The Sixth "Best of CC2 Mail List" Archive

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[CC-L] Trees & mountains

Date: 8/11/98 8:47:49 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Stuart Hunter

When a group of overlapping symbols, such as trees or mountains, is finally in the desired front-to-back order, combine them together using GROUP. This prevents them being misordered by accident and makes it easy to add extra symbols behind the group. (If there are gaps between symbols for rivers and roads, this helps break larger forests and mountain ranges up into manageable blocks.)

RE: [CC-L] Drawing a split island

Date: 8/13/98 8:44:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: William Wire

Typically, I draw one coastline. When I'm ready to start the next map, I COPY the coast into the new map and using the Y-locking so it doesn't "drift" when you slide it over, move it to the border the other maps shares with this new one. Once in place, I usually put a tic mark on the border each place it touches then erase the coastline.

> From: John A. Tomkins

> Sent: Thursday, August 13, 1998 10:31 AM

> Subject: [CC-L] Drawing a split island

> Question

> I want to draw an island continent, but I want to split it across two maps. This is for my already drawn world map. The world map is laid out so that I can "see" each individual map. I have an island that is split across two maps.

>

> 1) What is the easiest way to draw the coastline across both maps so they match?

> 2) What would be the easiest to color the land and sea? Since some of the land would be at the bottom or top of the map. I know that I can use the decorative templates for the sea, but the land seems a bit more confusing.

Re: [CC-L] Which is better

Date: 8/14/98 6:40:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Simon Rogers

Tassin, Mark wrote:

> Ummm... you can in fact type in commands at the command line, I haven't done much, but I did create some boxes and stuff when testing out the program. >

If you are a fast typist this is often the best way to use CC2. Typing CHANGEC A D 0 can be quicker than selecting the changec icon, selecting All then Do it. In particular, using your left hand to drive dialog box options and press function keys can be very quick. If anyone wants to set up macro shortcuts for commands, this is pretty easy to do. Say you wanted to be able to type "E" to start an ERASE command.

Type E and press ENTER (this is just to check that E doesn't already mean something)

You should get the usual error dialog.

Edit the macro file.

Add a macro as follows:

MACRO E

ERASE

ENDM

Save the macro file.

You can do this with any command. Look up the text equivalent in the help file.

Other examples, pressing F9 (for ON) when you want to attach your river to the coast, or F5 for endpoint when you are drawing a landmass which hits the corner of a map.

Re: [CC-L] Re: Printing CC2 Maps

Date: 8/14/98 10:01:06 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Simon Rogers

Rob McDougall wrote:

> Actually you don't need to put it into a format that is compatible with the paint program. You just need to convert it into a program that's compatible with th eir printer! This is an important distinction. Bitmapped formats like BMP, JPG, and GIF are likely to give you poorer results than PCL or PostScript.

> Best case, phone them up and ask them what type of printer they have. Install a new printer onto your computer of that same type, and set it's output to the "FILE:" device. With this setup, you just print from CC2 to that printer. You'll be prompted for a filename. After the print process is complete, you can take the file to your printer's place and copy the file onto their machine. From there, a quick "Copy filename LPT1: /B" from a DOS window will get you a printout that is as high a quality as possible. (Much higher than the bitmapped formats). >

This method works pretty well, but doesn't neat persuading them to install The CC2 printer and viewer then printing from there. We have found a print shop That will do this in the UK then encapsulate the prints (that's how we did the GENCON ones)

If demand is high enough (private e-mail to me) we would consider offering This as a service. Only thing is, it could be expensive. Not so much the printing as the packing in a giant tube and shipping. But for an A1 sized full color, encapsulated print of your campaign world, it's certainly worth thinking about.

Otherwise, to get a quality EPS file that zips up very small, set your Printer up as an Apple Laser Writer NTX (it's on your Windows 95 disk) and plot to file. You can use a postscript viewer to check it looks OK (Anyone know any good free/shareware postscript viewers?) then e-mail it to the print bureau.

[CC-L] New to the list!

Date: 8/14/98 9:26:21 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Chris La Plante

If I draw a world-scale map, how do I take individual areas of that map and import them into a smaller-scale map? Or how do I do the reverse? If I make a small-area map, and then wish to incorporate it into a large-area map (say, an area 4 times the size of the small map, so the small-area map, or at least the general shape of it, would need to be shrunk by a factor of 4 and inserted into the large-area map).

When printing out a map, does it print out on a single sheet of paper, by default? I have a campaign map that I would like to convert into CC2, but it is drawn on four 8 1/2 by 11 sheets, and I am a bit uncertain as to the best way of converting it. Should I draw four separate maps (it is one continent), or should I draw it on one map, and then break that one map into smaller sections?

