# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Regional/World Mapping >  [WIP] World of Aduhr

## Charerg

Hi, I've been lurking on this site since February, and thought I should finally post some of my work here.

So, I've been working over the summer on a world-building project. Based on the inspiration provided by similar world-building threads on this site, I decided to do a thorough job of it and build the tectonics at least roughly, as well as do the climate in detail.

More recently, I decided to do something of an "artistic rendition" of a topographic world map using a Kavrayskiy VII projection. So far, I've finished one continent (the large eastern continent called Rheada) and the oceanic topography. Unfortunately even the single continent took me about 2 weeks of work to reach its present state, which means it would be too time-consuming to do the entire world with this technique.

But, since the map looks decent even in its present unfinished state, here it is:


The map is mostly done using the instructions found in Arsheesh's Eriond tutorial, although the mountains are generated separately and pre-processed through Wilbur before copying them to the actual map. I said the topography is an "artistic rendition" because some features such as mid-oceanic ridges and oceanic trenches are somewhat exaggerated.

I also did more of an actual topographic map of Rheada using the same black-and-white height map that the world map is based upon. Here is the result:


For the moment, I'm thinking about switching to an Equirectangular projection for the world-wide topographic map in order to make it possible to switch projections in GProjector. This time, I'm trying to find a technique to do the global topography within a reasonable timeframe, and I'll probably skip the oceanic topograhy. However, I'd like to first revisit the tectonic layout of the world and ask for some feedback on it. 

I'm working on a draft of the revised tectonic layout, and I'll post it here for criticism once I complete it, but here is the old version of the tectonics for reference (the plate names are not final):


Any suggestions and criticisms are welcome, and I hope you enjoy the maps!

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## Chick

What a nice start!   This map has a lot of potential and I hope you continue to build on it  :Smile: 

And Welcome to the Guild!

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## Diamond

I'm not the guy to offer suggestions on tectonics, so I'll merely say that is beautiful work.  That first map reminds me of something out of National Geographic; it's lovely.  

And thanks for de-lurking - have some rep!

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## Azélor

The mountains look really convincing!

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## Pixie

Wow, you've done a whole lot of work and quality work! I like the artistical rendition a lot! I'm giving yuo some instant reputation for that one alone.

I understand you want to rework your tectonics, so I will wait for that new version before I post any criticism (constructive criticism, of course). For now, make sure you think of plates movement in terms of a sphere.. I think that's a key advice. Welcome to the Guild  :Wink:

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## groovey

I agree with the guildies above, what a great introduction to the Guild. Lots of potential and you seem to have the skills to pull it off, so I'm definitely keeping this thread on watch.

Both topographic styles look great, you've done a great job on them visually.

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## Charerg

Thank you for the compliments!

Here is the revised draft of the tectonics:

*
Legend:*
- Blue: a subduction zone
- Red: rift
- Green: transform fault
- Purple: convergent boundary

Some of my observations concerning Earth's tectonics which I tried to include in the revised tectonic layout:

1. There is an "expanding ocean" (or oceans) centered at the seams where the previous supercontinent broke apart. Right now on Earth the Atlantic and the Indian oceans are expanding. On the other hand, there is also a "closing ocean". In the case of Earth this is the Pacific.

- On Aduhr, the expanding ocean in the revised layout is the "inner ocean" (called Valkathain), while the "outer ocean" (Agalhain) is in the process of closing. I toyed with the idea of reversing the roles, just to make things different from Earth, but ultimately decided against it since I had so many island chains east of Rheada and it would have been difficult to justify their existence without a situation similar to one that occurs in the Western Pacific on Earth.

2. A major continental plate usually has a "leading edge" of continental crust and a "trailing edge" of oceanic crust.

- This is a result of the fact that oceanic crust always sinks beneath continental crust, whereas new oceanic crust is created at the seams where continental plates are diverging.

- The major exception to this rule is the Antarctic plate, which is surrounded by oceanic crust. Probably related to the fact that Antarctis is moving relatively little compated to the other continents.

And while speaking of Antarctis, can anyone explain the Transantarctic mountains? 
The mountains are located in the middle of the continental plate, yet the highest peak reaches 4 500 metres. From what I gather from wikipedia, the mountains are formed largely because of the West Antarctic Rift. Does this mean that the Antarctic plate is actually two separate plates, or is it possible for major mountain chains to form even inside a plate with no external tectonic influence?

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## Pixie

I feel I have to point you to this tutorial - not because I made it but because you need it  :Wink:  In some plates, namely the larger ones, your directions for the movement won't hold when on a sphere... Try using g.plates. It will help a lot.

It also helps, sometimes, to draw in a sphere. Using this site.

Second resource to get things right is this set of animations. Your world seems to be in an advanced stage of supercontinent breakup, so it will help to see animations of continents drifting.

Now, concerning what you've done so far. From what I see the Eocidarian, Druegian and Tyandorian plates were the core of that supercontinent and started their separation long ago. The Tyandorian and the Druegian followed together for a while and the Tyandorian recently started to move northwards. This much is clear and believable - you should use it as a base.

Have you noticed that, on Earth, Oceanic subduction will create curved boundaries, with the concave side on the ocean and the convex side on the continental plate. That's not happening in a few places in your planet. 

Also, the way the "zig zag" of mid-ocean ridges takes form isn't random, it will fit the direction of the spread... originating in this sort of situation:


Finally, as for your question about Anthartica - yes, it seems it will breakup in the future, it has a linear highlands system and volcanoes in that area, just like the line that more or less goes from Mozambique to Ethiopia in Africa, which is a well known rift.

But I've got to say - this step is a heck of a great step from your first draft. You seem in the right track, but you are aware that your landshapes need to be a little flexible for this part of the process, right?

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## Charerg

Thanks for the criticisms, Pixie.

I did check the plates on Map to Globe, but I didn't see any obvious flaws as regards the direction of movement. Mind you, the arrows pointing the movement direction in the revised layout are primarily intended to show general direction of movement. Can you provide some detail as to which plates exactly have problematic movement?

Awesome resource concerning the "zig-zagging", btw. When I drew the tectonic map, I was mainly intending to portray the location of the ridges, rather than portay their shape accurately. Though if I ever figure out a nice way to animate the plate movements, I might try to make the ridges a bit more accurate. I did actually check your tutorial recently, but only managed to get as far as rotating a single plate around a pole. I don't think GPlates has enough functionality to actually simulate plate movement on world scale (at least not in the long run), since this would involve some plates getting larger and others smaller, plates breaking apart and so forth. That said, I might give GPlates another go, and see what the program has to offer.

As to the subduction boundaries, I did indeed try to give the "upward" side of a subduction zone a convex curve. But if you look at Earth's tectonics, you'll note that there are actually a few places where the convex curve is on the oceanic side. One such istance occurs west of Ecuador, second north of Venezuela and a third south of Peru. The "Juan de Fuca" subduction zone is also slightly convex on the oceanic side.

So, while the rule of "convex on upthrown side" generally applies, there are also instances where it doesn't apply. Namely said instances seem to occur where existing continental crust of a large plate meets oceanic crust. In areas where oceanic crust subducts beneath oceanic crust (forming island chains), the "convex rule" seems to apply almost always.

With that in mind, I'll try to check if there are any "weird instances" in my tectonics, where convex curves on the side being subducted occur where they shouldn't. Once again, if you have any specific instances in mind, that would be very helpful for me to identify the problematic areas.

And to your final point concerning landshapes: while I may make some adjustments on the land, particularly adjusting the island chains to suit the tectonic layout, the general plan is to arrange the tectonics in such a way to explain the present geography. Mind you, I can always adjust the shape of the under-water continental crust, which gives some playroom. Throwing some hot spots in the mix can also explain some island chains (indeed, the idea behind several of them is that they were formed in such a way). And in any case the forms of landmass have underwent drastic changes even on Earth since the Pangaia stage, so it goes to reason that the same would have went on in Aduhr. That said, if a situation occurs where a landshape absolutely must be changed due to the tectonics, I'm not completely set against the idea. But I reserve that option as a last resort, since it would involve some extra work.

EDIT: New Version:



I modified the previous tectonics, trying to take Pixie's comments into account. Major changes:

1. The Lokyarian plate has been removed since it didn't really fit into the "supercontinent cycle".

I also did several more minor changes. Note that some microplates are left out in order to focus "on the big picture" first. The basic tectonic history envisions the Eocidarian, Xeteyarian, Druegian and Tyandorian plates forming an equatorial supercontinent (as in Pixie's suggestion). The Menduleic and Anaparian plates formed a 2nd continent in the southern hemisphere, whereas the Urgaleonic and Rheadan plates formed a 3rd continent in the northern hemisphere. The present oceanic ridges between aforementioned continents are a result of the breakup of these "prehistoric" continents.

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## Pixie

Hey Charerg, another step forward.

First of all, let me admit that I sometimes jump into these kind of threads a little too strong or too ambitious, and you're free to remind me that it is your world. I won't take offense. But it seems to me you are willing to put in the necessary effort to get this right, and that makes it motivating for those willing to help.

So... a few more constructive comments:

- the general idea is fine and a good base, but have you considered an alternative where Xeteyarian is moving north and was part of the south polar continent?

- have you ever seen a map like this one? Do you think you could do a likewise map of your world, using the present ridges and present directions of movement? I see a few places where it would become problematic - the southern and northern parts of ocean floor in the Druegian plate were clearly created at different rates (a solution would be to split that plate in two) - and I just can't imagine how it would be in the area where the word "Xeteyarian" is written.

- the boundary between the Urgaleonic plate and the Eocidarian plate makes more sense where you had it before (with the Lokyarian), this would make it a continent-continent, and the sea north of it would be a failed rift - as it is, with a convergent boundary between two continent plates but at the center of an area so low in altitude that is under water makes less sense.

