Hi! I have been lurking on these forums for a long time, but this is my first time posting. I've been trying to work on this world for a long time, but keep getting frustrated and leaving it for a long time, coming back, leaving, again and again. So I'm trying to get a fresh start here now, and actually getting help from these forums.

My eventual goal is create a map of similar quality to http://www.cartographersguild.com/re...ur-thrown.html Which is asking a lot, i know. I have tried following the tutorial by a2area for The Genesis of Israh; A Tutorial, however i found it overtly complicated with the amount of incise flows being used. And his planet creation involved an ice age that further complicated things. Following his tutorial exactly lead to very weird patterns of erosion and flows. So ya, erosions have been a problem.

One of my biggest frustrations with previous iterations has been plains and parallel rivers. I had gone through the appropriate corrections: fill basins, select flat areas, 3% noise; before starting to incise flows and erosions. However, this keeps creating weird sets of deep valleys throughout the entire plain. And it just doesnt look good or even natural.

Click image for larger version.  Name: plain problems.jpg  Views: 354  Size: 269.8 KB  ID: 49183 plain problems

So this is where I'm at now. I have a world map generated in Fractal Terrains Pro. I've already edited it some in order to remove holes and lakes and such; and tweak islands and shapes.

To prevent giant plains like above, I have looked for basins using the fill basins tool, went back and changed heights in an attempt to prevent large basins from occuring.

As with most FTpro maps, the mountains tend to be generated into the middle of the land masses. I've tweaked things a bit to create some assymetry, but was wondering if you people think it's enough.

I would also like to consider tectonic plates as well, but that can be saved for another post.

Click image for larger version.  Name: small map.jpg  Views: 217  Size: 243.7 KB  ID: 49184 new base map

In summary: I have a new base map. I have attempted to prevent large basins from occurring. Are mountains spread naturally? Do you have any suggestions regarding the implementation of tectonic plates or erosion techniques?