Thanks Hugh, you are right. Actually in my seeding model I layed out mountain seeds randomly on land so they are not concentrated at the center of the landmass, but also on shore for instance. I haven't found a way to grow the landmass or the mountain ranges in a non centrifugal way, so I can get ranges rather than splotches. You are right about the fractal issue too, a good way around this would be to create various layers, some with extra smoothe.
As to the elevation model, I am not sure to understand what you suggest. Can you explain in more details? I have thought of a solution for the elevation model, which would be to take random rows and switch from LTR / RTL. To work this would require a non-miopic elevation procedure, by looking in a range around the current tile that would be far enough to ensure the slope can cope with the distance. (This relies on the premise the slope has to go through all increments, without skipping any, which is rather unnatural in fact).
I've tried the commonly used (and probably for good reasons) Perlin Noise model. It works pretty well, but I find the mountains again to be too much centered in the middle of the landmass. This is what it yields:
Perlin Model
One other issue with this model is that I cannot easily create the illusion of a continuous landmass. It's mathematically tedious, there are examples online, but I really dislike using something I don't understand. I am thinking of simply overlaying the continuation of the map that would be on the right side, to the left. I haven't thought of how yet. The code is available on github.
Another model I have been thinking of is a seeding and slope on a hex-tiled map. Few peak seeds are sown and around them a random slope index from which the surrounding elevation is calculated. This would avoid a regular, centrifugal slope.
What's important is too consider what is the final mode of representation of the map. If it will be a 3D map, then the slope is hardly a problem, dots are linked to one another, and Pythagore does the job for us. What I want to do however is a flat model with hex-tiles. The elevation will not be rendered with 3D, but with the isometric hex tiles. So much of the elevation issue is already worked around.
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