- that very large island (islands) in the east coast of Eocidarian can only be explained by a cataclysmic rate of volcanic activiy (as far as I can see it)... thoughts on this?

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## Durakken

I don't like the Agalhaic Plates from your latest map. It looks like you just separated it because you wanted the plates to push in opposite directions. The thing is, from what I can tell is that the equivalent plate on Earth is being subducted on both sides, because there is force of the main ridge is pushing out on the Continental plates which raises above the Oceanic plate. There is 2 small broken off places from the oceanic plate, but those look like they broke due to stress from the shape of the continental plates rather than how you have your split which seems to be there in the center...

Though I do question if this ridge on both sides is possible like in your map, I think it might slow the spread of the continents by at least half, because you're not just pushing over the plate, but the plate is also pushing back at equal speed... and also 2 ridges like that would indicate that the pressure is being released in 2 places which I think would make the process slow as it is... So if it would move at say 4 cm a year on Earth with 1 ridge, your plates I think would have to be reduced as 2 cm due to the double main ridge and then halved again due to pushing back reducing it to 1cm a year... in other words. If you started with Pangea and was headed to our continental structure, instead of 300 million years, it would take 1.2 billion years to achieve. Though like I said, just a thought.

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## Charerg

A quick update:

I was after all inspired by the wealth of input on this thread to do some extra effort and make a (very rough) GPlates model of the plate movements. So far I've roughly drawn the "main pieces" in their present state. I also changed some of the plates to use their "native names" (when I had such figured out). Anyway, this is what the draft looks like at this point:



Next up, I'll try to move the plates around to show their arrangement in the "supercontinent phase". I think I'll decide where to place the (former) Xeteyaric plate as part of that process.

@Pixie: I agree that the Urgaleon-Eocidar border should probably be moved closer to its previous arrangement. I haven't decided what to do with the islands west of Eocidar at this point. One possibility would be to arrange them as a minor continent that is largely submerged, similar to Zealandia on Earth. In that case, they would be a "drifting continent" that wasn't part of the most recent supercontinent but rather had broken off at some earlier point. In this case it would make sense to make the micro-plate they rest upon a part of the East Agalhaic plate. Although I also like your idea about a super-volcano  :Wink: .

@Durakken: The Agalhaic plates closely mirror the Pacific and Nazca plates on Earth. In other words, they're part of a single oceanic plate that has split in two because it is subducted on both sides by continental plates. Speaking of subduction, my understanding is that subduction is actually the main force driving plate movement (and ridges and rifts occur as a result, rather than being the driving force). If you look at Earth, the East Pacific Rise is expanding about 15.1 cm/y at its most expansive point. By comparison, the Atlantic ridge (where bordering plates are subducting rather than being subducted) expands a measly 3.5 cm/y at its most expansive point.

Edit:

@Pixie:I just realised you were talking about the island (almost a micro-continent) east of Eocidar, rather than the western islands. The eastern island (called Dealos) is actually rather important in the grand scheme of things, as it's essentially the "Atlantis" of this world and plays a major role as the land between the major continents. So, I'm definitely keeping that one. As for the geographic explanation, I suppose it's similar to Madagascar (broken off India), a piece of the Nimro-Druegian plate that broke off to join the Eocidarian plate. The sea between Dealos and the Eocidarian mainland can be explained as having been caused by a failed rift. Although there is also a hot spot there that has created the long island chain east of Dealos, and probably the southern portion of the main island as well.

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## Durakken

> @Durakken: The Agalhaic plates closely mirror the Pacific and Nazca plates on Earth. In other words, they're part of a single oceanic plate that has split in two because it is subducted on both sides by continental plates. Speaking of subduction, my understanding is that subduction is actually the main force driving plate movement (and ridges and rifts occur as a result, rather than being the driving force). If you look at Earth, the East Pacific Rise is expanding about 15.1 cm/y at its most expansive point. By comparison, the Atlantic ridge (where bordering plates are subducting rather than being subducted) expands a measly 3.5 cm/y at its most expansive point.


As I understand it, this has not been settled, whether it is one way or the other. I can give a guess at explaing the faster movement, but I'm not informed enough there.
The mirroring of the Pacific/Nazca plate; That was my guess. The problem I have with it is that it is too large and doesn't look like it would develop from the shapes. To me, the Nazca plate looks like it was created due to the various stresses created by the other plates, specifically the continental plates where as the Agalhaic plate of your world looks like it isn't informed by anything other than just wanting another plate there that doesn't really do anything.

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## Charerg

Another update:

I finished the "very rough" model of the supercontinent cycle. This and this are the tutorials I used, in case someone is interested. 

So, here is the world "150 Million years ago". Note that the timeline isn't that important in this case, this is just a rough approximation. Btw, these images don't include plate names, see my previous post for those.



Some comments:
- I ended up putting Akanrias (formerly the Xeteyarian plate) in the "equatorial supercontinent" as I felt it worked better there.
- There is some overlap between the continents, as the plates are drawn very roughly, and this model doesn't take deformation of the continents (such as the failed rift between Dealos and Eocidar mentioned in my previous post) into account.

100 MYA:


50 MYA:


(See my previous post for "0 MYA")

@Pixie:
Watching through the animated sequence, it becomes clear that (as you suggested) the southern portion of the Valkathain (the inner Ocean) was indeed created at different rates, and that consequently the Nimro-Druegian plate should be split into a Nimrasian plate and a Druegian plate.

As to the seafloor between Akanrias (former Xeteyarian plate) and Nomune, I imagine it as comparable to the Paratethys (of which the Mediterranean and the Black Sea are remnants), an ancient sea in the process of closing.

@Durakken:
Yes, the Agalhaic ridge is indeed intended to have formed as a result of the stresses applied by the surrounding plates. And you're probably right that the eastern portion should be made smaller and split into a few microplates (similar to Nazca, Cocos and Juan de Fuca on Earth). That is, however, a relatively minor detail, and I can fine-tune that plate once I get the "larger picture" right.

EDIT:
@ Pixie: Taking a closer look at the "age of oceanic lithosphere" map, I noticed that there is a weird "triangle" of ancient seafloor in the western Pacific. I don't get why that patch is older than the surrounding seafloor. Any idea why?

2nd EDIT:

I implemented the split of Nimro-Druegia into two pieces. I think the "supercontinent" looks much more plausible now:

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## Charerg

Yet another update. I'll make this a separate post so it's easier to keep track of the progress of the tectonics.

I further refined the model presented in the previous update. Here is what the continents look like during the "supercontinent phase", 150 mya:



Next up, 125 mya, the failed rift between Dealos and Esirmeyr (Eocidar) has formed:


100 mya, the Valkathaic ridge shifts into its final location (this is also when the peninsula of Menduine separates from the supercontinent):


75 mya, the Agalhaic rifts are formed as Akanrias (Xeteyarian) starts subducting beneath Nomune, and Neraduhr moves towards Urgaleon.


50 mya, the south Agalhaic rift shifts, separating the "Misty Isles" from Nomune.


And finally, the present situation, with Urgameyr and Anachain separating from Akanrias:


All in all, I feel this model is plausible and explains the present geography of the planet fairly well. Of course, some finer details like micro-plates still need to be added, but I think that takes care of the "big picture". Any thoughts on this?

Btw, is it possible to "clip" pieces from an imported map in GPlates via defining of the plates and then move them around? I feel seeing the actual geography could be useful and certainly an improvement over the dull line drawings you see in this post.

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## Pixie

Now, I am jealous of your tectonics... Excellent work! The succession of failed rifts and multiple fractures makes it so "realistic". You say it explains "fairly well", but you might as well say it expains "comprehensively".  :Smile: 

As for your questions,

- the oldest parts of the Pacific...
If you look at a map of the Pacific, it's very easy to spot a track of volcanic islands west of Hawaii, the further the older, and the oldest are aligned S-N, which means the Pacific was spreading in that direction in the past. Also, I know there was a rift close to Alaska at some time, now covered, this probably explains why the top northern part of the Pacific is younger than immediately to its south...

- clipping pieces of raster images to move with the plates
I don't know if it is possible, but you can draw lines and points in a plate, tag them as any object other than a tectonic plate and explicit to which plate they belong. They will move alongside the plate on the simulations.

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## Charerg

Another update:

I figured out how to clip the imported raster image, and as a result was able to further make the model more "realistic". Here's the final landscape of the planet during the supercontinent phase, 150 mya:


This will definitely make it possible to shape the continental crust in a more "realistic" fashion. Also, I think I'll slightly rework the "tip" of Akanrias, as I am a bit unsatisfied with that particular area, and this gives a nice excuse to adjust the shape.

Also, I realised that GPlates is an excellent way to track "hotspot trails" and added some on the map. This should be useful in reorienting some island chains that I envisioned to be formed via this manner to reflect the plate movements. Here's an image of the planet 50 mya, with most of the hot spots highlighted in red:


And the present day situation (the hotspots are not highlighted in this, but should be pretty easy to spot in most cases):


Once I've updated the map with these slight changes, I'll make a new effort at drawing the present day tectonic boundaries.

EDIT: The attached thumbnail is a slightly outdated version of the 50 mya map, please ignore it. I'm too much of a newbie here to know how to remove a thumbnail  :Question: .

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## Charerg

So, here is the latest version of the Tectonic layout:



The major change compared to the previous version is in the Agalhaic plate (the "outer Ocean"). As it turned out, due to the movement of the continents the situation actually is a bit different from the Pacific, as the Agalhaic is expanding south- and northwards, while being subducted along its eastern edge (and western, to a lesser extent).

Checking the present layout in 3d, there are a couple of places where the location of the boundaries needs to be shifted (western corner of the "Nomune" plate), but it seems the rifts and the subduction zones are in the right places. Also, since the location of the Agalhaic rift(s) underwent such drastic changes, the orientation of the island chains in the said plate needs to be changed. Fortunately there are only two of those...

