Not getting any deserts in Fractal Terrains 3

[captainwhizz]

Hi guys, I wonder if anyone can help.

I'm trying to create a fantasy world to set fiction and an RPG in, and Fractal Terrains 3 is giving awesome results. However, there's one problem- no matter what I do, I can't seem to generate worlds that have any deserts; the only regions with less than 10in of rainfall a year are the icy ones. The world just doesn't seem complete without some sandy deserts.

Here are the settings I'm using:

Synthetic World
Highest Peak 30000ft
Lowest Depth -30000ft
Circumference 25000 miles
World Seed 938497408
Wilbur Ridged Multifractal
Rouhgness 0.70
Percent Sea 57
Land size 2.58

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[waldronate]

Tutorial for Cartographer’s Guild may be of help.

[captainwhizz]

Thanks, I'm having a look at it now.

EDIT: can't see anything on there about getting more deserts.

[guyanonymous]

I seem to recall that in my experiments, increasing average temp (or local temps using a brush, though it's not great) did the job along with fiddling with rainfall levels. Not perfect, but something to experiment with. As well, try different colour maps for the terrain.

[waldronate]

You'll probably want to increase variability of rainfall to get deserts to appear. Because FT doesn't do air or water currents, you're likely better off painting deserts manually as described in the tutorial I referenced (there's only one line about deserts, but it's in there).

[captainwhizz]

Thanks for the help guys. I will do a bit of research into physical geography and try to work out where it would be appropriate to put deserts, then fiddle about with trying to paint it.

Much appreciated.

[Gamerprinter]

The best way to determine where to place your deserts is on the opposite side of a given mountain range that blocks the direction of your determined prevailing wind. When weather is traveling along the prevailing wind and hits an obstruction like a mountain range the air is forced upward, cools, and forms precipitation which drops on the side of the mountain the wind hits, none of the moisture crosses the mountains. So it's not a desert on the prevailing wind side, but is on the other. You simply need to decide in which direction the prevailing wind is going, and then placing your deserts is easy. Note there are plenty of places where there is no desert opposite from the prevailing wind - the mountains might not be tall enough to block out the weather, however, it will be slightly more arid on the opposite side of the prevailing wind, if not a desert.