Using G.Plates 1.4 to study plate movement (tectonics of a con-world)

[Pixie]

So how does this bit work...? we just throw the tutorial in here, I suppose, and hope someone finds it useful...

This particular tutorial resulted from a joint effort by a few con-world-builders who happened to be working more or less at the same time in the same problems. We discovered quite a few tricks together and searched around for tools that could help us. The technique covered here is just a string of little steps to easily visualize the motion of tectonic plates (which is a "very spherical" thing) in an equirectangular map (which is pretty "rectangular").

You can see the original threads that seeded this tutorial here, here, here or here.


The map depicted is a creation of ManofNaozen, as seen here, who kindly agreed to let me use it as example.