Also, what is the best way to draw coastlines? I'm kind of picky about the coastline, and I don't care for the very smooth, rounder coastline. Basically, I need to draw a coastline with a LOT of nodes. Is there a fast way of drawing this, or am I pretty much stuck with clicking the mouse every millimeter than I move it?

RE: [CC-L] New to the list!

Date: 8/15/98 12:47:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Linda Kekumu

CC2's default templates are designed for just this purpose - take a look at the dimensions of the template & you'll notice that 2 of the 500x400 maps would exactly fit into the 1000x800 map or 4 of the 500x400 maps would go into the 2000x1600 map. CC2 offers several options when you print, you can choose the "fit to page" option & CC2 will print the map to fit on an 8.5 x 11" paper or you can choose one of the scaling options.

Because your map is currently on 4 different pages, I would make 4 separate maps & join them together. It is easier to join maps than it is the extract portions to make smaller maps - although with some preplanning, it is quite doable.

If you were to transfer the information from each sheet of paper into the 400x500 template, it would be quite easy to inset each part into the larger 2000x1600 template. There is also some additional information on page 61 of the user manual.

There is an upper limit to the number of nodes in each smooth path & yes, you have to put each & every one of those nodes in there yourself. I'm sure some of the others can give suggestions on this aspect of the

coastlines. I tend to draw rather smooth coastlines as I've been working on world scale maps & you can't see any difference between 1 node & 50 nodes at this scale (especially on a 300 DPI printer!), however, when I get to the smaller scaled maps, I'll surely need some help!

> If I draw a world-scale map, how do I take individual areas of that map and import them into a smaller-scale map? Or how do I do the reverse? If I make a small-area map, and then wish to incorporate it into a large-area map (say, an area 4 times the size of the small map, so the small-area map, or at least the general shape of it, would need to be shrunk by a factor of 4 and inserted into the large-area map).

> When printing out a map, does it print out on a single sheet of paper, by default? I have a campaign map that I would like to convert into CC2, but it is drawn on four 8 1/2 by 11 sheets, and I am a bit uncertain as to the best way of converting it. Should I draw four separate maps (it is one continent), or should I draw it on one map, and then break that one map into smaller sections?

> Also, what is the best way to draw coastlines? I'm kind of picky about the coastline, and I don't care for the very smooth, rounder coastline. Basically, I need to draw a coastline with a LOT of nodes. Is there a fast way of drawing this, or am I pretty much stuck with clicking the mouse every millimeter than I move it? >

[CC-L] Re: [cc-l-digest] V1 #89 - edit->change->symbol layer

Date: 8/15/98 3:53:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Leo Sutherland

More importantly, because I scatter symbols all over the place (in terms of layers), is this going to interfere with my drawing. When I map buildings, I have a layer for each level (floor, I mean) i.e. I have "Building - Ground", "Building - 1st Floor", etc, layers. Also accompanying these, I have "Furnishing - Ground", "Furnishing - 1st Floor", etc, levels. On the Building layers I draw the structure; walls, windows, doors, tops (or bottoms) of stairs, that kind of thing. On the Furnishing layers, I put all the symbols (usually furnishing) that are on the relevant floor. If the above sequence moves these around, I'm not going to be a happy bunny at all.

BTW, if you are wondering, labels that are relevant to one floor go on an Appropriate "Labels" level. And GM only stuff goes on an appropriate "GM" level.....I'm sure you all get the idea. Note... this obviously is necessary where the drawing of the floors is stacked vertically i.e., one on top of another. I still do this if I happen to lay the plans of the floors side by side.

Actually, this brings me to another point.....is there any way of grouping layers. I.e.. If I move a part of my drawing that is on say the "Building - Ground" layer, I would like the layers associated with that layer (i.e.., as explained above, the "Furnishings -Ground", "GM - Ground", and "Labels - Ground" layers) to move with it, regardless of whether they are hidden or frozen, or not. If not, why not? Will such functions be available in later releases? It would allow sets of layers that of necessity stacked vertically to be 'extracted' from the 'stack' of layers and moved to a different position, for example.

Also, and finally, are there any plans for a sort of "create new drawing from selection". I.e.. select a part of your drawing by the usual means, press the button, and get a new drawing consisting of the selected bits? Yes, you can do it using cut'n'paste....what I mean is that such a command would also use the same settings, etc. of the original drawing, so you don't have to......oh,...and here's another......what if that command could also set up a link between the parent and child drawings (including turning the selection on the parent drawing into a 'hot-spot' for you? If not, does anyone fancy writing a macro that will do that?

