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Thread: Maps of Katarka

  1. #1
    Guild Novice CDN's Avatar
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    Wip Maps of Katarka


    (Link goes to full size image on dA.)

    This is the current incarnation of Katarka, a slightly-larger-than-Earth rocky planet. (The white areas are the approximate sizes and location of continental crust, not necessarily land and coastlines.)

    Right now, I'm still trying to work out the tectonics, but I've been staring myself blind on them and I can't think of any way to "fix" them without going all the way back to the drawing board (again). If the plate boundaries and movements generally make sense (which I think they mostly do--I'm not sure about A and B, they're supposed to be colliding but so are A and C (perhaps A is rifting?); I don't know if D and H are supposed to be rifting, colliding or sliding past each other, and I figure my oceanic plate is just... hanging out), I'm happy writing my unease off as stupid perfectionism and focus on continuing to build the world instead of obsessing over these damn plates.

    Also, I'm a bit unsure about the amount of surface covered in land, and I haven't the faintest idea of where to start to calculate the respective surface areas. (I'm looking for a land/water distribution broadly similar to Earth's.)

    Any help/criticism/ideas generously appreciated!

    Hi, new here. *nervous wave*
    Slowly and not-so-surely working on my fantasy universe(s).


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  2. #2

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    Hi!-

    I converted your map to an equal area propjection (using flex projector) and did a quick check. It looks like you are ~40% land, which is a bit more than earth (30%)

    -Rob A>

  3. #3
    Guild Novice CDN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RobA View Post
    I converted your map to an equal-area projection and (assuming I didn't make errors) you have appx 40% land and 60% water.
    Thanks, I can work with that! Some of the "land" will end up being flooded anyway, so that'll leave some more room for water, and if that doesn't do it, a wizard did it.
    Slowly and not-so-surely working on my fantasy universe(s).


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    Guild Journeyer hohum's Avatar
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    Hi CDN, it looks pretty good. For D & H my gut says the plates are slipping, like the San Andreas fault in California. You might try and look at just the interactions between the plates, as in the style of "A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping" and see what types of mountains are formed by subduction, suturing, slipping, rifting etc. This may then give you confirmation on your choice of plate direction.

    The Earth is roughly 70% water. Two ways that you can check yourself by comparing to Earth are to 1. load your image as an overlay in Google Earth and leave the borders on, 2. load it into G projector and put the Earth outline overlay on. I did the 2nd one and verified it with Google Earth. This also helps with looking at your land masses in a spherical projection so you don't get pointy artifacts at the poles.

    Good Luck.

  5. #5
    Guild Novice CDN's Avatar
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    Edit: I tried the overlay in Google Earth and that shows pretty clearly that I could safely cut down at least the continental bits of A, B, and C quite a bit, and that at least A is asking to be chopped in half. Will be back with the new map.

    Quote Originally Posted by hohum View Post
    Hi CDN, it looks pretty good.
    Phew, nice to hear.

    For D & H my gut says the plates are slipping, like the San Andreas fault in California.
    Hmm. I think you're probably right there.

    You might try and look at just the interactions between the plates, as in the style of "A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping" and see what types of mountains are formed by subduction, suturing, slipping, rifting etc. This may then give you confirmation on your choice of plate direction.
    Ooh! Resources! Yay!

    The Earth is roughly 70% water. Two ways that you can check yourself by comparing to Earth are to 1. load your image as an overlay in Google Earth and leave the borders on, 2. load it into G projector and put the Earth outline overlay on.
    Good one; I'll try that.

    This also helps with looking at your land masses in a spherical projection so you don't get pointy artifacts at the poles.
    Yeah, I've got Hugin and Flexify2 to help me with that, which were also a huge help in figuring out where the polar plates were supposed to be going.

    Good Luck.
    Why thank you.
    Last edited by CDN; 04-27-2010 at 12:49 PM. Reason: typo
    Slowly and not-so-surely working on my fantasy universe(s).


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  6. #6
    Guild Novice CDN's Avatar
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    Wip Update on the tectonics

    Thanks for all your help earlier.

    As you can see, I sort of did end up going back to the drawing board to try and cut down on the amount of land I had, and this is what I ended up with. (I actually made cutouts in PS to help me trace the movements, I'm that bad at visualizing this stuff, heh.)

    Anyway, I split up the old A-continent and moved D and H down a bit. For the moment, I'm done fiddling with the tectonics, even if I still have a few minor issues (the B/D/F boundary is too straight, and the G/E's kind of awkward), but I can't keep working on this forever or I'll never get anywhere.

    Off to draw me some coastlines now.
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    Slowly and not-so-surely working on my fantasy universe(s).


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