So, all in all, aside from a few details, I think I have the tectonic layout in a finished state. Any comments and criticisms are welcome!

Edit:

I fixed the aforementioned "defects" and did a few minor changes as well. Foremost among them I further modified the "Tip of Akanrias", since I wasn't really happy with the previous implementation (I like the new version much better).

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## Pixie

Continues to look good.

Now it's a matter of deciding how much into detail you want to go (obsessive about detail is good, but can consume a whole lifetime  :Wink:  ). One area where I'm a little puzzled is the southern side of Rheada. All those islands, is there a rationale behind that, or is it remnant of previous drafts?

Nevertheless, it has reached a pretty functional level of detail - it's now easy to figure where mountain ranges go, where are volcanoes, etc..

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## Charerg

Well, you could say that the islands are a result of previous drafts, as I mimicked the southern side of Indonesia when sculpting the initial forms of the landscape there. Partly it's also a leftover from the original tectonics draft. That said, I think the rationale behind it is sound, since a similarly island-heavy area does exist on Earth at the Australia-Eurasia-Pacific junction. Granted, perhaps I should add more micro-plates there, but they would "functionally" be a part of the larger Rheadan plate (in terms of overall movement direction).

As far as working further at the tectonics, I think the tectonics fulfils it's purpose, as it is intended to serve as "silent information" primarily for the purpose of building the actual topography. So, unless someone has any criticisms or suggestions to offer, I'll probably stick to the present version.

Although I am tempted to add a bit more land to the map, since at present I am at 27,2 % land area, which is a little low compared to 29,1 % for Earth.

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## Charerg

And yet another update:

I've made some slight modifications to the tectonics (nothing major, just a few microplates, and a reworking of the Agalhaic Ridge). Also, I added some new landmasses, mainly in the form of a new "wing" to the southeastern continent of Anapar. In the new map, there are also yellow lines showing developing Rifts, intended to show places similar to the Great Rift Valley in Africa or the West Antarctic Rift.



With the addition of new land masses, I'm now at 27,5 % land area, which I suppose I can live with. So, I think I'm finished with the coastlines and tectonics at this point. As usual, suggestions, criticisms and comments are highly appreciated!

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## CarnivorousJellybean

That looks like it took a lot of work an complicated geology stuff to get right, but the results seem completely worth it! Your map looks really believable (to me with my untrained eyes). I'm quite inexperienced with cartography as a whole though so I'll leave the actual feedback to smarter people!

May I ask how you've been calculating the land area? I was doing rough estimates on my map with grids and counting the filled squares, so if you have a more accurate or easy way of doing it, I'm all ears!

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## Charerg

I don't know if geology played that much of a huge role in drawing the landscape. Mostly it was just a large amount of manual work drawing the shapes of the land. Though I did often use various Earthly coastlines as inspiration when doing the coastlines in detail. But the tectonic stuff really came into play only when the coastlines were finished. Glad you like how it turned out, though!

The land area can be calculated by using GProjector to switch to a Mollweide projection (or some other Equal area projection). The map should be a simple black-and-white map depicting the landmasses. In GProjector remember to leave the graticule and the border out, and the background needs to be a different color than black or white. This is done because you essentially want a 3-color map (background, water and land each in separate colour). Then just save your map in some format (png works well for me), with the best possible resolution (6800x3400 has been the "practical limit" for my gprojector before the program freezes).

Next up, import your fresh map into an image manipulation program (I use Gimp), and use the "Select by colour" tool to select all the landmass. Now there should be some way to show you the amount of pixels within your selection. In Gimp you can do this by selecting Windows->Dockable Dialogues->Histogram, and it will show you the pixel count. If you use some other program, you can probably find a way to do this by googling. Anyway, once you have the pixel count for land, write it down and do the same thing for water. Then you know the total pixel count, and the land pixel count, and can calculate the percentage.

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## CarnivorousJellybean

Ooh that's smart! I'll give it a try

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## Robulous

Thanks for the tip about GProjector, I'll give it a go!

Incidentally - re plate tectonics, we only have the exampe of Earth to go by, we really don't know how it would work on other planets. Mars may have had plates in the past (we can guess this from the Chasmas), but we don't understand how they worked. Personally I have an idea of tectonics for my own world(s), but I wouldn't get too bogged down by the technicalities.

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## Charerg

A small update:

With Azelor's new climate tutorial out, I thought I'd "jump on the bandwagon" and do the climates. As far as the topography goes, I've so far copy-pasted my previous work to the Equirectangular map, but other than that I haven't made any progress on that front (mostly because I haven't had the motivation to take on the task).

I'll probably do a rough version of the height map for the purposes of working on the climate at some point. So far though, I have the continental shelves mapped out and a draft of the oceanic currents:



The colour code on the currents is the usual: black for "neutral", red for relatively warm and blue for relatively cold.

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## Pixie

Looks good to my eyes. 

There's just one place where I'm not sure I agree. It's the sea south of Druegia. 
I think I would add a coastal east flowing current in there, returning west just a couple of degrees south. At that latitude, dominant winds head SW, so the water at the coast is blown away from the shore which "sucks" deeper/colder water. That cold water would be a significant current (both for climate and for economics, since areas of upwelling of deep cold water are generally very rich in fish resources).

This, of course, is me throwing educated guesses. Ignore at will if you like  :Wink:

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## Charerg

So, it's been a while since my last update. I took a bit of a break from the project, but it is by no means forgotten! 

Now that Azelor's climate tutorial is largely finished, I finally summoned the motivation to draw the elevation map for Aduhr. Here are the results and a map of Earth (originally posted by Azelor in his thread) for purposes of comparison (the elevation levels and the associated colours are the same in both maps).

Aduhr (Equirectangular projection):


Earth (Winkel Tripel projection):


At present, some of the elevation levels (0-10 m, and the levels above 4 km) are unused, since the elevation map is primarily created for the purposes of determining climates, and I figure that anything above 4 km in elevation will be either tundra or ice regardless of latitude. That said, I'll probably fine tune the map at some point, and add in the missing details. Anyway, comments/suggestions are welcome regarding the elevation map.

Next up, I'll start doing the different steps of Azelor's tutorial.

@Pixie:
I decided to take your suggestion, and added a few minor cold currents south of Druegia.

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## Charerg

Before I get started with posting the climate-related maps for Aduhr (following Azelor's tutorial), I think it might be interesting to post my previous attempt at a climate map of Aduhr. This was done back in the summer, and it's loosely based on Pixie's earlier tutorial. In this climate map I used a rough estimate of annual mean temperatures and precipitations instead of separate maps for July and January.

So, here is the old version of the annual mean temperature map:


And the annual mean precipitation:


And finally the Köppen-Geiger climates:


These were done based on a very rough topographic map of the earlier version of Aduhr (based on the old tectonic model, in other words). It should be interesting to see how different the climate zones will turn out with a bit more refined approach.

Anyway, to get started on Azelor's tutorial, here are the maps for the atmospheric pressure systems (including wind patterns).

January:


July:


Any suggestions and comments regarding the wind patterns and pressure zones are highly appreciated!

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## Charerg

A climate-related update:

I've completed the temperature and precipitation maps for Aduhr, following Azelor's tutorial. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the last step of the tutorial, and the climates should be done!

The colour key for the temperature maps is in the attachments. In the precipitation maps, lighter colour means more wet, and pink extremely dry, the rest are in between.

January temperatures:


January precipitation:


July temperatures:


July precipitation:


So, there it is. As usual, suggestions are welcome.

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## Charerg

Since I was "on the roll" with the climate maps, I decided to finish the climate manually instead of waiting for Azelor's script (since I'm using GIMP and the script is for PotoShop, this may have been necessary in any case). The manual implementation took quite a lot of time, but on the positive side it allowed for more manual "corrections" which turned out to be necessary since I screwed up with the preciptation maps in several places. Anyway, here is the more-or-less final result:



In the map, I've included the oceanic currents that are climatologically significant. Red is warm and Blue is cold. They're there for easy reference. Other than that, I expanded the Köppen climate classification with two new categories: ES (steppe tundra) and EW (polar desert). These climate types are not included in the actual system, and I think they're practically nonexistent on present day Earth. 

That said, both polar deserts and steppe tundra did exist on Earth during the Ice Ages, and since my world includes continents that are only partially glaciated (instead of practically entirely glaciated "islands" like Greenland and Antarctica), I felt it was useful to differentiate these drier polar climates from the usual tundra.

EDIT:
Also, I refined my oceanic currents a little, here's the revised version:

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## Charerg

I think it's time for another update. The climate map has undergone several revisions, but now it's in a state that it will only take manual adjustments here and there to finish it. If anyone reading this is interested, the process of refining the climate map and the related temperature and precipitation maps can be found over on Azelor's tutorial thread (starting from page 11).

In any case now that the tutorial-related process is finished, I think I'll return to updating "the official WIP thread" (this one). 

So, here is the final script-generated climate map before manual adjustments. I've changed the colour code into the "Wikipedia variant" since I find it easier to read.



From here on out, I'll adjust the climates continent by continent, and cover the changes I make along with the reasoning behind them.

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## Charerg

Well, I thought I'd post my progress here continent by continent, but in the end I decided to just post the final result. So, I'm now finished with the manual modifications, and the climate map here should be the final one (although suggestions are welcome, if something seems a bit odd). My thanks to Azelor and his tutorial for being extremely helpful!

In the "Wikipedia Colour Code":


And "the Azelor Colour Code":


Edit:
Slightly updated maps

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## Charerg

Ok, it's been a long while since my last update on Aduhr, so perhaps I should post something.

Since I consider the world map finished now that the climates are done, I've moved on to regional maps. This one is still WIP, but I've started to work on a regional map of Western Rheada:



You may notice that the rivers are a bit off since I decided to draw them before the topography (In hindsight, this was not the brightest idea). But small flaws aside (I'll eventually redraw the rivers to fit the topography), I think it's turning out nicely.