[CC-L] Re: [cc-l-digest] V1 #89 - edit->change->symbol layer

Date: 8/15/98 7:25:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Simon Rogers

> BTW, if you are wondering, labels that are relevant to one floor go on an appropriate "Labels" level. And GM only stuff goes on an appropriate "GM" level. I'm sure you all get the idea. Note... this obviously is necessary where the drawing of the floors is stacked vertically i.e., one on top of another. I still do this if I happen to lay the plans of the floors side by side. >

CHANGE SYMBOL LAYER will have no effect on any of these.

Layers are mixed up with symbol in a number of ways.

First, there are the layers that the entities that are going to be made into a symbol are drawn on. For example if you were drawing a house symbol, you could draw the entities on the following layers:

ROOF

GROUND

FIRST

Then there is the layer that the symbol is defined on e.g. the SYMBOL DEFINITION layer. This is the current layer that is set when you define the symbol.

Finally, there is the layer that the symbol is inserted on - for example, when you insert a Tree symbol from the catalog on the VEGETATION layer.

Let's take an example where the above house symbol is defined on the SYMBOL DEFINTION layer. It is then inserted into a drawing on the RESIDENTS 1 layer.

1) If you hide the SYMBOL DEFINITION layer, all symbols defined on that layer are hidden, including this house symbol, regardless of what other layers are visible.

(Although we suggest that all symbols should be defined on the SYM DEF layer, you could, for example, define doors on the DOORS layer, then hide this layer to hide all doors in the drawing, regardless of what other layers were visible)

2) If you hide the RESIDENTS 1 layer all symbols inserted on that layer are hidden, including this house symbol, regardless of what other layers are visible.

3) If both the above layers are visible, you can hide or show the ROOF, GROUND and FIRST layers, revealing the different stories of all the buildings in the drawing.

So what does CHANGE SYMBOL LAYER do? Well, it changes the layer of all symbol definitions and the entities contained within them to be the same layer (the SYMBOL DEFINITION layer). This means that if you insert a Tree symbol on the VEGETATION layer, it will be visible if both the SYMBOL DEFINITION and VEGETATION layer are visible- other layers are unimportant.

We needed to add this command because mistakenly, in the first release, all entities in all symbols displayed as long as the layer they were inserted on was visible. Some of our earlier symbols were not drawn on the SYMBOL DEFINITION layer, so this can cause all sorts of layer problems with current maps.

We will be taking advantage of the flexibility described above in City Designer, to allow users to print non-color-coded player maps.

Why doesn't change symbol layer always work? Well CC2 thinks of layers as numbers. If you start a blank drawing and call one layer SYMBOL DEFINTION, it isn't necessarily the same layer as the SYMBOL DEFINITION in another. All of our map template files are defined correctly, so this is the best place to define symbols.

To check if a symbol catalog is on the correct layer:

1) Start a map based on 1000 x 800.fct.

2) Select the symbol catalog using the CATALOG button

3) Hide the SYMBOL DEFINTION layer.

All the symbol should now be invisible.

To check if a template has the correct SYMBOL DEFINTION layer defined.

1) Open the template

2) Select the symbol catalog using the CATALOG button

3) Hide the SYMBOL DEFINTION layer.

All the symbol should now be invisible. If they are not, you can either:

a) Abandon the template

b) Keep hiding layers until you find out which one causes the symbols to disappear. Rename this layer to the SYMBOL DEFINITION layer.

Note that this whole thing only affects users who have the version 5.14 of CC2 and have patched. If anyone has any problems with this (and it seems very few do) I will be happy to assist them.

> Actually, this brings me to another point.....is there any way of grouping layers. i.e. If I move a part of my drawing that is on say the "Building - Ground" layer, I would like the layers associated with that layer (i.e., as explained above, the "Furnishings - Ground", "GM - Ground", and "Labels - Ground" layers) to move with it, regardless of whether they are hidden or frozen, or not. If not, why not?? Will such functions be available in later releases? It would allow sets of layers that of necessity stacked vertically to be 'extracted' from the 'stack' of layers and moved to a different position, for example. >

It is unlikely that we will do this. It is present in some other CAD packages and we experimented with it in CC-Pro, but it is about an add-on product worth of programming and re-writing. You can use the symbol layering described above to achieve what you want.

> Also, and finally, are there any plans for a sort of "create new drawing from selection". i.e. select a part of your drawing by the usual means, press the button, and get a new drawing consisting of the selected bits? Yes, you can do it using cut'n'paste....what I mean is that such a command would also use the same settings, etc. of the original drawing, so you don't have to

At the risk of sounding facetious, delete the entities you don't want then save the drawing as a template.

