World Map of Asdel

[morne]

Hello all.

I'm starting a new thread for my world since I've decided to deviate from my Atlas maps for a bit and actually finish fleshing out the globe for Asdel. I also recently picked up learning Blender in the hopes of producing concept renders for my worldbuilding one day, and I realized yesterday Blender might be the perfect tool to create world maps—at least the baseline landmasses.

equirectangular_blender.PNG

How does it work? I can project my equirectangular map onto a sphere in Blender and texture paint directly on the globe, updating the equirectangular texture as I do so! No need to struggle against distortion any longer, and I don't have to deal with GPlates' frustratingly limited drawing tools. This is raster, obviously, so I'll have to trace back over it to get the vector coastlines.

Here's a gif, somewhat laggy as this was recorded on my laptop, of me making a few changes to the southern ice cap: https://gfycat.com/sarcasticunrulyleafbird
You can see that I can paint changes on the 3D globe, and the equirectangular map in the bottom window updates with those same changes.

This method should also work well with drawing tectonics, ocean currents, etc. should I chose to go that route.

I will be updating this thread with my progress on finishing the world map, vectorizing, heightmap, bathymetry, and climates. I haven't decided what level of detail I will be going into yet when it comes to tectonics, ocean currents, temp, climate, but we'll see.

[birbs]

Great minds think alike! That's exactly the same process I've been using with my own world maps! Nice to see another Blender user here. Yours is looking really good so far, can't wait to see more.

[morne]

Great minds think alike! That's exactly the same process I've been using with my own world maps! Nice to see another Blender user here. Yours is looking really good so far, can't wait to see more.

Thanks! I really don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier to use Blender. I've even figured out that it's pretty easy to have a sudo layering system with MixRGB nodes to overlay tectonics, currents, winds, etc.

[morne]

I've wrapped up the first draft of the world map:

Layout.jpg

Converted the raster to shapefile and imported into ArcGIS Pro for layout. The base raster was only 7000x3500 so the coastlines still have yet to be refined in later steps, but it's a good starting point.

Next steps are elevation and bathymetry. I have a rough draft tectonic map that I may clean up and post here, but I'm not an expert and I doubt it's going to be the most accurate, especially since I have an uphill battle of retrofitting the landmasses and some existing topography.

[morne]

Well,

I decided to go give it my best with tectonics. I had an uphill battle, since I have some existing topography that I don't want to change, since I've already done a significant amount of work in that area. I also did landmasses first and had to reverse-engineer plates, which is not great Although if you look closely, I did add a few island chains where I deduced some subduction zones.

Tectonics.jpg

I based my plates heavily on this tectonic map of earth. The plates definitely are far from perfect, but I'm hoping that given the amount of fudging with regards to relative plate velocities (which I've deliberately left out, although the velocity arrows give a rough idea, based on size), things mostly line up. Would love some feedback from you tectonics experts out there.

[Peter Toth]

Hi there Morne,

Although I'm far from being a "tectonics expert" (Charerg probably holds that title), I can make one key recommendation to you, if you have LOADS of time and desire to ramp up the realism for your world.

When I did my tectonics for a world-building project a while ago, I used GPlates to define the absolute motions of each plate (degrees per million yr), simulating several hundred million years of plate drift in the process. I then went into GIMP and defined the identity of each individual plate boundary using an applet called "Tectonique," which Warlin shared a few years back. Essentially, using the app, I calculated the relative motions of the plates at EACH boundary (there are MANY on your map!), and traced along a semi-transparent layer from GPlates showing the Euler poles with concentric circles around them. When you have the relative motions from Tectonique and the Euler pole diagram from GPlates, transform boundaries should always be drawn ALONG the lines, divergent across (close to 90 degrees), and I believe convergents can go in any direction as long as they're not going parallel. Doing it this way makes it all mathematically correct, especially when you have so many plates moving in complex ways around your globe. You may also find that you've mistaken the identity of a plate or two.

I hope this explanation sounds clear to you, but if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Good luck and awesome world, by the way! I'm looking forward to its completion.

Peter

Tectonic Map.png

[morne]

Hi there Morne,

Although I'm far from being a "tectonics expert" (Charerg probably holds that title), I can make one key recommendation to you, if you have LOADS of time and desire to ramp up the realism for your world.

Tectonic Map.png

Peter, I really appreciate the tips! From the feedback I've gathered on my tectonics, it seems that there aren't any glaring issues with my tectonics, which is good. I decided to forgo going through a more detailed tectonics process---I'm happy with leaving the details to vagueness.

[morne]

I finished up the bathymetry today, using the tectonics as a guide:

World Map.jpg

Next steps are topography and ocean currents.

[Ryan Pourchot]

Very nice work here. The foundation of a scientifically accurate world in the making. I have been working on mine for 5 years now, and have erased, and reworked many aspects of it. Kudos, and looking forward to seeing more.

[morne]

After getting distracted by another hobby for a few weeks, I'm back to working on maps!

Here's my first draft for Asdel's ocean currents:
ocean_currents.png

As always, any critique or feedback is greatly appreciated.

Next step is to create a rough global heightmap. I've realized I'll have to go through the climate process twice: Once with a rough heightmap to know generally where climate zones are so that I can place the appropriate topography (the main reason for this is deserts, since they are pretty distinct). Then I'll go through it again once I've created my detailed heightmap to get the final climate map.