Edit:
It's a Robinson projection btw, I forgot to include the graticule.

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## Cookierobber

How are you doing the mountains?

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## Charerg

Basically it's done using Wilbur. The most important tutorial is the Fun with Wilbur Vol 1.

First I draw the basic outline of the mountains in Gimp. This is what the most recent version of the mountains for this particular map looks like (pre-Wilbur):



This map is then exported as a PNG file and uploaded into Wilbur. Note that I made the map smaller (5000x2500 in this case) because Wilbur has difficulties with processing large maps, so I'll have to do different sections separately for a 6000x4100 map like this one.

Once I have the basic outline in Wilbur, I use a mix of Precipitation Erosion, Percentage Noise, Incise Flow and Fill Basin to create a more realistic topography. The process is covered in detail within the Fun with Wilbur Vol 1 tutorial (by Waldronate). The usual process is something like this:

- Span the height Range (Filter->Mathematical->Span), for example Low: -1 and High: 4000
- Percentage Noise followed by a few cycles of Precipitation Erosion
- Fill Basins followed by more Noise and Erosion
- Fill Basins followed by Incise Flow (adjust the settings until you create large valleys)
- Erosion, then Fill Basins again and Incise Flow (this time I try to create more narrow river channels instead of wide valleys)

Finally, I turn the result into a height map (Texture-> Gray Maps-> Height Map) and save it as a PNG file.

This is what the "Wilburified" mountains look like:



Then simply add your mountains into the main map (Open as Layers). At this point you have what you seek: a black-and-white height map. Then simply colour it with whatever gradient you want (I use a simple tan -> dark brown gradient) and choose the appropriate Mode for the layer (Burn in my case). The basic process of doing this step (Gradient Map) is covered in Arsheeh's excellent Eriond tutorial. The Eriond tutorial also has an alternative way to do the mountains, which you may find interesting.

Anyway, here's what the final result looks like (so far, still WIP):



Note: The mountains look slightly different (in terms of colour) from the previous version largely because I used a different Span this time around (-1 to 6000 instead of -1 to 4000).

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## Josiah VE

Looks nice! That's a great height map.

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## Charerg

Thanks for the feedback Josiah!

Anyway, time for another small update:



The mountains are still not finished, but the map is definitely progressing. I adjusted the colours a bit (again), so tell me what you think, is the new colouring better than the old version?

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## Josiah VE

The colour scheme is in general not my favorite, but I think the adjusted colours look better than before. This may be something you're still going to add, but right now the only thing that has any texture is the mountains, while the flat land is a solid colour.

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## Charerg

> The colour scheme is in general not my favorite, but I think the adjusted colours look better than before. This may be something you're still going to add, but right now the only thing that has any texture is the mountains, while the flat land is a solid colour.


Well, I'm going for a bit of an "old map"/sepia look, so I don't think I'll add any strong colours to the flat land. Although perhaps some areas like deserts and steppes deserve to be highlighted. I'll have to experiment a bit about that.

That said, I kind of want the mountains to "stand out" from the rest of the map, so I try to avoid making it overly detailed. While some kind of visual differentation between forests, mediterranean climes, deserts and steppes would be nice, it will have to be pretty subtle.

Another thing that might end up in the final map is a sort of cloud texture in the background, to highlight the "old map" feel and also to break up the areas of solid colour a little. Although I'm not absolutely certain if that will work with this kind of map (that's another thing I'll have to experiment with).

Edit:

I finished the mountains (just some "adjustments" left to do in sections that I'm not entirely happy with). This time I changed the colour scheme to be more colourful (once again, opinions needed!):

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## Charerg

Ok, I added some textures (deserts and grasslands), adjusted the height map (I'm still a bit unsatisfied with a few areas, so this isn't final yet), and added that "background texture" I mentioned in my previous post. This is what the result looks like:

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## Ilanthar

Really nice addings Charerg. The mountains are just great, and the colors are good. I'm not so convinced by the blue you have along the coasts though.

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## Charerg

Thanks for the feedback Ilanthar, do you think the blue "coast highlight" is too dark then? 

A little update:

I finished my adjustments with the height map, so now I've moved on to tuning the rivers to fit the new topography. That is somewhat time-consuming, but the map is progressing:

This is what the most recent version looks like:

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## antillies

> Thanks for the feedback Ilanthar, do you think the blue "coast highlight" is too dark then?


Not directed at me, but I would agree that it is too dark, since generally deeper water is also darker in color.  I think though the issue may be the color itself, since it is rather dissimilar than the paler blue you've used for the ocean.  Maybe desaturating it a bit to make it blend more and not contrast as much with the other blue might help?

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## Charerg

> Not directed at me, but I would agree that it is too dark, since generally deeper water is also darker in color.  I think though the issue may be the color itself, since it is rather dissimilar than the paler blue you've used for the ocean.  Maybe desaturating it a bit to make it blend more and not contrast as much with the other blue might help?


I'll have to try that out once I finish with the rivers, thanks for the suggestion!

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## Ilanthar

Changing the brightness could partly solve it. I was mainly thinking that your two "blue" (for coasts and for open sea) are too different. Your coastal blue seems much more saturated and less blended with the paper texture. I would use the open sea blue and make it a bit brighter.

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## Vigilus

> Basically it's done using Wilbur. The most important tutorial is the Fun with Wilbur Vol 1.
> 
> First I draw the basic outline of the mountains in Gimp. This is what the most recent version of the mountains for this particular map looks like (pre-Wilbur):
> 
> Attachment 84566
> 
> This map is then exported as a PNG file and uploaded into Wilbur. Note that I made the map smaller (5000x2500 in this case) because Wilbur has difficulties with processing large maps, so I'll have to do different sections separately for a 6000x4100 map like this one.
> 
> Once I have the basic outline in Wilbur, I use a mix of Precipitation Erosion, Percentage Noise, Incise Flow and Fill Basin to create a more realistic topography. The process is covered in detail within the Fun with Wilbur Vol 1 tutorial (by Waldronate). The usual process is something like this:
> ...


I think I found my next project, this is so simple and so cool!!

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## Charerg

I think it's time for another small update:



Still working on the rivers (maybe 50% done), but I've implemented your suggestions regarding the "land glow" effect, and I think it looks much better now, many thanks for the advice!

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## Ilanthar

Yes!! I really like the whole color palette now, very harmonious.

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## antillies

Rivers are looking great, and I completely agree with Ilanthar.  Coast blends so much more nicely now.  Excellent color choice.

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## Charerg

On another tangent, since I haven't had the motivation to finish the river modifications (still at about 50%), I decided to re-visit the world's "palaeogeography" and I've been thinking how past movements of the continents would have affected their flora and fauna.

I don't plan to introduce any fantasy species into the natural flora and fauna, although several extinct species may end up being resurrected, depending on how the final results turn out regarding my "evolution model". Essentially the plan is that the evolutionary relationships of various animal groups should be the same on Aduhr as they are on Earth. So, some continent might end up having Australia-like fauna with Monotremes and Marsupials, while another might have something like pre-Great American Interchange South America.

For sake of simplicity I'll assume that overall the fauna and flora resemble present day Earth, and only relatively recently extinct species (say, extinct within the last 5 million years) have a chance of existing on present-day Aduhr.

To begin with, I'll concentrate on the evolution of mammals, since they're probably the most important group to consider (as reptiles are relatively similar between various continents, and birds can basically migrate anywhere via flying). So, the basic division of mammals that occurred during the Mesozoic era is the division into Monotremes (platypus and echidna), Metatheria (marsupials and related groups) and Eutheria (ancestral to placental mammals).

We don't know for certain when true placental mammals emerged (around 100 Mya might be a decent estimate), and in general the early evolution of placental mammals and the exact relationships of various groups remains a somewhat disputed question, but there is a consensus regarding their classification into 3 major groups: Xenarthra (South America), Afrotheria (Africa) and Boreoeutheria (Eurasia and North America).

So, as each of these three major groups of placental mammals evolved on separate continents, it's logical that a similar process would occur on Aduhr as well. Interestingly, Xenarthra evolved alongside true Marsupials in South America.

With this in mind, I thought to update Aduhr's palaeogeography a little. Unfortunately, I was unable to get GPlates to work (since I updated to Windows10, apparently GPlates is incompatible with it  :Frown: ). So, any updates regarding the tectonic history and modelling of past continental drift will have to wait.

However, I do still have the maps produced with my old tectonic model. As I mentioned, they are a bit outdated, since I have since defined the extent of the continental crust and made a few small additions, but I guess they'll have to do.

As I don't recall if I posted this before, this is the final version of the "present day" world map, including the continental crust:


A Mollweide projection of Aduhr 100 Mya (map via GPlates):


And finally a bit more refined version of "Palaeo-Aduhr", based on the GPlates map. This includes my first concept of where the main mammal groups (Monotremata, Metatheria and Eutheria) lived on Aduhr ca. 100 Mya:


Ok, that ended up being a bit more substantial than I originally planned for a "tangent project". Anyway, I hope someone finds this interesting!


EDIT:
Btw, the "100 Mya" maps are centered on 60° E Longitude (in order to have no continents "lining the borders"). So, they're essentially offset when compared to the map of "present-day" Aduhr.

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## Charerg

Ok, I went and downgraded my laptop (since it isn't my primary computer) back into Windows 8, and refined the plate tectonic model. I didn't touch the plates themselves (since I'm definitely not re-doing the tectonics at this point!), but the model now extends further back in time, into the actual "Pangaea" stage, and also I adjusted the dates of various collisions. I'll probably post some slightly more refined versions (like in my previous post) of Palaeo-Aduhr at some point, but in the meantime here are some of the new GPlates maps.