Re: [CC-L] Re: Printing CC2 Maps

Date: 8/15/98 12:18:56 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Manzabar

Ghostview is free at: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/index.html

[CC-L] Map Scaling

Date: 8/16/98 9:06:49 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Stuart Hunter

There have been several items about transferring maps between different scales, the following tip might help.

Draw the coastlines etc. on the larger scale map, but first create a layer with a series of boxes each drawn to represent the extents of one of the smaller scale maps. Whenever a coast or other line will cross one of these boxes, end the line with its endpoint attached to the box, then re-start drawing the line with its first point attached to the endpoint of the previous line. It is then a simple matter to use the clipboard to copy just those items needed into a smaller scale map, no trimming being needed.

[CC-L] Campaign Mapper

Date: 8/19/98 8:54:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Simon Rogers

I've noticed that many of the beta testers have praised features that they didn't know were already present in CC2 - namely Number Label and Outline (and Text at an Angle)

These macros are available from Option > Example Macros. They have been added as buttons to Campaign Mapper. The reason they aren't more obvious in CC2 is because they are macros. Macros can cause some ungraceful error messages.

Fw: [CC-L] Text to path (macro?)

From: Simon Rogers <Simon Rogers>

Date: Tuesday, July 07, 1998 4:59 AM

If you have the patch installed - there is a macro for aligning text to a path OPTIONS>EXAMPLE MACROS>TEXT ALONG CURVE

Text along curve is designed to be used as follows.

1. Draw an independent curve which is the total length of the text you want to use. This can be an arc or smooth path. If you wanted the text to follow a river you could just copy a piece of the river then cut a junk out using split for the text to follow.

2. Get the text size right by placing a piece of text, resizing it using CTRL then selecting KEEP, then the text.

3. Choose an unusual color.

4. Count the number of letters in the word (sorry about this)

5. Use the macro.

This gives pretty good results. You can use CHANGE TEXT PROPERTIES by COLOR to change the size or other properties of the text until they look right.

Re: [CC-L] Grids (Hex, Square, OTHER?)

Date: 8/19/98 10:52:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Stuart Hunter

Guy Hoyle wrote

>Is there a way to create a custom-designed grid (i.e., other than hex or square grids)? What I am thinking of is a staggered square grid, where every other row of squares is offset. It has some of the advantages of a hex grid with some of the advantages of a square grid.

All you have to do for this, or any other grid, is to work out what the repeating pattern is , create the pattern as a symbol, and then use it to create a fill pattern. For your offset grid the repeat pattern looks like a capital letter E of height equal to twice the width, but with the upper half of the vertical line moved to the right half the width of the 'E'. If you have problems creating new symbols, follow (exactly) the instructions in the manual for creating a new symbol catalogue.

Correction (not thinking straight)

The pattern I described in my last mail wasn't quite right, the top horizontal bar of the 'E' should be removed, as well as the top half of the vertical line being moved sideways. A like the 'X's in the following matrix

OOXOO

OOXOO

OOXOO

OOXOO

XXXXX

XOOOO

XOOOO

XOOOO

XOOOO

XXXXX

Re: [CC-L] Printing

Date: 8/20/98 3:06:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Simon Rogers

John A. Tomkins wrote:

> Has anyone noticed their maps printing with black lines separating their contours, even though you haven't outlined them? This is not on all contour lines, just a few.>

Try selecting Solid fill style then turning Outline Off in maps where this occurs.

> Also, I printed a map from someone and where the different contours representing the water are located, the printer seems to have mis-read some information and printed these wrong. >

It is likely that this is an incorrectly drawn multipoly. The higher the resolution, the more likely "leakage" is to occur. Explode the contour that leaks, correct the end points then re-multipoly the shape.

Re: [CC-L] Multipoly tip

Date: 8/21/98 1:08:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Stuart Hunter

Lee Saunders wrote

>The biggest problem I have with 'Multipoly' is that once you multipoly your object, you cannot edit any of the points.

>A trick I've learned is that if you draw your object in a unique color that you have set aside for this purpose. Then once you have multipolied your object and went on to other things, if you need to edit the multipoly, you simply:

>1) explode then multipoly.

>2) edit the nodes you need to edit.

>3) multipoly by color and choose the special color.

>Since this color was set aside for multipolies, you should by working with that color when working on a specific multipoly.

You don't even need to draw the object in a special colour beforehand. Just CHANGE COLOUR by PRIOR immediately after exploding the multipoly.

The only problem I can see is if you don't know there are other objects of the special color (perhaps in symbols that have got exploded?).

