[WIP] Building a world from tectonics onward

[MrBragg]

Hey QED42, sorry I didn't see your post here until now. The process isn't really any special and is kind of an amalgamation of techniques I've seen on here. Basically I start in Gimp by making a few layers of high frequency grayscale noise; for each layer, I set the color levels to be between certain elevations (e.g. 0 - 150 m, 800 - 1000 m, 3700 - 4000 m, etc) and then give each one a layer mask. From there I can paint on the topography I want at each elevation by erasing the mask (using a variety of brushes I've collected), so it's basically a lot of time spent zoomed way in trying to paint features that make some amount of sense. Once I'm happy with how the large and medium scale things look, I read the heighmap into Wilbur for a little erosion and incise flow before sending it back to Gimp for the final color gradient.

Here's the latest piece I'm ~ done with for now.

Peninsula_bigger.png Peninsula_bigger_shaded.png

[Harrg]

I love your results. I see you are using a Wilbur shader for the shading. If you are using Photoshop you can achieve the same effect simply by using a heightmap. But get more control over it.
Copy the heightmap. Create an alpha channel. Insert your heightmap into the alpha channel. Create a new layer. Fill it with gray (half gray is sufficient). Choose filters, lighting effects. Choose endless light. In the settings, set the alpha channel with the height map. Move the sliders as you like. The most important thing is extrusion. In real time, you can extrude your map and make it three-dimensional. Now you can apply techniques to your map that real cartographers use for real maps, like Tom Patterson
https://www.shadedrelief.com/tutorials.html