Well, I took another plunge with regards to adding/updating the content on the website. After looking at and experimenting with demos for the programs for several years now, I decided to give ProFantasy professional mapping software a go. 14 day money back gurantee, so if it doesn’t do what I need, I’ve got that long to retreat, at least *laugh*
My Danica’s World overland maps were already based off one part of the suite — Fractal Terrains — which I’d downloaded the demo for and saved my world map file. Once the demo ran out, I was just using screen capture to grab the sections I needed and working from there.
Playing around with updating the maps over the last couple of days, I simply wasn’t happy with the results. That brought me back to ProFantasy’s page again. After mulling it over all day, I finally went for it tonight.
I grabbed a bundle including Fractal Terrains ( world generation/editing ), Campaign Cartographer ( Overland Mapping ), City Designer ( City Level, which I’ve never posted, though I did create one of Montbank in simple bmp format for my own reference ), and Dungeon Designer ( Structure interior level )
Going to start out with the new version of Fractal Terrains and see what I can’t do about fixing one thing that’s always bothered me on my world map — the Great Crater. It’s a major feature of my world, right in the middle of where most of my stories take place, and I was never happy with how it looked on the maps. The new version is supposed to have specific crater generation. Handy. Hope it works well.
From there, I’m going to start with something simple and recreate one of Zoraster’s outposts in Dungeon Designer. That’s a small structure that will let me learn the basics of the program. Probably post an image in the forum when I’m finished.
Just a little note about what’s going on behind the scenes. For now, I’m still downloading and installing everything ( HUGE files ) so I’m writing on Lowborn 07 during the hour long download sessions *laugh*
Getting ever closer to the conclusion of this chapter. Once I finish it, I’ll get a basic start to Ch. 08 ( the ending ) and then move on to concentrating more on SOTM 18 ( as well as editing 17 for posting )
Then I have the long process of editing Lowborn. I’ll have to read the whole story several times in order to make sure my continuity and everything is good. Then, I’ll knuckled down on the nuts-n-bolts editing, chapter by chapter, and start sending them to Roust. Once a couple of chapters have been completely edited, I’ll start posting the story.
Now, back to writing it 🙂