An alternative is to use GROUP, then UNGROUP the objects - they can be REGROUPED by selecting just one member of the group; using this you can get the objects to be selected by PRIOR.

Re: [CC-L] and one MORE question...

Date: 8/23/98 6:01:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: L. Lee Saunders

To turn on the animation you need to add the following 4 line in the master.ini file. You can access this file by clicking on tools in the menu bar.

Initial_Clock=0

Final_Clock=1

Initial_Frame=0

Final_Frame=35

this will make 36 files sequentially numbered. Since the script has:

clock*360

This will create each file with the globe rotated 10 degrees. For very smooth animation you might want to go with 72 total frames so that each rotation is only by 5 degrees, but that might make the animated GIF or AVI you are going to eventually make quite large.

RE: [CC-L] Symbol Catalog Combining

Date: 8/24/98 2:58:18 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Linda Kekumu

To combine symbol libraries:

Let's say you want to add several symbols from the Geometry catalog to the Vegetation catalog.

First - make a back up copy of your catalogs.

File Open> Vegetation.fsc

Choose the Geometry catalog by clicking on the catalog bar (near the top, left - beside the double line icon) Insert the symbols from the Geometry catalog that you want to be in the Vegetation catalog, when you are done inserting the symbols you want Choose File>Save AS>Vegetation.fsc (you might have to move to this directory) CC2 will ask if you want to overwrite & answer yes - IF you've made a back up - go ahead ;-)

That's it, now when you choose the Vegetation catalog it will have the Geometry symbols that you picked added on to the bottom of the catalog.

> From: John A. Tomkins

> Sent: Monday, August 24, 1998 9:35 AM

> Subject: [CC-L] Symbol Catalog Combining

>

> What is the procedure for combing two symbol catalogs, or can it be done?

RE: [CC-L] Hex grid Question

Date: 8/24/98 3:17:12 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Linda Kekumu

You'll need a different template. Try using the symbols fill - I think those hexes are oriented the way you want. Click on the Fill styles (right hand side) choose Symbol fills & scroll through there. I think there are several predefined hex grids. Let me know if this works for you.

The 30 mile hex grid that you have is a special Greyhawk hex grid. Greyhawk maps measure the hexes on a diagonal & we had to get a special grid made for it. If possible, use the predefined symbols fills, they are much smaller & easier to work with.

> From: Pat Dandrea

> Sent: Monday, August 24, 1998 11:09 AM

> Subject: [CC-L] Hex grid Question

> have not been able to figure this one out. ok i have setup a 30 Mile hex grid and it comes out fine where xy rotation = 0. i want the hexes to align where xy rotation = 90 degrees and it looks like crud. is there a way of fixing this? is there a line segment i can add that will fix this?

RE: [CC-L] Hex grid Question

Date: 8/24/98 3:52:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Pat Dandrea

that 30 mile hex is the ole standard. ever since TSR put out the original greyhawk maps. which still look highly cool. the following is the solution for orienting a hex 90 degrees.

After playing with numbers i found that switching the X and Y spacing the normal settings were

X spacing 45.00

Y spacing 25.97901

X Scale 3.0

y Scale 3.0

XY Rotation 0.00

the fix i found by switching the X and Y spacing

X spacing 25.97901

Y spacing 45.00

X Scale 3.0

y Scale 3.0

XY Rotation 90.00

[CC-L] Printable Areas

Date: 8/25/98 12:01:50 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Carolyn J. Jarman

I have finally gotten around to printing my map. They have been exported from CC-DOS. The map size is 1500x1000. Under CC-DOS, there were four pre-defined zooms, one for each quadrant of the map (F1-F4). I don't believe these are defined in CC2, so I created four named views, one for each quadrant of the map. They were created using the zoom window, and the area went something like:

view 1: 0,1000 - 750,500

view 2: 1500,1000 - 750,500

view 3: 0,0 - 750,500

view 4: 1500,0 - 750,500

The idea is that if you print out these views each with the same set scale, you end up with four areas of the map that can be taped together and fit perfectly. This worked really slick under CC-DOS, now I am trying to do the same under CC2.

Well, if you do the math, about an 8"x10" landscape area of physical paper with a 750 length, the scale ends up being 1 physical area is 75 map area.

The problem is that whenever I print a view, the last 1/2" gets of the map gets carried over to the next sheet of paper. Whenever this happened under CC-DOS, I would simply scale back the physical area, so instead of 10" of length, I would use 9.5" of length. Doing this math would give a scale of about 1:78.9, or there about. This would print the same map on less physical length of paper (it would be just a little smaller).

