Planet Eben

[gbsilverio]

That's awesome! I love to see this kind of planning and dedication behind something. Keep up the good work!

Cheers!

[ManOfSteel]

Thank you gbsilverio! I'll try my best.

[EAA VOLAN]

looks good

[ManOfSteel]

Thank you Eaa Volan!

[Rhotherian]

Thanks for the observation Rhotherian. However the plate shapes are correct according to my design. I actually worked from a rough model and tried my best to transfer them to an equirectangular map. Most continents, plates, et al should indeed span the top or bottom of such a map, but because the plates had to fit and move in specific spaces and directions they were purposely truncated on the map to form specific shapes in 3D. It's virtually impossible for me to visualize from the map to a 3D object, so I drew those parts of the map from the 3D object. Below you'll see a shot of the 3D model I used to check the plates' size and orientation. Ideally I would have used a 3D program that allows you to paint directly onto an object and then generates a UV map.


What's really misleading is that the text and arrows get very distorted, but they're just there for reference on the 2D map. Interesting...my model's top resembles yours, but the bottom looks somewhat different.

My chief concern is that plate boundaries go off the north and south edges of your world map, which is very, highly, exceedingly unlikely to occur in nature. Take Earth, for example. There is a rift that runs through the North Pole, yet on the world map (NOT world maps that cut off the poles (very common)) the tectonic boundary curves around the top of the map instead of going off the edge. On your map, there's even a four-way junction directly on one of the poles, which is most very-highly-exceedingly unlikely to occur in nature.

Plate_tectonics_map.gif
Specifically note the North Pole. (Oh, and I intended to post an equirectangular tectonic map of Earth, but all such maps I could find either had the poles cut off or weren't accurate (generally making your mistake with the poles.)

I hope you understand what I mean now. If not, I'll post the tectonic maps of my own world-building project which might further enlighten you.

[ManOfSteel]

No need to post the maps, but thank you for the offer. I understand what you're saying, however what I'm saying is that I didn't want there to be a plate sitting on the north pole so I truncated the northern and southern plates purposely so that they would touch the poles (and thus each other) and not cover it. It's just one of the examples I referred to in my introduction when I said I purposely left room for the unexpected.
I experimented with moving the southern juncture of plates so that it was not exactly on the south pole, but the projection by the 3D program left a lot to be desired. It really stretched and warped the boundary lines and it looked awful, so I left it as is. What I'd like to do someday is get a 3D program whereby I can paint the lines directly onto the model, but I will still have multiple plates meet instead of one plate straddling the north pole and one on the south pole.

[amberroberts09]

Finish it and show it here please.

[Rhotherian]

My point still stands, but okay, I get your reason. Getting things right at the poles is normally incredibly tedious. A way to paint (and paste, for that matter) directly onto a 3D globe would be exceedingly wonderful, indeed.

[ManOfSteel]

My point still stands, but okay, I get your reason. Getting things right at the poles is normally incredibly tedious. A way to paint (and paste, for that matter) directly onto a 3D globe would be exceedingly wonderful, indeed.

Wouldn't it though? And there are indeed programs out there that let you paint onto pretty complicated meshes, so painting onto a sphere would be very easy. I just can't justify spending the money right now just so I can paint a few lines. There might be another way I could do it which would be to draw a map of JUST the northern and southern plate junctions head on (centered on a map) rather than have them merged from the top and bottom of a map. I might do that later.

[Rhotherian]

The trick is - with lines like that pretty much on the poles - to make them shallowly curve opposite to the north/south edge of the map. When orbed, the curve would be squeezed in, creating (in theory) a straight line on the world. That's what I did with my world (just look at the tectonic maps to notice how the plate boundaries curve at the poles. It's not perfect, but it'll do for now (oh, and maybe JUST look at the tectonic maps, because your maps are far superior to the rest of mine on that thread xD)).