Askath: Continents

[Pixie]

Some interesting/awkward results, woodb3kmaster, but the issue with your maps (to me) remains the linear ridges. Ridges are formed when continents collide, or when oceanic plates subduct under continental plates - I'm sure you get simple tectonics, since you've taken the task of creating an earth-like planet. But, there's one thing about those ridges - they are created by thousands and thousands of eathquakes, over millions of years, and not all earthquakes happen exactly in the same spot. This results that erosion happens at the same time the rising is happening, and while some areas rise, others sink, even if only slightly.
Have a look at both these pages about recent earthquakes:
Nepal's 2015 Earthquake
Italy's last October series of earthquakes

As you can see, there's localized sinking and rising. If you want to create a ridge for Wilbur to erode, and make it look realistic, then you need to "simulate" a bunch of these events. Perhaps with a very light brush over the black&white map, small strokes repeatedly, more or less in the same direction, across the area you want to become a ridge. Only afterwards take it Wilbur.
Prefereably, still, interchange "eroding" and "quaking"

[Mouse]

Hmmmn.

Not exactly as I had imagined it certainly. Instead of reducing the stark prominence of those really straight ridges, another straight ridge has appeared right across the continent.

I'm wondering if Pixie might have the solution with that brush idea - introducing random fluctuations in the initial height map?

I don't know if this is going to help, but this is a detailed survey of what Antarctica actually looks like without the ice. Its not actually all that flat at all.

Even though there are distinct ridges of mountains, there are gigantic gorges that carve individual mountains or blocks of mountains out of each range - a state of variation between min and max values that is very nearly from min to max in a matter of a few miles.

Of course - how you want your continent to look is very much up to you, and whether you choose to map just the rock, or the whole thing including the ice.

If you include the ice then a different colour gradient may be necessary to show that ice - as ice, and the erosion for that area would need to be mostly masked out, other than around the fringes of the ice extent, to simulate the summer melts.

[woodb3kmaster]

Good thoughts, both of you. Mouse's ideas in particular re: masking out the ice sheet (which is shown in this map) gave me some ideas which, when combined with my earlier use of the mound filter, ended up looking much more Antarctic, IMO:

zappag_wip06.jpg

zappag-contour-wip04.jpg

I also used different masks for each of the "dome" mounds, to better approximate the surface of a continental ice sheet like Antarctica's. I think this latest pair of WIPs is probably the closest to what I'm after out of all the drafts so far.

[creatumundowikia]

Witch programs do you use?

[woodb3kmaster]

I use Wilbur and Photoshop for almost everything. There are some things I use Illustrator for, but not with these maps.

After putting it through some more erosion and adding even more noise, I'm pretty happy with how the rivers are shaping up on Khalsim:

khalsim_wip03.jpg khalsim-contour-wip02.jpg

[Ilanthar]

Really nice land shapes! And your atlas style is also very good .