Geofiction Base Maps using Wilbur

[a2area]

I played around with Wilbur (my first time) and our geofiction world's fractal last night and got some really nice results (I thought) for churning out uniform base maps for players. I also used Illustrator for creating nice paths and of course Photoshop for composing. Combining this with part of the key I made previously for Torentine's political map (if players so choose to use it) gave a nice formula for produce high quality maps in a minimum amount of time.

I'm pretty excited about the realism factor that Wilbur can give to fractal terrains. However, there was some question of the scale of the erosion/drainage being too small (more continental than regional and showing too little detail, river incises) Maybe some of you veterans can help me with this.

The "fun with wilbur" tutorials gave me the basics then it's pretty much play around til you get what you want without altering the original terrain too much.

Here are a couple examples with no cities added yet with a western usa map at the same scale for relief comparison.

[RobA]

Hi a2area!

I would like to suggest posting maps as jpg or png files, since bmp files can not be viewed in the browser.

-Rob A>

[a2area]

ahh... i see that now.. i will change them.

[waldronate]

Wilbur can only generate data at a detail level proportional to the image size. The incise flow and precipiton algorithms generate their most plausible results at between 1 and about 40 meters per pixel and the rendering algorithm gives nicely visible results in the same range. Unfortunately that means that a Wilbur map would need to be on the order of 25,000 pixels wide and high for a 1000km wide map to give nicely plausible results. You can do that with the 64-bit version, but you'll need lots of memory and patience. A 25k square map takes a bit more than 5GB to represent and about the same amount for each of the undo levels - some algorithms require several work surfaces to do their job so it's just not practical at this point in time. Give it a few years, though...

[a2area]

it doesn't have to be THAT precise. Just close enough to give believable results at this scale.. i don't know what "this" scale is in proportions as i haven't figured it out but you can see the 500 km scale on the map and get an idea. It just has to look plausible by whatever means.. perhaps it can be "faked" a bit with the incise flow .. i will just have to give it a go.

This actually may look all right as is though. Any thoughts on the detail to this scale?

[waldronate]

Wilbur's flow algorithms are pixel-based and become visually implausible when pixels get too large. Most systems that incorporate a physical model have the same problem. What I'm (badly) pointing out is that continental shapes are an interplay between the strictly local processes of erosion and water flow working against the large-scale process of mountain building. Wilbur has useful tools for the erosion part (subject to the strict limits of the model), but it is up to you to use the tools in Wilbur for the mountain building part.

I can't say much about getting good results at a continental scale because I haven't yet come up with a good way to do it. Wilbur's erosion algorithms give good results where the ground slope is more than a few degrees. However, most continents have a slope much less than that. The Mississippi River, for example, drops 0.28 miles over a distance of 2300 miles. That's an average slope of less than 0.007 degrees (the last 750 miles drop only 0.01 miles, which is far, far less of a slope). This small slope is well outside what Wilbur can handle effectively.

One thing that you might try is to use multiple layouts instead of a single one. For example, place a platform at low altitude, then do mounds for mountainous areas followed by some noise and erosion. The mountain texture is hard to get plausible with small-sized maps. See tha attachment for an example of an implausible large-scale map done using this process.

[su_liam]

I've had a modicum of success with continents using Wilbur. It takes a lot of work, and an artistic eye(my tripping point), but it can be worked.

[Sigurd]

So a quad core processor with 12+gig of memory and a 64 bit version of windows 7 could take the software to its logical limits?

Ya know I need a justification for my next computer.


Sigurd

[a2area]

So I think the plan is to render some bump maps of various real world regions at the same scale and then go to town with wilbur recording each step until i achieve success. I want to do it in a sensible # of steps if possible. I'll post my results.

[waldronate]

So a quad core processor with 12+gig of memory and a 64 bit version of windows 7 could take the software to its logical limits?

I was thinking a dual quad with 48GB myself but only because I can't justify the $40K for the quad socket quad core with 144GB...