A Review of City Designer 3 - Windows Software for Creating Fantasy City Maps (Page 2 of 2)

City Designer 3 comes with several styles of graphics. The monochrome filled graphics can be used to make simple maps with few effects. This is useful for very basic maps with little to no clutter. For the truly beautiful and detailed maps, CD3 offers an absolutely gorgeous array of detailed elements to add to maps in order to create a realistic top-down view of a city or outdoor area.

In addition to the beautiful graphics available to a would-be cartographer, City Designer also makes excellent use of Campaign Cartographer’s Sheets and Effects tools. When a map project is near to completion, effects can be turned on for all the elements within a specific sheet. (Sheets operate like layers, and elements can be grouped together in several different categories.) The effects will automatically add shadows and depth to the entire map, creating a level of realism and beauty not found in other fantasy mapping programs. ProFantasy’s guides and tutorials recommend waiting until at least 50% of the map is completed before adding effects since the effects are drawn across the entire map and must be loaded. Users with equipment on the low end of the system requirements spectrum should wait until the map is nearly complete before adding the effects.

The Campaign Cartographer community is an extremely solid and helpful one. ProFantasy offers technical support via their website, and mapping help can be found in any of their tutorials and guides. Several links can also be found off their website that contain downloadable maps, mapping tips, and guides. In addition, Campaign Cartographer 3 and its add-ons have a dedicated forum and mailing list where cartographers, veterans and newcomers alike, can share their thoughts, ideas, and helpful hints on using this powerful program.

City Designer 3 makes the already powerful Campaign Cartographer 3 series even more useful to anyone who wishes to bring their maps to visual realization. It can be purchased directly from ProFantasy for $39.95 with an additional $7 shipping fee if the DVDs are desired rather than just the download version. This useful add-on can also be purchased in gaming and hobby stores across the United States and Great Britain or bought from other online vendors.

ProFantasy also offers bundled packages which give discounts for buying all the programs at once. I recommend the The World Builder package, which includes Campaign Cartographer 3, Fractal Terrains Pro, City Designer 3 and Dungeon Designer 3. With CC3 and those three add-ons, I can create a beautiful visual representation of nearly anything my mind can imagine for my table top games and several of the games that I play or create online. City Designer 3 adds depths to my world by allowing me to create a visual representation of where the inhabitants congregate, an essential to world design.

• Create Fantasy Maps on the Windows Platform with Campaign Cartographer 3
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