Building from the bottom up (A World)

[Paramenides]

Okay, so I know that I like to start map projects and then hate them in the middle of actually doing them. But here's another one and I'm hoping I can do this. I'm mostly posting this here because I would love feedback on it. I was really inspired by the World of Gotha maps and the level of detail involved in them, especially their climate, rainfall and temperature maps, which I'm trying to use the climate cookbook in order to make my map.

So I first generated a map in Fractal terrains to my liking. I basically just changed the color scheme to a black and white alpha map, essentially. Then I drew the tectonic plates in locations that I thought appropriate, I also drew the directions in which they might go. Now there's just the matter of drawing out the boundaries on those plates and figuring out the mountains. Then I can work on pressure zones, which I may need help on. For now, here's my progress.

landmass.pngtectonics.png

[Londonsmee]

wow nice looking start, has a mass of possibilities from where you put the fracture points, try putting where your going to have the most fun with them. Sticking them in the middle of no where means the chances of things happy are rare. Stick a city next to a volcano that's on a fault line that the inhabitants worship every time there's a quake. Have some human sacrifices. Its like a gift that just keeps giving

[Viking]

I love it so far and I think your approach so far is really well considered. ! The continent shapes are fantastic! You have some massive lakes! Are they going to drain into the main oceans or be dead sea like things? Those Gotha maps are indeed pretty inspirational!

[Paramenides]

Thank you guys! c: I rather like it a lot myself, and I really like the idea of just taking a basic map in fractal terrains that I like and just blanking it out and starting with the tectonic plates. As for the massive lakes, I think the big one in the dead center of the right continent will end up being a dead sea, a massive one at that. And it will be because of the result of a massive war (involving magic, woo!) that wiped out an entire civilization of people. And then the ones along the bottom plate/continent and the right continent will end up being like the Great African Rift. The others will end up being like smaller dead seas or they'll drain out into the ocean with rivers that I haven't quite established yet.

[- Max -]

Interesting shapes. Do you already know which style you are going for on this map?

[Paramenides]

I'm not actually quite sure what style I'm going to go for on this map. I think I might try for a satellite view style of map, and then do hand drawn for regionals and such. I'm rather fond of the way this looks.

[Paramenides]

Okay, I got a sort of bump map going showing where I would like to have the mountains end up. I edited the landmasses a little because having such large bodies of water without outlets was kind of annoying me for some reason. I'm hoping these mountain placements look okay. The whiter they are, the higher the elevation.

I'll probably end up tweaking the elevations a tiny bit because the way this one was generated makes it look far too fractally.

bumpmap.png

[Londonsmee]

nice, how about some valleys, gorges in the oceans.

[Paramenides]

Okay, not terribly thrilled the results. I might skip out on the rivers for the moment unless someone wants to try and run my .mdr through wilbur for me? Tried following the Fun with Wilbur tutorial and apparently my version of Wilbur is missing the Mathematical> Span filter.

[waldronate]

apparently my version of Wilbur is missing the Mathematical> Span filter.

That would make it version 1.55 or earlier (older than May 2006). I would recommend downloading a newer version if possible, as there have been many changes over the last 7 years.