However under CC2, this seems to get me more map to print, ie. more map gets printed on the 1/2" strip on the second sheet, and not the same map area printed on a smaller physical paper dimension (as in CC-DOS).

Windows being windows, and CC2 using the window's printer driver, under the Control Panel->Printers->Properties I have set the unprintable area for the bottom up to over 2", however CC2 seems to ignore this, for it did not make any difference, it always printed the same way. This same Properties unprintable area does not show up on the printer/properties in CC2.

I tried using other apps (like WordPerfect) and it did recognize the 2" of unprintable area, and paged the document accordingly.

Does anyone have any advice on not letting CC2 print this 1/2" strip of map on a second sheet of paper???

Re: [CC-L] Symbol Catalog Combining

Date: 8/25/98 2:48:52 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Simon Rogers

Further to Linda's suggestion. We discovered this a couple of weeks ago. It is very useful for combining lots of different symbols from many catalogs.

Making Custom Catalogs

Open an existing catalog, save it with a new name, purge the symbols. Open any catalog you want. Select a symbol. (this can be from full page view If you prefer). The symbol definition is now part of your drawing. You don't even need to Place the symbol; once it has been selected it is added to the drawing. Click on any symbols in this catalog in whatever order you want. If you are not sure if you have selected a particular symbol Open any other catalog at any time, clicking on symbols in whatever order you want. Save the map.

This is a very quick way of combining symbols from different catalogs.

Re: [CC-L] Printable Areas

Date: 8/25/98 9:53:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Lupaerian

On 24 Aug 98 at 21:51, Carolyn J. Jarman wrote:

> Windows being windows, and CC2 using the window's printer driver, under the Control Panel->Printers->Properties I have set the unprintable area for the bottom up to over 2", however CC2 seems to ignore this, for it did not make any difference, it always printed the same way. This same Properties unprintable area does not show up on the printer/properties in CC2.

Uh... what kind of printer are you using? Have you tried updating your printer driver to the newest version available (the windows 95 default drivers tend to be crappy)? I've had plenty of problems with CC2 and the Canon BJC610, even while using the newest printer drivers. Strangely enough, all those bugs disappeared the day I got tired of my 610 and replaced it with an Epson Stylus Photo EX).

> I tried using other apps (like WordPerfect) and it did recognize the 2" of unprintable area, and paged the document accordingly. >

> Does anyone have any advice on not letting CC2 print this 1/2" strip of map on a second sheet of paper?

When CC2 for some reason fails on me, I tend to do a clipboard copy and paste the contents into MS Publisher. Not only does that allow me to do some minor map manipulation and add fancy borders using windows metafile clipart, but it also gives me the choice of printing out posters on several sheets of A3, which I then tape together for a truly biggie map.

RE: [CC-L] Introduction and questions

Date: 8/25/98 4:20:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Linda Kekumu

> Questions.

> 1. Contours. I want to add contours into my map. I can copy over my coastline to the countour level and use that path as one of the borders Then I can smooth path in the lowest level of elevation. That I understand. For my next elevation up I want to use the smooth path I used last time for the one side, and add in another side. If I copy the first poly, can I past it directly over the current poly? should I temporarily copy it to another level, explode it, get the path and copy it back?

I have found the easiest way to do this is to use the Copy>Copy to Layer selection & then hide the layer that you just copied to. You can do this as many times as you like - just keep those duplicate lines on different hidden layers (until you need them). It is probably easier to copy the path before you make them into a poly or a multiploy, but either way works.

> 2. If I have a path overlayed on itself, is there an easy way to select the one that I want and not the other?

Yes, Choose Info>List & click on the path or entity. List will tell you exactly what that path is & CC2 assigns every entity a TAG #. You can then choose to edit or move or whatever by the TAG#.

> 3. Mountain range. Is it best practice to define a poly with symbol fill for a large mountain range or forest, or should I place individual symbols for that?

Depends on how you want the map to look. Most here prefer the symbols – at least that is almost all I've seen on any maps :-) If you are practicing polys - then just practice with solid fills, if you are wanting practice with mountain & forest placement - then use the symbols. It doesn't take long to "get" it .

> 4. Is the line width number related to an inch (and thus to the scale of the map?

Line widths are related to the map UNIT - so if you are using inches then it relates to inches, but if you are using meters then it relates to meters & yes this all ties into the scale of the map. There was a discussion on this a while back. I'll try to find my old notes & send it along.

[CC-L] Re: The Sundered Worlds webpage

Date: 8/26/98 11:48:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Brent Smith

>Chris Brown wrote:

>on the Sundered Worlds map: how'd you line the coast in a thin band of white? It makes the land / ocean boundary much nicer looking, and oughta be added to my maps...but I could use some pointers. >

Basically, I create a second, slightly larger landmass underneath the first.

