Alright! Time for part two, as I start working through Azélors tutorial.

Step 1: HEIGHT MAP

First off, I wanted to get the elevation better defined. Creating a new gradient preset based on the colors in the example, I made a Gradient map adjustment layer, then used Levels to tweak the black and white height map until I got the elevation scale I wanted.

Theia-Equirectangular-WIP-climatetut-heightmap.jpg

Step 2: SEA CURRENTS

Then I redid the currents, removing the ice caps this time, since water obviously flows fine under sea ice, and adding an extra level of differentiation with the mild waters in white:

Theia-Equirectangular-WIP-climatetut-currents.jpg

Step 3 & 4: AIR PRESSURE & WINDS:

In my first attempt, I had simply placed areas of high and low pressure according to the parallels. Now, with this excellent guidance on where to put them - as well as the epiphany about the ICTZ actually wriggling around like a snake around the equator, I could make these maps of pressure and winds:

Summer:
Theia-Equirectangular-WIP-climatetut-summerwinds.jpg

Winter:
Theia-Equirectangular-WIP-climatetut-winterwinds.jpg

Step 5: TEMPERATURE

Now, this presented me with a bit of a boggle. Should I try to paint this manually? There were a lot of things to consider. Currents, elevation, and not to forget Theia's ring shadow in the winter. I decided to use my previous heat map technique, painting influences in red and yellow on the height-based temperature map from Worldbuilder. After that, I used Select / Color Range to pick out the various temperature bands, and used levels and masks to change them into solid bands of the correct colors from the tutorial. It took a bit of fiddling around to get right, but I think the result is a lot better than what I could possible have done by hand.

Summer:
Theia-Equirectangular-WIP-climatetut-temp-summer.jpg

Winter:
Theia-Equirectangular-WIP-climatetut-temp-winter.jpg


So far so good, I hope! Now I'm going to start working on getting the precipitation right.

I really hope the temperate rain forest areas that I've already written about don't end up being horribly misplaced!

-Niels