Adding Mist to a Campaign Cartographer Map

 Recently, I have been drawing a lot of Barovian maps.  That land is heavily misted, it's a major story element that really could use more presence on the maps I have drawn.  

Initially, I ignored this element as the mists are going to change dramatically over time and not showing any, maximizes visibility for the battle map at the cost of flavor.

I decided I had to have mists in the bathhouse that I located on one of the maps so I muddled through and developed a technique that works for me. Allowing a quite misty appearance without necessarily obscuring all of the details.  

At the request of a fellow CoS DM, I have taken on the task of updating the maps to have cobblestone major roads.  While I am at it, I have opted to add some misty areas to the maps.  This post highlights how I am going about that.

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Obtaining Tile Fill

The first step is to add an appropriate fill to the drawing.  I've only found one that works, but that is all we need.  It is part of Cartographer's Annual: September (2015) Issue --  Dracula Dossier which I have installed in the conventional location.  

To add it, I needed to select the Fill Style Properties and start a New fill which I creatively called MIST.  

I set the scaling a bit larger than the default 10, as shown in the accompanying screen snap.  This was to reduce the number of repeats of the tile.  I used 15, but something more like 50 is also fine, it really depends on the map and how visibible repeated tiles will be. 

The key step is to use Find to select the tile to be used for this new fill pattern. 

In this case, the bit maps are located in CC3Plus/Bitmaps/Tiles/Dungeon/ Annual Dracula Dossier as shown in the screen snap.  I picked the VH (very High) pixel density version, to maximize pixel information as I knew I was going to stretch the tile larger than intended as the dungeon texture was being used in what is really a city map.

After the MIST tile pattern is added it can be used in the drawing.

Adding Mist Layers (CC3+ Sheets)

Mists will want to be on one or more layers, make that sheets.  

...time for a digression, CC3+ names the concept that PhotoShop and essentially all other graphics programs call layers, sheets.  I have never gotten my head wrapped around this other than to remember that CC3 uses the term in what, to me, is exactly the wrong way.  Ok, back to topic...  

In my sample snippet at the top of this post, I used two layers so I could have denser mists in the corners.  I position the MIST and MIST 2 sheets logically below, which keeping with CC3 tradition is above the ROOF and TREES layers.  This was done to make the tall objects appear above the mists.  In my final image (not shown here) I moved MIST 2 to below the TREE layer, dangit, below the TREE sheet so that it would appear above the Trees it covered and partially obscure them.

For both of the MIST sheets, I added a Transparency and Edge Fade Effect.  The values I used are visible in the accompanying screen snaps.  My goal was to make the mists apparent but not impede the usability of the battle map. 

Adding Actual Mists

Once the Sheets and Fill are added, it's a simple matter of making them active and then adding filled objects to the map to appropriate places.

One thing to note, the mists will need to extend off the edge of the map at least as far as the edge fade effect if you want them to reach the map edges without fading when printed. 

Adding Some Clouds

In addition to the mists which are a bit map overlay, symbols of clouds can be used.  I found some that I like using in CC3Plus / Symbols / Dunjinni Archives / BL12_Dressing Clouds. They can be rotated and scaled as appropriate to create some more localized obscurement. 

The Dunjinni Archives can be installed along with other art assets packaged by the Vintyri Project.  This is discussed on ProFantasy boards, CSUAC 2.0 for CC3+ Released.  I use these assets frequently and recommend they be installed to supplement what is provided with CC3+.