200 mya (Pangaea, or "Ur-Aduhr", as I like to call the supercontinent):


150 mya (Ur-Aduhr breaks into three major pieces):


100 mya:


50 mya:


10 mya:


I might have to revisit some of my hotspot-formed island chains since the continental movements are a bit different in the new model. In particular the long island chain attached to Urgaleon (the polar continent) might need adjustment, as the Urgaleon-Eocidar collision occurred at a speed comparable to India-Asia on Earth, and it might be nice to have similar "long trails" of islands as the Indian plate has to show off this piece of tectonic history.

Note: I kept some of the minor continental plates in place as "landmarks" to save some unnecessary work. I envision their tectonic history as basically the same as it was in the previous version of the tectonic model (covered in post #15).

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## Diamond

Man, I really admire your dedication into diving deep into the background of your world!  World-building at its finest.

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## Charerg

> Man, I really admire your dedication into diving deep into the background of your world!  World-building at its finest.


Probably the best thing about this is, that in end you learn a lot of new stuff regarding Earth itself! About a year ago I had basically no clue how this tectonics stuff or the climate worked, but if you're put to the task of sort of "re-imagining" how the climate or the tectonics would turn up on another planet, it really drives you into delving deep into the subject (and learning about the base mechanics behind those phenomena).

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## Charerg

Well, it's been a while since my last update. I haven't done much mapping lately, but I did update the "main worldmap" about a month ago, so I guess I might post the new version:



The hot-spot formed island chains have been re-oriented to suit the updated tectonic model, and I also decided to change some of the submerged continental crust in the northern part of the map into actual land. Also, the mountain chains have undergone a few revisions, as well as some areas of Central Eocidar (the western continent). In particular, the lakes were changed a little so they make more sense. There's also a "Lake Chad" added into the interior (a large, very shallow lake in an endorheic basin).

Oh, and the dark green (0-10 m) areas in the far north depict (below ocean level) areas covered by the polar ice sheet.

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## Ilanthar

It's looking good Charerg!

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## kacey

I'm envious of this, you've put so much into it, I would never have the patients to work out all those details. It's really great, the map's look good.

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## Charerg

Well, it's been a long while since my latest update (I always start my posts here with that phrase, don't I?).

However, I've recently been working on a major update on Aduhr. This one started out as an attempt to build up a more refined topographic map and re-do the climates to suit it (yup, I really like the climate stuff). You could say that Tiluchi's recent work on Ayesha has been a big inspiration (as well as Pixie's Maward with its highly realistic-looking topography). My initial plan was to do this on a continent-by-continent basis, with maybe a week or two of time spent per continent (and take a month or two off between the continents, since I do have some non-mapping related projects going on that need to be worked on as well).

To make a long story short, the project snowballed into a far more comprehensive overhaul than I originally planned (as is often the case with my projects). I did a lot of research about the geologic history of various parts of Earth, in order to have a better idea of what each mountain range should look like, and in the end I ended up doing a major overhaul of both the tectonics and the coastlines (as the previous tectonic model didn't really work with the Wilson Cycle).

So, I guess this is the "hardcore version" of the tectonics. Here's what the new version looks like 200 Mya:



As you probably notice, the big change is that I moved into a 2-supercontinent model (presumably these two were once a single continent and have since drifted apart), with most of the continent blocks forming the equatorial supercontinent (called "Panwara"), and a much smaller continent sitting on the North Pole (as yet unnamed, but let's give it the original name of "Polaris", based on the location).

Here's the situation 50 million years later, 150 Mya:



The map shows how Panwara first separates into western and eastern portions. Presumably the driving force behind the dispersal is the subduction of a mid-oceanic ridge by Polaris (comparable to subduction of the Tethys ridge by Eurasia), causing a new rift to form. A major change between the new model and the old one is visible in the position of Akanrias (the southern part of Eocidar, the large western continent). The previous model envisioned Akanrias separating from Central Eocidar via a sort of hinge-type rotation. However, in this particular situation, I could not find a good tectonic justification for that type of breakup, and I ended up scrapping it. Instead, the new tectonic model envisions a large area of extended crust formed between Akanrias and the rest of Eocidar by a system of failed rifts that was active during the initial breakup of Panwara.

And the next stage, 100 Mya:



Here, the northern continent (Polaris) has also begun to break. Again, the cause is envisioned as the subduction of a mid-oceanic ridge by Eocidar, causing a new rift to form between Urgaleon (the northernmost continent) and Rheada. However, clearly more of the Tethys-like ridge has also been subducted by Polaris, since now the Valkathaic rift has expanded northwards (Valkathain is the "Inner Ocean" of Aduhr). The large archipelago of Meias has separated from Central Eocidar (after which the rift shifted northwards), and the eastern continent of Anapar (the one with a similar shape to Australia) is also breaking apart.

50 Mya:


There's not too much new happening here. There's an oncoming collision between Neraduhr and several island arcs, and the Khaer islands are starting to separate from Rheada as part of that process. Another major development is that the Trans-Eocidarian Rift begins to form, creating a large rift valley separating Northern Eocidar (called Menorias) from the central parts of the continent. Ofc there are a lot of finer details that I could cover (and not necessarily everything has been included in the GPlates model), but I think I'll save those details for the "present-day topography" updates.

And finally, here's the present-day situation:



In this map, I've included a rough approximation of the ages of oceanic crust based on that little model I did with GPlates (you probably noticed those pieces of new crust appearing in the previous maps). However, I should note that some of this based on guesswork (in some cases I also shifted the ridges from the GPlates version, changing my mind), so it's fairly unpolished and there are some weird areas here and there.

Another major caveat is that the plates of the Outer Ocean (Agalhain) are pure guesswork at this point. All I can say for certain is that there's definitely a triple junction there somewhere separating the Urgaleonic plate in the north from the eastern and western halves of the Agalhaic plate. Here, I've depicted the "main ridge" as largely subducted beneath Eocidar, but this is just a pure guess. On Earth, the history of the Pacific is actually quite complicated. As an example, here's a reconstruction of the Age of Oceanic Crust ca. 80 Mya (from this site):



There are as many as four plates (Izanagi, Kula, Farallon, Phoenix) that once formed a portion of the Pacific and have now been subducted. To make matters more complicated, the exact location of the ridges also has a great deal of relevance to the whole process of supercontinental breakup (as the primary cause was the subduction of a mid-oceanic ridge). This is especially true in my case, since I have convergent continental boundaries in two places (northern Eocidar and southern Rheada), which indicates that two mid-oceanic ridges must have been subducted (instead of just one, as was the case on Earth). So, all in all, I've decided to save the "Agalhaic puzzle" for a later date. I had enough of a headache just figuring out the dispersal of the supercontinent(s), without going into all those subducted plates!

So, that's it for this preview. Next up, I'll continue work on the elevations of Eocidar (which I fortunately almost finished before I decided to overhaul the tectonics, so shouldn't take too long). I guess I might post a more traditional map of the tectonic plates as well, although the boundaries are visible on the Age of Oceanic Lithosphere map (and it's pretty easy to guess the locations of active ridges from that  :Wink: ).

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## Pixie

Charerg, I wish I had more time to write up a proper comment. Something inteligent, with suggestions, praise and general comments. But I don't want you to continue unanswered in this thread, so here goes an sms sort of comment:

I'm envious! I wish I had your skills with g.plates. To me, this is beautiful. Congratulations!

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## Charerg

Right, so I've finally gotten at least a piece of Eocidar into a more-or-less finished state. I should probably mention that I've basically overhauled most of the elevation map from what I had back in February when I made that ill-advised statement that "it will done soon".

I might post something about the geologic features underlying the sub-continent at a later point, but since I'm feeling a bit lazy that will have to wait. However, here's the elevation map for the sub-continent of Akanrias, the southernmost of the three pieces that make up the continent as a whole. I should note that the bathymetry is pretty rough at this point, since the focus is on the topography, and there will probably be some changes to some of the continents and the associated tectonic features (exact location of the ridges and what-not). I've shelved that update for a later date though, for the moment I'm just focusing on this particular continent. So, here's the map: 



Within the global map, here's the location and size of the area depicted here:



And finally, for purposes of comparison, a map of the Earth using the same elevation scheme and intervals (this is generated from the ETOPO1 global relief model, using the "ice surface" version, note that the glaciers are not coloured separately, but are instead regarded as part of the surface):



The colour scheme is still a bit WIP, though I'm pretty happy with the lower elevation levels. However, I'm not sure if the dark brown->white transition with the higher levels is all that good right now. So, any feedback on the colour scheme is appreciated.

Anyway, that's it for this update. Any comments/suggestions are welcome as usual, and I'll try to post the relevant geology and tectonics regarding Akanrias at a later date.

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## Pixie

This looks so good, Charerg! And, given your growing knowledge of tectonics, I would love to see that annotated map with the tectonic features/history.
Also, thanks for the color scheme with a matching map for Earth. I had only a poor one to compare my Maward master map (which I used in my thread some time ago), but this one that you found is much better and we can also make cross comparisons now between our worlds (which sounds great to me).

Lastly, when you look at your whole-world-map you probably feel a mix of pain and enthusiasm about what's still missing. You might even think about quitting some times, and in different moments, daydream about quitting your day job and commiting full time. I know the roller coaster... Just wanted to let you know you're going on the right track.... and, this being the weirdest hobby, nobody's pushing for completion, just enjoy.  :Very Happy:

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## Naima

> Right, so I've finally gotten at least a piece of Eocidar into a more-or-less finished state. I should probably mention that I've basically overhauled most of the elevation map from what I had back in February when I made that ill-advised statement that "it will done soon".
> 
> I might post something about the geologic features underlying the sub-continent at a later point, but since I'm feeling a bit lazy that will have to wait. However, here's the elevation map for the sub-continent of Akanrias, the southernmost of the three pieces that make up the continent as a whole. I should note that the bathymetry is pretty rough at this point, since the focus is on the topography, and there will probably be some changes to some of the continents and the associated tectonic features (exact location of the ridges and what-not). I've shelved that update for a later date though, for the moment I'm just focusing on this particular continent. So, here's the map: 
> 
> Attachment 96857
> 
> Within the global map, here's the location and size of the area depicted here:
> 
> Attachment 96858
> ...