Here's a rough outline of the details. I don't know how familiar you are with CC2 or how you draw coastlines so if you have more questions don't hesitate to ask.

1. On the Coast layer, create a coastline as a series of smooth paths which have been joined using the ENDPOINT modifier.

2. Create a Landfill layer and copy the coast to this layer.

3. Hide all layers except the Landfill layer and set it to current.

4. Multipoly the coast on your landfill layer, using fill style and color as desired. (note due to a bug when trying to multipoly large paths, you may have to subdivide your landmass with lines and multipoly a section at a time).

5. Create a Beach layer and copy your coastline (from the Coast) layer to it.

6. Set Beach layer to working layer and hide all others.

7. In a different color than the coast, use smooth paths to trace a second coast roughly around the first. It should be a distance away from your coast equal to the size of the 'beach' that you want. Don't worry about making it perfect, a rough approximation will work fine.

8. Erase the original coastline using 'Erase By color'

9. Now multipoly the 'beach' coast into whatever color and fill you want. (Same potential problems as in step 4 above)

10. create a seafill layer and create a multipoly rectangle on it the size of your map. (Could use a polygon here? hmmm....)

11. Show everything, put the Seafill layer to the back, then the Beach layer, then the Landfill layer (you can do this in one step by selecting them using OR in that order).

It's sounds pretty time consuming but actually once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty quick. Step #1 is by far the most time consuming and that's the step you've already done.

From: Joe Slayton

Hmmmm... I must be lazy. I usually just copy the coastline entity (after it's multipolyed, etc.), then change its line width to something like 10 (or whatever suits the map), its fill style to solid, and its color to the beach color. Send it to the back and presto - instant beach that exactly follows the coastline. It doesn't look quite as good as a hand-drawn one because the brain knows (OK, my brain knows) that beaches aren't perfect, but it is usually good enough.

RE: [CC-L] Catalog symbols

Date: 8/26/98 6:23:12 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Pat Dandrea

Brain Cole,

> 2. Is there a way to import picture type(CGI, Jpeg, BMP, PXC?) into CC2??

yep there is a way. Which will be 500 times easier when patch 2 is released, but until then this is the way to do it.

Put a scanned image in the background of your map.

RE: [cc-developer-l] file formats

Date: 8/26/98 10:21:24 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Linda Kekumu

Mike has just uploaded the r2vdemo.exe & the original URL is http://www.ablesw.com/r2vhome.html

CC2 does not do wmf directly, I was using Corel to open wmf, then exporting to dxf. This only took a few seconds & did a very good job, but the files were just too big to be useful for commercial symbols - great for anything else, though.

Re: [CC-L] Subsections of maps

Date: 9/2/98 12:50:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Stuart Hunter

Just create a box the same size as the edges of your smaller map, and trim to INTERSECT everything that crosses it (be sure you keep the inside piece !) - multipolies have to be exploded, set them a unique colour after exploding and you can easily select for re-multipolying. With smooth curves, the trimmed end might not be exactly on the box (not sure if Patch 2 has improved this) - if this is a problem, you just need to add a small section between the edge box and the new end point. For filled areas, you need to add lines along the edge to make up the complete are for multipolying.

Of course, this would all be much easier with a little preparation. When creating the large map include boxes representing the borders of smaller sub-maps; when a coast, contour etc crosses one of these boxes, end the line ON the box and then start drawing the coast or whatever from the same point - Hey Presto, no trimming needed.

> OK, I've cut out a subsection of a larger map, do I (the very inartistic one) REALLY have to draw the entire map overtop of a perfectly good map? Is there no way to use the trimming and all that stuff to use the existing map then color it in how it needs to be colored?

Or:

Instead of a box, try a separate line for each side of the map (hide the layer with the map border) - this might help CC2 find the intersect point. Input the endpoints of the lines on the keyboard (e.g. 0 , 0 <ENTER>) , the endpoints can be found by moving the mouse over the corners of the map (displays on left of status bar, should be 'obvious' round numbers), or by using INFO and selecting the existing map border box.

Make sure that multipolys are exploded before trying to trim.

Trimming (smoothed) curves leaves an endpoint midway between initial input nodes (use EDIT to see the effect) - this is not the ideal way to do it. A 'better' (but much more time consuming) approach is to delete nodes one at a time from the end of the curve and when you reach the boundary just attach the last node. (But this doesn't work for curves that loop out of your map and then return!). You could try BREAKing your curves just inside the map border, then adding a short line between the new end and the map border.

