Hey kaladorn--
Originally posted by kaladorn:
If anyone has any importable shape libraries appropriate to the manufacture of sector, planetary, subsector, or system maps (esp log scale), I'd love to see them.
From the CC2 website:
subsector map
subsector map symbols
But you really, really want to go to
Elv's Forms and Charts. Trust me. CC2, Galactic and his Gal2CC scripts are probably all you will ever need for sector and subsector mapping.
He's also got an icosohedral planetary map .fcw but I've not used it since I do all of that stuff in photoshop.
Look
here for some nice deck plans.
My real problem in CC2 right now is I can't seem to get any of the dimensioning right.... When I put down a hex grid, in the dialog that pops up I say "make the hexes this big" and it seems to ignore that.
I think you need to scale your map correctly - if I'm working off a bitmap or whatever I just rescale that object to the scale size of the map... just make sure that "1" on the map corresponds to 1 foot or kilometer or parsec or whatever and you'll be okay. When starting something out, use the sqare grid (preferably with the snaps on) to find out what your scale is and go from there.
And I'd like to know how to rescale a n entire drawing - a way to say "this distance on my screen corresponds to this scale distance" - for example, this 100 px (or 0.5" or whatever or one hex) is N kilometers. (Thus the isocahedral planetary maps would be the right scale and you could calculate distances etc using CC2 as well!).
Okay - to measure: use the menu bar and pick info and then distance. Draw a line and CC2 will tell you how long the line is. If you need to re-scale measure something that you know is 1 unit long and then numerically rescale all of your drawing objects by 1/the measured distance.
In other words if you know that point "a" and point "b" are supposed to be 1 parsec apart and you measure the distance from point "a" to point "b" as '5' then you know you have to scale down by 1/5 or 0.2. Select all your objects and choose the rescale button (or edit.. reshape... scale...) and type '0.2'
Of course life is easier if you draw to scale in the first place.....
Anyway, its a neat program. I think I just need to spend more cycles unravelling the power. GRIP, OTOH, I got through fairly quickly.
Yes CC2 is very complex and not always intuitive. A lot of the hassle comes from the turboCAD engine it's built off. CAD programs were designed for enginieers and draughtsmen - not artists or gamers. But, once you get comfey with it, it's a very powerful tool.
True story - I had to move a 12 man team into a new office space at work. I measured up the new room and all of the various types of furnature available and worked it up in CC2. Perfect fit and the movers and planners all worked from my floor plan so I got exactly what I asked for - down to the last LAN drop. Of course I told NO ONE what I'd used to do the layout
HTH
--michael
ps - I've found it's easier to do system maps from scratch each time... no template can cover the various scales and possibilities. I just scale so '1' in the map space = 1au and lay out my orbits etc, then do the labels. Break for inner and outer system as appropriate, draw gas giant moon systems seperately... yes its time consuming but the results are worth it.
