivers, vegetation is the next obvious step. First, mark out the forested areas with the forest drawing tools, then select the Vegetation icon to place individual symbols.

Next, add structures symbols, roads, and other features. The catalog icons give you access to over 900 symbols. You can also fill areas with predefined fill styles made from bitmap textures or vector symbols.

You can add text with the same ease as you can symbols. Scale and rotate on the fly, and create text effects. Labelling your map is easy.

You can also add a numbered hex or square grid of any size, and finally effects like Glows, Blurs Drop Shadows, and many others give your map a special touch.

More than just a map

When you've made a great looking map, what do you do with it? In summary, view it, print it, export it and link to it. All CC3 drawing objects are associated with a particular layer; for example, you can put all the mountains on the MINERALS/MOUNTAINS layer. You can hide and show these layers to create customized maps. If you are playing a war game with a referee and three players, you would set up three extra layers, Player 1, Player 2 and Player 3. The referee can have a map with all the players' information showing, and the players have maps with only their own layers showing. You can view or print with any layers shown or hidden.

View your map

To navigate your maps, you can use the powerful zoom tools, even in the middle of a drawing something else. You can find and zoom to examples of text, save commonly used views, and even set up more than one window on your drawing. Because CC3's vector drawing objects draw very fast and do not lose any detail when you zoom close. Even bitmap objects redraw faster than in most common paint programs; and CC3 automatically selects between different resolutions of one bitmap to speed up redraws while providing the best resolution for the current view. CC3's objects also have a dimensions in real world units - this makes it easy to measure distances and print at any scale.

Print your map

When you print, you can choose the entire drawing, the current window, or a pre-saved view. You can print on one piece of paper, or across many, with no loss of detail. You can print at any scale, or fit your print to the paper. For example, you could print a starship deck plan so that one inch on the paper was two metres on the drawing, or your world at 1:10000000.

Export your map

CC3 allows you to export your map, or sections of your map to high resolution images for use in documents or the Internet. Choose from JPEG, PNG or bitmap file formats. You can also export your map in vector format for use in other CAD programs.

Link your map

CC3 lets you link areas of your maps to other CC3 designs. For example, you could link a city symbol to a map of that city, then link the city map back to its parent. In addition, you can link areas to documents or software: click on a village to see a Word® document with information about that village.

Drawing help

To make the creation of walls and other constructions simple, CC3 lets you snap your cursor to a pre-defined grid. You can turn this on or off at any time, even in the middle of drawing and define your own grids. The grid can be rectangular or hexagonal.

CC3 also lets you "lock" objects to other objects using the Attach button. Rivers lock precisely to coasts, rooms fit together, all with the minimum of fuss.

If you like the look of a particular object, whether text, symbol or anything else, KEEP lets you add more objects with similar properties. With DRAW LIKE, you can select anything in the drawing and immediately begin drawing similar entities, so just select an existing symbol and add more the same.

CC3 Screenshots

See more examples in the gallery!