Your trimming problem could be something to do with how WILBUR creates curves for CC2, any ideas Joe ? (I think WILBUR is beautiful, but I haven't actually created any CC2 maps from it yet myself.)

When you create a multipoly it should take its own colour and fill style from the current settings (see status bar), so there is no need to make any changes to the lines/curves you include in a multipoly. If it isn;t right just use CHANGE COLOUR or CHANGE FILL STYLE on the completed multipoly.

Make sure that that you have line width set to 0 for your multipolys, otherwise the fill style is only applied to the width of the line, not the enclosed area.

Re: [CC-L] Subsections of maps

Date: 9/2/98 9:35:46 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Watcher

The box in the template is actually 4 lines not multipolyed, when you select a side with (for example) trim to entity, it only 'greys' one side.

I did figure out to explode the outline but what remains is a LOT of very short lines, I tried multipolying them thinking that I would end out with one long line but instead it ended out covering half of my map. Your tip about 0 width lines is a VERY good one, it helps a lot in explaining some of the problems I've had in my past experiments trying to learn CC2.

If you don't mind, let me as a few pointed questions to help me understand how things work. If I take 2 lines: _____ and _____ and select multipoly, should I not end out with one line: ________ ?

And if this line is curved into a half arc, will it close the arc and fill it with the current fill style?

If so, how do I just tell CC2 to join ___ with ___ to make ______ ?

If the answer to the previous question can be done in large groups I could just 'join' all the lines of the outline at one level then continue from there although I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that I need to just redraw.

If I want to redraw, when you are doing one from your head it's easy, you don't usually create complications for yourself, but create ANY Wilber map (use the example one on http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/cc2/ it will only take you 5-10 minutes to copy all data off of the screens and into Wilbur, then continue to follow the instructions to generate a background image and an outline. Now that you have a Wilbur-CC2 world, cut out a smaller mapsize section (I used the directions in the manual) and paste it into a smaller map as the manual suggests. You are now in the position I find myself in, I want to put the outline on its own layer, trim it down and have it filled in with color in case that is the output I want, no mountains, no fancy image, just pure CC2. From what I can tell this is the best way to view a closeup map, especially since the Wilbur map disappears when you zoom too far.

OK, if you managed to create the filled outline then PLEASE tell me how you did it, what did you multipoly and why, what did you redraw and why, lots of detail please I've been fighting this since page 64 in the manual and still haven't gotten it right yet. Did you use the best method? Is there another faster or cleaner method?

Re: [CC-L] Subsections of maps

Date: 9/2/98 10:19:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Stuart Hunter

Multipoly is used to take a series of lines that ALREADY form the complete outline of an area, and combine them into a single object. That single object (the multipoly) can then be given its own fill style and colour).

Multipoly will not just connect any old lines together, the lines you use must have the end point of one EXACTLY on the start point of the next.

If you want to connect a lot of objects together (the separate lines of the EPLODED WILBUR line?) then use the GROUP command. This makes it easy to select - selecting any object in the group selects all of them. Grouped objects cannot be edited in any way without UNGROUPing them (replaced by UNLOCK in patch 2) - but this is unimportant if you want to include them in a multipoly (the group of lines is in the multipoly, not the other way round).

If you multipoly a set of lines/curves that do NOT all meet at their endpoints and completely enclose a space, then CC2 has to interpolate the missing regions and the resulting shape is unpredictable (I think this is what you have got).

So, where your (coast)line from WILBUR crosses your map border, draw in an extra straight line (more than 1 if you go round a corner) from the endpoint of your WILBUR line and following around the map border until it reaches the other (next) end of your WILBUR line. Include these new edge lines in your multipoly.

Re: [CC-L] Outlining part of a multipolygonDate: 9/3/98 7:00:39 PM Pacific Daylight TimeFrom: Stuart Hunter

Make a copy of the coastline on a different layer (use COPY TO LAYER). Hide the original coastline layer. Use BREAK on the copied coastline, at the points where the brown highlands end. ERASE the unwanted portion of the copied coastline. Draw the remainder of the highland outline, using the endpoints of your clipped coastline as start and end points of the curve/path you create. Move both these parts to the layer for your highlands and use them to make a MULTIPOLY. Make sure this level is FRONTed over the green filled lowlands.

>I created a light brown area to show the highlands, and a green area to show the lowlands. Since the highlands run right to the shore on the western edges of the isles, this involved a lot of high zoom tedious tracing of the shoreline. Is there an easier way of doing this that still lets one color in the interior of the new shape? Basically, I want to take part of an existing entity (the traced coastline), and then add a new side to the entity. >

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