The world map is purely perfect and great, I can't really find anything wrong and the mountain positioning and shapes are also very good, my only nitpick, is that the coastlines seem to have a too similar fragmentation , I would eventually differentiate them according to the plaques side movement directions with areas more broken and areas less and more smooth. I am not an expert on tectonics though and I think it looks already perfect.

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## Charerg

Right, so about those geologic features:

Generally speaking, present-day Akanrias is a tectonically sleeping land, the only active boundaries it has are located in the westernmost margins of the subcontinent. As such most of Akanrias is fairly low in terms of elevation, and lacks any truly high mountain ranges. The single most important event responsible for the present-day geography is the dissolution of the ancient supercontinent of Panwara, so it is worth looking at the process in a bit more detail:

Akanrias 200 Mya, just before the breakup of Panwara:


Akanrias 175 Mya:


Akanrias 150 Mya:


Speaking from a world-building perspective, Akanrias has always been a fairly difficult region. Those who have followed the thread for a while may remember how it played a key part in my rework of the tectonic layout back in February when I made that big post regarding tectonics. What I eventually ended up doing for this final version, is a mix of the prior two tectonic models to some degree. So, we have the Great Akanrian Trough opening between Akanrias and mainland Eocidar via a hinge-type rotation. In the northern end of the trough, I ended up with a large system of fault blocks, similar to the Basin and Range Province (although older and more heavily eroded).

Another major geologic feature from this period is the East Akanrian Shear Zone (EASZ), a major transform fault that occurred when the Tamanaro Craton slided eastwards along with Anapar during the breakup process.

As a sidenote, I think may adjust the shape of the subcontinent a bit further. It looks good on an equirectangular projection, but looking at these orthogonal pics, the "stomach" of the continent is too strongly curved, resulting in an overly artificial-looking shape. Oh, and I plan to rework Anapar and Nomune when I eventually get to those continents. As can be seen here, the shape of Anapar obviously needs to be adjusted to fit the updated tectonics.

Btw, I figured out that it's actually possible to automatically locate mid-oceanic ridges using the "flowlines" feature of GPlates (you can see this from the pics, where I've tracked the creation of new crust between Anapar and Eocidar). Similarly, it's possible to directly create hotspot tracks using the "motion paths" feature, as can be seen here with present-day Eocidar:

Hotspot Trail:


I'll have to adjust my bathymetry accordingly, since I seem to have the trail a bit off. These features will definitely make it a lot easier to both generate hotspot trails and locate those mid-oceanic ridges, especially if I make some further adjustments to the movement of the continents. Makes me think that maybe I should've read those GPlates tutorials beforehand, I could have saved myself quite a bit of work  :Very Happy: .

Okay, back on topic:

Geologic features:


So, the above map covers the major geologic features. Originally I planned to include information of the age of the various fold belts and igneous provinces in the map itself, but it ended up being too messy and hard to read (the above map is probably messy enough already  :Razz: ). Here's a rough timeline regarding the ages of the various features:

*Ancient Eon (NA-750 Mya):*

- 1200-1000 Mya: the Central Akanrian Fold Belts are formed with the collision of West and East Akanrian blocks, creating the core of the subcontinent. Presumably Nomune is likewise accredited into the palaeo-continent as part of the process.
- ca. 900-800 Mya: the East Akanrian Belt is created as the Tamanaro-Anapar block (including the East Eocidarian Craton) collides with Akanrias-Nomune. The resulting continent is called "East Panwara" as it will eventually form the eastern portion of the supercontinent.

*Old Eon (750-250 Mya):*

- ca. 600-500 Mya: the Western Pan-Eocidarian Belt is formed as the L'kyano Craton collides with West Panwara.
- ca. 500-400 Mya: the Eastern Pan-Eocidarian Belt and the L'kyano Arcs form as East and West Panwara collide, forming the supercontinent (the South Eocidarian block is a smaller piece that was squeezed between the two main blocks).
- ca. 300 Mya: the island of K'yatahi is formed. The Northern K'yatahi block detaches from Akanrias (similar to Borneo detaching from Vietnam in most tectonic reconstructions, this one for example), colliding with the Southern K'yatahi block.

*Middle Eon (250-100 Mya):*

- 200-150 Mya: the breakup of Panwara. The Great Akanrian Trough opens, along with the creation of the East Eocidarian Fault Block complex. The Tamanaro block splits, with the northernmost part undergoing an eastward motion along the EASZ, generating a mountain range in eastern Akanrias. Numerous LIPs (Large Igneous Provinces) form along the margins of Akanrias and Eocidar as a result of volcanic activity associated with the breakup of the supercontinent.

*Young Eon (100 Mya-Present):*

- 50-30 Mya: the C'thuana block collides and is accredited to Eocidar, creating a major fold belt in SW Eocidar, and forming a part of the long island of T'kalo.
- 30 Mya-Present: the Trans-Eocidarian Rift begins to open, and intra-continental volcanic activity is initiated in the the L'kyano Metacraton (partly destabilizing the craton, hence the label "metacraton"), eventually forming the M'alabar LIP. This is a comparable formation to the Tibesti Mountains in Africa.
- 20 Mya-Present: the T'kalo block collides with Eocidar, forming a large portion of the island of T'kalo. A very young and immature collision, only at it's beginning phase.

Well, that ended up as a big wall of text. Kudos to anyone who has the patience/interest to read through all that. Hopefully my rambling was at least somewhat coherent. As usual, feedback and questions are appreciated, and I hope you found this interesting!

----------


## davoush

I am by no means an expert (in fact most of my tectonics knowledge comes from this board), but I really enjoy reading about the geological history of your world. The level of detail and thought put into it is incredible! I also like how you compare parts to real world regions and tectonic processes, it makes it easier to envision for people who may not have such a detailed knowledge.

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## Pixie

Thank you so much for that last post, Charerg. I loved it. It's inspiring to know I'm not the only one who is up to this level of detail. I loved reading your rambling and that simple map of geological provinces is a winner, I keep a huge number of notes like that too.

I wish I had your skills using G.plates, but I haven't invested enough time yet to figure it out.

Super well done!  :Very Happy:

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## PaGaN

Hey Charerg! 

Wanted to pop by and say Hi and, getting to the point, ask for your opinion.

I've started a thread over in the world regional/world mapping section called Aerlaan. From reading your thread you are clearly the person to go to for tectonics. I have roughed out what i think is a working system for my world but would appreciate your input and opinion. I'm keen to get on to the next foundation (wind and water) but know that the tectonics come first. If they are wrong then all is wrong.

I would link to my thread but haven't figured out how to yet, sorry  :Confused: 

Anyway, if you can find the time it would be appreciated.

Thanks.

PaGaN

EDIT: figured out the linking thing (I thnk), My thread, Aerlaan, is here

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## NadirtheFox

Hi there! (And sorry for bad english...)
I just wanted to say that i have been watching your thread for quite some time (even before I was a member of this forum) and I find it very inspiring  :Very Happy:  And I have to say that I just love the amount of detail and thought you put into this world (Also I think I am a bit jeaous about your tectonics model. I wish I can do something comparable!)
I will be patiently waiting for an update  :Smile: 

Nadir

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## Charerg

> Hi there! (And sorry for bad english...)
> I just wanted to say that i have been watching your thread for quite some time (even before I was a member of this forum) and I find it very inspiring  And I have to say that I just love the amount of detail and thought you put into this world (Also I think I am a bit jeaous about your tectonics model. I wish I can do something comparable!)
> I will be patiently waiting for an update 
> 
> Nadir


Good to hear that someone besides myself finds this interesting!

I took a bit of a hiatus from mapping after finishing up Akanrias (although I'm slowly getting back to the map), so it's going to be a while until the next update, since there's a lot more stuff to cover in Central Eocidar. Also, the region in general is in a more unfinished state than what Akanrias was when I switched to the present 22-level topography. I'd give an estimate, but since my estimates tend to be horribly off, I think I'll refrain from doing so  :Wink: .

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## Pixie

> Good to hear that someone besides myself finds this interesting!


I hope that's just modesty... you have more than one fan around here... I am another one.

On another topic - 22-levels of topography is a lot. I had 23 at a point and found out that it is too much. You will make your mountainous areas "too fat" with that many levels.

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## Charerg

> I hope that's just modesty... you have more than one fan around here... I am another one.
> 
> On another topic - 22-levels of topography is a lot. I had 23 at a point and found out that it is too much. You will make your mountainous areas "too fat" with that many levels.


Oh, I know there's a small community of tectonics weirdos (as I think you put it once) around here, but it's always nice to see some newcomers  :Wink: .

And you're right, 22 is a lot of levels. What I'm kind of planning is skimping a little on the detail (I think I have a tendency to go for too pixel-perfect in any case), but having more layers, which should make the overall look fairly good. Although some of those high elevation levels are probably going to be fairly marginal.

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## zhar2

Absolutely amazing!!

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## Charerg

Right, it's been a good long while since my latest update, so I guess it's time to post another one. Although this time around I don't have a new area to post per se. I've been working very sporadically on the height map for Central Eocidar, but it's only maybe 20% done.

All in all, I was getting a bit fed up with the rather painstaking method of doing it all by hand and decided that a change of tactics was in order. I've dabbled a bit with sculpting programs (Autodesk Mudbox, more specifically) in the last year or so. With those, the workflow is usually first starting off with a piece (say, a head) at low subdivision (low resolution) and basically first sculpting the shapes and adding the major details in that resolution. Then you move to a higher subdivision, adding more and more detail as you go, all the way to the pores on the skin and what have you.

