[WIP] Please critique

[Master TMO]

Working on this map, and making up new techniques on the fly (as is usual for me). Since I haven't posted anything or done any mapping in a month or two, I thought I'd get some feedback from y'all on it.

[Master TMO]

I know of one problem - there are a few spots where the rivers run alongside the lakes. I'll have to clean up or resolve those later.

[cantab]

You have quite a few straight rivers too. That's usually due to running a river model on perfectly flat terrain. Adding some random noise (just a few metres or so) before running the river model should make the rivers wander.

[Lalaithion]

The distribution of terrain (desert vs green) also seems fairly random. Not sure what process to use to fix that, for i have no experience with that program.

[Hai-Etlik]

It has the usual problems of fractal cloud terrain: the fractal dimension is too high and too consistent, the mountains are too central, and it just looks much more like a set of volcanic islands than a world's continents.

[Master TMO]

Hmm... and I was thinking I had the desert definitions down fairly well, too. I modify the rainfall by dropping it across the 30 degree Lat lines above and below the equator, as well as on the continent interiors. I have not yet figured out an automated way of adding directionality to the rainfall yet though, so it doesn't include the possibility of monsoon season blowing rain deep inland.

I wish I knew of a way around the fractal distribution though. I know there's always hand-painting everything, but I'm an automator-personality. I don't really see the point in having all this scriptable software if I'm still going to do it all myself.

Thank you all for taking the time to give me feedback. I welcome any and all comments, so feel free to post anything you have.

[Redrobes]

I like it but I think the blue is very strong. The green is a nice shade tho. Gives the world a lot of trees but if that's how it is then its cool. It might be a good idea to look at a few more real aerial / satellite photos and catch the kind of colors in the terrain. Rivers and lakes take on more greys and blacks actually. The main issue is with the mountains where they are kinda blobby. If this world is earth sized then you have some mountains probably larger than countries. I know that's hard to rectify and make good tho. Generally tho I like it. Its one of the better terrain worlds I have seen.

[Master TMO]

Hmm. I have to keep reminding the other folks in the project to remember the scale these continents are, and that's something I hadn't actually considered, how much surface area those mountain ranges cover.

[cantab]

One thing you can try is raising the terrain to some power, then dividing down to get the desired peak mountain height. That creates a distinction between flat lowlands and rugged uplands, which I think is a bit more realistic. (You will have to abandon bathymetry by changing negative altitudes to zero, unless you want to be limited to odd integer powers.)

Not sure if FT can do stuff like that. Wilbur can, and I know there are guides to transferring data between FT and Wilbur.

[Master TMO]

One thing you can try is raising the terrain to some power, then dividing down to get the desired peak mountain height. That creates a distinction between flat lowlands and rugged uplands, which I think is a bit more realistic. (You will have to abandon bathymetry by changing negative altitudes to zero, unless you want to be limited to odd integer powers.)

Not sure if FT can do stuff like that. Wilbur can, and I know there are guides to transferring data between FT and Wilbur.

So, for instance, squaring the heights of each pixel, then finding the high point (say it's now 66k ft elevation), and then dividing all elevations by 3 to bring it down to 22k ft elevation? (Obviously those numbers are completely made up) Interesting concept. I'll have to play around with that, see what I can make FT do. I downloaded Wilbur at one point, but have never used it. FTPro has a math modification ability, but it's one of the things I haven't messed with yet also.