My own custom world generating heightmap software

[tg_harris]

JosMetadi --

Your work so far is genius!

Will you be releasing this software as Open Source?

[JosMetadi]

Thanks, harris.

I'm considering it. Ideally, I'd like to be available for use and modification free for personal use, and get paid if it's used commercially. Whatever I go with, there definitely won't be any form of DRM.

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Forgot to mention in the last update that I also made the program capable of displaying/saving just the heightmap, just the temperatures, just the humidity, or the combination view of all (which is what the posted pictures are). This is for people who want to use the climate data to determine which plants inhabit each area, calculate the probability of rain, or use the images as layers in photoshop to change how the climate looks.

[Zard]

Pretty cool. My random coastlines are generated by spilling coffee on newsprint and taking the shapes I like into Illustrator.

[Dracontes]

Overall loving the results so far. If you'd like a beta tester, while I'm as strapped for time as anyone else, I'd surely enjoy playing with the program. Now for a number of comments...

One thing is sorely lacking: rifts. Zones where plate vectors pull apart should have linear rises with an overall shallow dome cross-section and a somewhat clear middle valley with occasional volcanoes/islands peppered in their vicinity. Continental rifts are generally smoother than oceanic ones due to the different interaction of volcanism with air/water. The shape of oceanic rifts should influence that of the coastlines in their vicinity to a moderate extent. Continental ones originate lakes and long shallow seas.

There are actually oceanic plate collisions that don't involve subduction (see Bird, P. (2003) An updated digital model of plate boundaries, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 4(3), 1027 for examples). The thing that decides which plate plunges into the mantle is its density: usually older oceanic plate material is colder therefore denser. As such a good metric for who knuckles under is their distance from a rift which gives one a good idea of its age. When that fails they collide much like continental plates.

Otherwise I think you could take inspiration from Ron Blakey, Colorado Plateau Stratigraphy and Geology and Global and Regional Paleogeography, especially Hypothetical Orogeny: An Illustration of Tectonic Cycles and Mountain Building.

I do hope this wasn't too overwhelming and that it helps

[loogie]

this reminds me of a (much more advanced version) program i stumbled on when i first started using the internet.. it was a program that was a fairly simple verison of a world builder... it went through the steps of world creation, volcanic activity, creation of oceans, tectonic shifting, temperatires, planlife biomes and processes... it was pay so i only ever used the demo.. but from what i remember it was amazing (this was like.. 10 years ago) but i don't remember the name and i've never seen anything like it since... It was a very simple map.. the tiles were cm sized not pixels.. but it was fairly organic feeling.. and it was amazing to watch it go through all the steps and see how stuff was created.

this has great potential. great work!