With that in mind, I was inspired to attempt a new technique. I realised that mapping a piece of 10 000x5000 map is completely unnecessary for creating the general details of the topography (where are mountains, highlands, basins). In fact, since you're tempted to work while zoomed in a lot, I think it's more of a hindrance than a benefit. So, I've decided to adopt a more "subdivision type approach", where I start creating the topography at a very low resolution and then scale upwards, adding details. Also, I will be creating a greyscale height map, since that works a lot better with this sort of process because blurring isn't a big issue with greyscale.

In order to test the method, I decided to start off by re-working Akanrias a bit. There were a few things I was a bit unhappy with regarding the subcontinent's shape:



So, I fixed those up and turned my previous elevation map into greyscale. I use a RGB-scale btw, with 25 metres per point to convert this into metres. The values 0-5 are below sealevel (-150 to 0 m), while the values 6-255 represent the height range (0 to 6250 m). 



I also made a nice gradient for this, so I can straight up convert this into a layered elevation map like I used previously. To actually work on the piece, I considered if I should use a different projection. However, GProjector only accepts Cylindrical Equal-area as input out of the equal-area projections, and while the area is displayed correctly, the shapes are distorted *a lot*. So, all in all, I decided for a compromise: I'm going to use Equirectangular Oblique, with the map centered on the piece I'm working on. That should get rid of the worst projection distortion. And the resolution limits of GProjector are less of an issue when working in greyscale.

After creating the initial topography and running through Wilbur once, this is what the low-res map I'm working on looks like. Btw, this is clipped from an Equirectangular Oblique projection centered on 30 W 20 S. Comparing this to the 3D view I think this works pretty well (not too much distortion).

With the layered gradient:


Gradual transition gradient:


I'd include the elevation key, but with this resolution it would cover half the map (or be totally unreadable if I downscaled it). So here it is separately, same as used previously:


I also made a few changes to the elevations from the previous version. I decided to remove one of the LIPs on the southern coast. That is because I'll probably update the tectonics at some point, and I'm planning to change the position of Nomune somewhat (so that LIP doesn't make sense anymore). I also added a large lake and changed the drainage pattern as an experiment. Right now, both of the intra-cratonic basins of Akanrias drain into the "south sea". However, I'll probably change the drainage of the western basin back into its old course (drain into the southwestern sea).

So, that's what I have for this update. So far, I'm pretty satisfied with this new method. I created the above maps in a few days, and it's a refreshing change to work on a greyscale height map. Also, this method allows me to use Wilbur to full effect, "Wilburifying" the map each time I increase the resolution. This is still very much a WIP of course, but I thought I'd post this since there are quite a few world-mappers likewise working on elevations right now, and someone might find this useful.

All in all, I have high hopes that this method offers a good compromise of achieving good production speed without sacrificing quality in the process. But we'll see how the final results turn out. As usual, feedback and comments are welcome!


Edit:
Oh, btw I also incorporated Naima's feedback a bit and changed the costlines so they're not so "over-fractalized" in this version (although that's not really apparent in the low-res map).

----------


## Charerg

I'm trying to keep up a bit more frequent stream of updates, so here's something of a mini-update.

I developed my 500px elevation map to a point where I think I've exhausted the possibilities of the low-res map. So, I've upscaled the 500px map up to 1000px. The final will be about 1550 px in width (I had to drop the resolution of the world map to 5800x2900 due to GProjector's resolution restrictions). Here's what the 1000 px map looks like (this is just the 500px upscaled, haven't worked on this yet other than establishing the land mask).



Here's the same map split to elevation zones as in Azelor's climate guide (although the lowest level is 0-50 m here):



I also extracted myself a reference map of Earth using the same gradient (25 m per RGB value). So, in this case I capped the elevations at -150 minimum and 6250 maximum. Here's what the reference map looks like (had to downscale it somewhat to fit into the forum's file size restrictions, still pretty huge though):


* *










So far, I'm pretty happy with how the map is turning out.

----------


## Charerg

To continue my attempt at semi-regular updates, I finished the 1000 px map. I ended up doing some pretty big changes in some regions, so it was a bit more time consuming than anticipated. The final results look good though.

Final map pre-Wilbur:


After Wilbur:


And the final map split into layers by elevation:


* *





Layered as per the old elevation system I used (see previous posts for elevation key):


Layered as per the "Azelor system" (see Azelor's tutorial for the key):





So far I'm really happy how the map is turning out. It's inevitably going to look a bit more "messy" than the previous maps where each elevation layer was sort of hand-tailored instead of being generated from a greyscale height map, but I feel this method results in a much more organic-looking map. So, now a short break and it's on to creating the final map in full res (1576x710 in this case)!

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## Harrg

Very nice! How you split your map into layers by elevation? You use "magic stick" in Photoshop(or alternative tool in Gimp )? Because some time I very want correct my height map after Wilbur in different layers for each scale.

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## zhar2

> Very nice! How you split your map into layers by elevation? You use "magic stick" in Photoshop(or alternative tool in Gimp )? Because some time I very want correct my height map after Wilbur in different layers for each scale.


In gimp you can use "posterize"

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## Harrg

Thank you zhar2) I forgot about this.

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## Charerg

> Very nice! How you split your map into layers by elevation? You use "magic stick" in Photoshop(or alternative tool in Gimp )? Because some time I very want correct my height map after Wilbur in different layers for each scale.


I have basically divided up the RGB scale to 25 metre intervals. So basically 256 possible values, that represent an elevation range from -150 metres to 6250 metres. It goes as follows:

0 RGB: -150 m
1 RGB: -125 m
.
.
7 RGB: 0 m
.
.
255 RGB: 6250 m

Then I've created a few gradient maps which divide the RGB scale into appropriate elevation layers. So, it's essentially just a Gimp Gradient Map. I'm not sure what the equivalent is in PhotoShop, though.

It's worth noting that when you export a height map from Wilbur, it automatically scales it to RGB values based on the Min. and Max. Elevations you've defined. In my map, the highest elevation is about 2750 metres, so I have to sort of rescale the exported height map back into the usual range using the "Levels" in Gimp.

Sorry that I can't provide more detailed advice, but unfortunately I don't have any experience using PhotoShop (as I use Gimp exclusively).

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## Harrg

Thank you Charerg. I present an alternative it in photoshop)) Ph. and wilbur use similar tools.

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## Pixie

The general direction of this project is.... THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

Take some rep! Well deserved.

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## Charerg

Right, so the final high-res map is finished (if you consider 1576x710 high anyway...). I made quite a few revisions to the interior, so it took me a bit longer than anticipated. And of course you could keep fiddling with the details _ad infinitum_, but in an attempt to rein in the perfectionism a bit, I've decided to call this version finished.

So, here's the map with Azelor's elevation key:


And with the "Char elevation key" seen previously (this time there's enough resolution to even include the key with the map):


The above with gradual transitions:

* *









Note that the lower elevation has been capped at -150 metres min. and 6250 m max. here, so the lower (and uppermost) layers of my elevation key are unused in this scheme.

Here's how the greyscale height map looks on the globe:


As I mentioned, I made a few updates to the geology of the subcontinent's interior as well. I'll add that to this post when I have the time.


*Edit: the Akanrian Geology*

About that geology update, my previous geologic update had the ages of the older fold belts as follows:

~1100 Mya: Central Akanrian Fold Belts
~850 Mya: East Akanrian (aka Tamanaro) Fold Belts

I expanded this somewhat by splitting the West and East Akanrian crations into two component blocks. The W. Akanrian Craton's southern portion is now a separate block (called the Uiruno Terranes) that was accredited to the craton perhaps ca. 1500 Mya. So, there's the remnant of an ancient fold belt there. The E. Akanrian Craton has been split into two cratons: the southern one is called the Ingilo Craton. The two pieces collided ca. 1300 Mya, forming the Ingilo Fold Belts.

In addition, there is an ancient failed rift responsible for Akanosuwa, the large interior lake. The Akanosuwa Rift formed at an age close to the Tamanaro Fold Belts, so perhaps 900 Mya. All these ages are extremenly rough of course, as I haven't modelled the tectonics beyound 200 Mya (which was covered in the tectonics update about a year ago). As a real world inspiration I had the North American Midcontinent Rift System (about 1100 Mya), responsible for creating the basin occupied by Lake Superior.

So, here's the updated geologic stuff with a nice relief map from Wilbur (I omitted most of the younger formations from this as those were covered in the previous geology update):



Oh, and I should mention that I changed the former East Akanrian Shear Zone into a more complex fault complex. Previously I had it as something similar to the Alpine Fault. I realised that this kind of primarily transpressional transform faulting doesn't make any sense in these circumstances. So now the faulted area has pull-apart basins in areas where a "releasing bend" causes extensional stress (transtension) and mountains where a "restraining bend" causes compressional stress (transpression). Ofc this transform fault became inactive about 150 Mya, so I'm a bit on the fence whether I should've eroded the region into little lower elevations. But like I said, I don't want to get too stuck with the details, so I decided to leave it as it is.

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## Ilanthar

I really like that relief map. Interesting landscape, rifts are generating fascinating ones.

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## Charerg

> I really like that relief map. Interesting landscape, rifts are generating fascinating ones.


Glad to hear that it looks good! Overall I'm pretty happy with the result too.

However, as another mini-update, after taking a few weeks off Aduhr and having a "fresh look" at the piece, I have to say there were just a few details bugging me about the overall elevations. So, I ended up "opening the stomach" of the subcontinent a bit more, so there's a larger lowland basin. In the process, the courses of the major rivers also shifted a bit (since Wilbur rarely generates the exact same courses twice). I ended up largely flattening the highland region of the Uiruno Fold Belt (well, that was supposed to be really ancient anyway).

