Thread: Geology vs. Higher Power - Your Opinion Welcome

I have stumbled across some discussions in the past about geological formation of islands and mountains. I am afraid I don't recall who was involved .

Higher power requires only faith so is easier than Geology which requires some understanding of the science of geology .

If you search, you'd find alot of people do. What I do though is I initially create the tectonic plates of the world, figure all that stuff out, then the climate, and then the landmasses and then finally the mountains. And, only then do I factor in the existence of god and add little tweaks such as a magical catastrophe decimating a peninsula making shard like islands, or a fallen god slamming into the earth initially shattering a plate and causing a massive influx of volcanoes in his crater.

At first I thought you were after a theological debate.

There are some real world mappers here who are involved with GIS and all that goes along with that. There are a lot more of us here who are gamers and fantasy art lovers who just map from the gut. Personally, I like learning some of the GIS stuff but I would rather paint than do math.

Very interesting topic. I suppose it somewhat depends on the setting. If the world formed naturally, then a lot of geological logic and science should be at play. but if it's a world heavily influenced by myth/legend/the gods/magic, then you have a lot more leeway. The setting I'm working on definitely falls in the latter category, and science be damned.

eViLe_eAgLe, I find that utterly amazing that you put so much effort and thought into your maps. Bravo Zulu.


Rich

I like to do a mix; start with a basic tectonic map, determine mountain ranges and flat areas, and then just extrapolate climate logically without heavy calculations or anything. I like maps that look consistent but aren't totally accurate; I'm too lazy to go all the way.

For my D&D purposes I really don't need all of the faultlines and other subsurface phenomena, so I tend to go the route of "I want a mountain... here."

I write GeoTerSys - the Geological Terrain Simulator - so I am firmly in one of the camps. To my eye, noise just does not seem to generate realistic looking terrain. However I know that people want to put down the terrain features in specific places so my GTS starts with a user input height field and works on it to try to 'improve' it based on geological processes. Tho it has some success, actually getting proper geological processes working on a small computer is quite hard work. There are no strict mathematical formulas to apply, its more like a set of heuristics derived as guesses on what is happening to the ground. Its an impossible task that you can only approach a good answer. The real world is too complex to model accurately enough but I try all the same.

Redrobes, I would like to thank you for your insight.

Do not get me wrong, folks; I do a little of both myself, but I tend to be more geological than fantasy based.
Of course, I would like to mention that I do not firmly believe that map-making is a science tool. It is another form of art that I can bring forth to the world, along with my photography and my writing.

Well I can tell you that were very short on people here with good geology knowledge that can impart a bit to help make maps or software for making terrain / maps. I'm always looking for people with some knowledge of the physical properties that drive geological processes especially erosion and river formation. Many people here just want a map to play their next game or one for a book they are writing. Not many of the fantasy books had proper geology for their maps and that's especially true of the early ones. People are making more of an effort in recent times which may be due to their expectations and demands being set higher every year.