Crafting a world - Vaalgaea

[Axelton Crow]

Been messing around some more with the tectonics over the last few days, and have come up with this rough sketch. I feel like its good, but I'm definitely not an expert. I'm not necessarily looking for perfect realism, but just something that makes some sort of sense. I don't plan on making the tectonics the part of any finished product, rather just to help me produce a realistic looking height map with some science behind it. I know many people don't worry about the nitty gritty science behind their worlds, but for those few who do, I would love any input or criticisms you have. I do want to do my best to feel good about this step before moving on, as I don't really feel like I can move on with my project until the tectonics are done, which determine the shape of the heightmap, which determine climate zones, which influence just about everything else that the cultures living on this world would depend on.

As for the map, excuse me for the sloppiness, I'm not going for beauty at the moment, just rough functionality. The red borders are convergent boundaries, and the blue borders are divergent boundaries. The brownish highlighted blobs are where I think the Tibets and Andes of the world would be. One problem I know I had with the previous heightmap was that the height was a little too evenly distributed throughout the world, which made for a rather unrealistic feel to it for me. I'm also not sure if I ran too many tectonic borders along the coastlines rather than through the middle of the oceans.

vaalgaia_june2016.png

[Robulous]

Looks very interesting. I also was considering plate tectonics for my own worlds - obviously, not all planets have tectonic plates, Mars and Venus certainly don't, but then they are dead. From our limited understanding it does seem necessary for an evolved living planet to have plates, since it's an important way of locking away carbon which otherwise builds up in the atmosphere. (Until you get a civilisation like ours, stupid enough to release all that trapped carbon and heat up the planet.)

I think it's possible to have worlds without tectonics, but only if they're very old, or if they're terraformed.

[Axelton Crow]

Thanks for the rep Robulous!

So, out of boredom and not sure what else to do with tectonics, I've decided to start building a basic height map based on those tectonics, and see how it feels. Focusing on the highest areas at the convergent borders first, then I'll fill in the lower lands with some variation, but attempting to keep the highest few levels of height on only a select few areas. Here is my progress so far:

vaalgaia_may2016.png

[Axelton Crow]

Another update, just chipping away at the heightmap. I'm hoping I am getting closer to something that looks realistic and believable, but in truth I have no idea what I am doing and just making blobs of color. Also changed up the colors slightly, I find it helps keep me from getting bored at looking at the same map for too long.

vaalgaia_may2016.png

[Azélor]

It does look pretty but a bit pixelated? Is this your original or your working on a larger version?

[Axelton Crow]

Yes its pixelated, it is also the original. Its only 800x400 (i doubled it before posting the last one, easier to see). I purposefully made it so small as this isnt meant to be for looks, just to plan out tectonics and eventually climate and whatnot so that I can develop my world, which I can then in turn make good looking maps of. I made it tiny so that I wouldnt spend way too much time working on small details that wouldnt matter for planning purposes. Sorry I should have mentioned that before.


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