Once in Wilbur I proceeded to do the following: -

Fill Basin (Ctrl + B) - Which created large stretches of flattened basin "plains" for want of a better description ... need to add some bumps and noise so when the erosion began the water would not flow in straight lines.

Select All (CTRL + A) - Grab the entire map to work with.

Filter-> Noise-> Percentage Noise -> Add 5% noise

Select-> From Terrain-> Flat Areas -> Default - Grab the "plains" and add some more noise

Select->Modify-> Expand -> 2 Pixels

Filter-> Noise-> Percentage Noise -> Add 5% noise

Select All (CTRL + A) - Grab the entire map to work with.

Fill Basin (Ctrl + B) - Fill Basins to catch any tiny dips you just made ..

The we make the first Incision. I did some testing on what Incision did on the map before commiting, CTRL-Z to Undo is a wonderful thing and Joe has added a great preview button so you can see the effects of changing the parameters before commiting.

There are the notes I made from Israh and my own experimentation

Incision Notes
Amount (depth of cut, higher = deeper)
Flow Exponent (Severity of the incise, lower is more severe) .. 0.1 does nothing .. greater than 0.2
Effect Blend(blend into terrain, higher is more blended)
Blur (width of incise, higher is wider)
Variabble blur dramatic widening
Post Blur widens the incise, Pre blur = 0 = thin rivers

Here are the parameters for the first cut.

Select All (CTRL + A) - Grab the entire map to work with.

Filter-> Erosion-> Incise Flow ... 1 / 0.2 / 0.2 / 0.1 / 0 / 0 - Which gives a very fine establishment of the potential water flow.

Fill Basin (Ctrl + B) - Fill Basins to catch any tiny dips you just made.

Filter-> Erosion-> Erosion x 0.25 - 2 pass... to wear down the edges of the incise and to smooth some of the random noise from earlier.

Filter-> Erosion-> Incise Flow ... 0.7 / 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.2 / 0 / 1 - Wider cut, establish the riverbeds somewhat.

Filter-> Erosion-> Erosion x 0.25 - 2 pass... same as before ...

Filter-> Erosion-> Incise ... 2 / 0.5 / 0.2 / 3 / 0 / 0 ... gently press in river valleys as though in fingertips running through clay... wide pre-blur helps create the effect we want on the plains.

Filter-> Erosion-> Incise ... 1 / 0.2 / 0.1 / 0.5 / 0 / 0 ... mountains get some river valleys etched in ... very lightly.

Filter-> Erosion-> Erosion x 0.25 - 2 pass... same as before ...

Filter-> Erosion-> Incise ... 1 / 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.6 / 0 / 0 ... bit more etching into the landscape.

Fill Basin (Ctrl + B) - Fill Basins to catch any tiny dips you just made.

Select All (CTRL + A) - Grab the entire map to work with.

Filter-> Noise-> Percentage Noise -> Add 2% noise - Preparing for River run.

Filter-> Erosion-> Erosion x 0.25 - 1 pass

Fill Basin (Ctrl + B) - Fill Basins to catch any tiny dips you just made.

From this point on you are at the end of the end (the river part and outputing the collection of images) of this page in the Israh Tutorial. The Genesis of Israh; Wilbur Part 1

You will have eroded some height from your mountains, etched gentle river valleys into your lands, created an interesting crinkly edge to your continents and hopefully be pleased with the result.

Here is how mine looked in Wilbur with the Israh Hypsomatic colour scheme. I was happy with this stage. But noticed a few holes around the edges of my continents, I zipped around quickly and filled them in with the painting tools. I left them in the following image as it was taken at the slightly earlier stage.

I flipped the map upside down again and saved as a new MDR file and squirreled away a copy of my work in my "keep" folder as a way of going back to my work incase something went wrong later.



I had all the maps the Israh tutorial wanted from Wilbur, so I headed back to FT3 and got the remainder required by the tutorial. In addition I also got a copy of the Graticule against a black background.

I headed over to Photoshop and finished off the last page of the Tutorial.

Here are the results at the end of the tutorial ... higher quality images are attached below.



and a close up of the lovely wrinkly coast!



Next comes topography ... an attempt to get an understanding of the heights of my world. In the grand scheme of things I would only need to classify flatlands, rolling hills, foothills, low mountains, medium mountains and high mountains in my game, however I wanted a little more detail than that!

Comments or Critiques welcome ...

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