Here's the new version (call this "final II", though this time I intend this to truly be the final one):

Height maps:




And finally the relief map (this time without the geologic stuff):


*Edit:*

Ok, that wasn't quite final yet. I changed the drainage system a bit and applied a bit more precipiton erosion in Wilbur. Here's the (hopefully final) "final 3" map (this time the gradual version so the drainage network is easier to spot):

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## Tiluchi

Charerg, I can only echo Pixie and say that it's truly inspiring to see how much work you put into your geology (among other details). My head is spinning from all the thought and research that went into this- and this is coming from someone who has 24 geology-related tabs open on their computer for their own project! 

Just a question- is there a coding behind the coloring of the tectonic boundaries you drew in that geology map? I can tell what they are of course, but I'm curious what the colors are. Is it age-related? Asking in particular because I'm curious about the geology behind the very interesting-looking T'kalo group...

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## Charerg

> Charerg, I can only echo Pixie and say that it's truly inspiring to see how much work you put into your geology (among other details). My head is spinning from all the thought and research that went into this- and this is coming from someone who has 24 geology-related tabs open on their computer for their own project! 
> 
> Just a question- is there a coding behind the coloring of the tectonic boundaries you drew in that geology map? I can tell what they are of course, but I'm curious what the colors are. Is it age-related? Asking in particular because I'm curious about the geology behind the very interesting-looking T'kalo group...


Oh, yes, there is some method to the madness though I realise I totally forgot to explain the colours. The T'kalo region follows the standard colours since those are actual active present-day tectonic boundaries (so, green=transform, purple=convergent, blue=subduction). The rest are ancient fold belts going from _purple_=oldest to _light blue_=youngest (though even the youngest fold belt is maybe 750-500 Mya old, I haven't worked out the exact details regarding their age).

The Akanosuwa Rift has about the same age as the Tamanaro Fold Belts (just slightly older). Originally I had it as ~900 Mya, but now I think 800-600 Mya is a bit closer. And the East Akanrian Fault Complex dates to the breakup of Panwara, so 200-150 Mya.

----------


## Charerg

Here's another very minor update. I haven't started work on C. Eocidar yet, but I made another minor change to Akanrias, namely somewhat lowering the elevations in the interior: those ancient fold belts were a bit too tall overall. So, here's the "final iv" (this time the layered version):


The average elevation for the subcontinent is 405 ~400 m (this excludes everything west of the Great Akanrian Trough), although that number is a bit rough since this isn't an actual equal-area projection. It's surprisingly difficult to find accurate data about the avg. elevation of Earth's continents. I've found one source stating the avg. elevation of Australia as 244 metres, another claims it's about 300 m, and a third has a figure of 330 m. Same thing for Antarctica, one source says ~1600 m, the next claims ~2000 m, and a third has a figure of 2500 m...sigh. It seems either the internet is full of wildly inaccurate data, or geologists really need to get their math checked.

Anyway, since the 330 m figure for Australia is from a site maintained by the Australian government, I'm assuming it's the correct one. Europe seems to have a very similar avg. elevation to Australia, whereas the Americas and Africa are ~600 m average to give a very rough figure (again, I'm uncertain how accurate these figures are, but they seem about right).

So, Akanrias seems overall to be taller than Australia and Europe (which are 300-350 metres if my data is accurate), but lower than the rest of the continents. Which seems about right given that it's a fairly inactive area tectonically. I expected the avg. elevation to be somewhat lower actually, but I guess the large volcanic plateaus formed during the breakup of Panwara push it a bit higher than expected.

Edit:
Here's the "hopefully final version 4 of the final" in the Azelor colours:


And the gradual version:

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## Pixie

Hi Charerg

I also think this final version is slightly better than the previous final versions.  :Smile: 

Indeed, your past fold belts were too noticeable. 200 million years can pretty much flatten any range, bar the hard core rocks. This leaves behind small thin mountains.

The one thing that bothers me (a little, and you don't need to value this) is the large deep river valleys that Wilbur carves in flat areas. Wilbur erosion model never drops any sediment downstream. This, however, is very important for topography. Where rivers slow down, like at the base of the mountainrange, a lot of sediments are deposited leveling the area. Your main rivers are crossing old regions, I'm thinking about the Ingilo craton, they should have levelled it much further.
The way I work around, when I goof around with Wilbur (not much these days) is that I raise the land slightly in those areas to be levelled every time I run an erosion cycle.


Still, this is my humble opinion about details. This is becoming a source of envy for me... but I can't stop looking at it anyway  :Very Happy: 

Oh, and by the way, congratulations! Your tutorial about g.plates triggered me to revise the bits of tectonics I knew made no sense in my world... I'm on day 30 of a whole revision project (and enjoying it!) and still have nothing worth showing  :Wink:

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## Charerg

> Hi Charerg
> 
> I also think this final version is slightly better than the previous final versions. 
> 
> Indeed, your past fold belts were too noticeable. 200 million years can pretty much flatten any range, bar the hard core rocks. This leaves behind small thin mountains.
> 
> The one thing that bothers me (a little, and you don't need to value this) is the large deep river valleys that Wilbur carves in flat areas. Wilbur erosion model never drops any sediment downstream. This, however, is very important for topography. Where rivers slow down, like at the base of the mountainrange, a lot of sediments are deposited leveling the area. Your main rivers are crossing old regions, I'm thinking about the Ingilo craton, they should have levelled it much further.
> The way I work around, when I goof around with Wilbur (not much these days) is that I raise the land slightly in those areas to be levelled every time I run an erosion cycle.


That sounds like a good idea. I actually thought about making the river channels less pronounced, but they seem to be fairly clear-cut when looking at Earth, even in areas which are ancient cratons (although it varies a lot between different rivers). Take a look at C. Africa:



The channels of the Kongo and Niger rivers are pretty clearly cut, although I'm not entirely sure about the mechanics behind it. The Kongo especially looks like it might have done some recent "downcutting", possibly as a response to epeirogenic uplift (the African superplume and all that, I'm sure you're familiar with the theories). 

That said, you have a point that Wilbur's Incise Flow cuts relatively similar looking channels all over the map, and it would look better if there was a bit more variety regarding river erosion. I think I'll probably leave it as it is for now, since I don't want to get stuck too much with the details, but I'll definitely flatten out the Ingilo region at some point.




> Oh, and by the way, congratulations! Your tutorial about g.plates triggered me to revise the bits of tectonics I knew made no sense in my world... I'm on day 30 of a whole revision project (and enjoying it!) and still have nothing worth showing


Good to hear that you found it useful! I think you should definitely post an update about the tectonics, if only to get some feedback, since that can always be useful. And yeah, tectonics can take a *really* long time if you go deep into the details. Actually I'll probably do a slight tectonics update myself at some point, since I have some new ideas that I want to incorporate (and in any case the old GPlates model is a bit outdated since I figured out most of the techniques demonstrated in the GPlates tut only recently). That said, I definitely want to create the elevation map of C. Eocidar first before tackling the tectonics update (though at the moment I'm only working at this sporadically).

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## NadirtheFox

Not much to say here: It all looks very nice to me. Not sure if I like the gradual scaling more than the non-linear one though, but I guess it is just a case of personal taste. Oh and I have to say that it is one of the best looking wilbured terrains i have seen so far... So I have a question: can you perhaps share with us some tips on how to make something like that?  :Smile:  (And I know that every map is different and it may not work all the time... It is just nice to have a good starting point)
Keep on good work  :Smile:

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## Charerg

> Not much to say here: It all looks very nice to me. Not sure if I like the gradual scaling more than the non-linear one though, but I guess it is just a case of personal taste. Oh and I have to say that it is one of the best looking wilbured terrains i have seen so far... So I have a question: can you perhaps share with us some tips on how to make something like that?  (And I know that every map is different and it may not work all the time... It is just nice to have a good starting point)
> Keep on good work


The Wilbur part of the process isn't anything special really, this is the usual sequence I used:
- Select Land Mask
- Precipiton Erosion (usually just 1x, though the final map has two rounds)
- Fill Basins
- Absolute Magnitude Noise (I used magnitude 20 in this case)
- Fill Basins
- Incise Flow (Amount 1.5, Flow Exponent 0.2, Effect Blend 0.5, Pre-Blur 0.5 were the settings used in the final)

You have to keep in mind the limitations of Wilbur though. Precipiton Erosion tends to really fill up lowland areas for example, which is why I only used a single cycle usually (even then I found myself lowering coastal areas and lowlands afterwards to compensate). It's still a very useful tool since you don't need to worry too much about the micro-scale details, allowing more liberal use of tools like generating clouds and painting with splatter brushes. Wilbur will take care of the micro-scale erosion and Fill Basins will connect everything up, eliminating any weird basins that might be left over from the generated/painted clouds. Likewise, Wilbur can create the drainage network for you, so you don't have to spend much effort creating the river basins.

But then, Wilbur won't actually create the terrain for you. It's a useful tool for making the job easier and dealing with the minor details, but the macro-scale details like the overall elevation distribution, shapes of mountain ranges, etc. need to be manually created. For that I used a variety of techniques. The first low-res version was largely just painted with a smooth brush with a generous amount of blurring. Of course I made full use of layers, like painting areas that I wanted to lift to a certain level in a "lighten only" layer, and so on. Later on I also used generated clouds as well as different splatter brushes to paint things in a bit more random fashion. Also, I suppose I should empasise the heavy use of blurring to make the elevations transition smoothly.

It helps to sketch things out to begin with and you also need to have some concept of how the overall elevation distribution should look like. I found the multi-scale approach helpful since it's very easy and quick to modify the low-res map that can be used as a testbed to try out different things and test how the overall elevation distribution should look. Then when moving on to higher resolution maps the emphasis was more on the details like the shapes of mountain ranges, which slopes should be steep, which areas should be higher, and so forth. Most of that was based on the geologic history I created for the region (so knowing which areas are fold belts, which are lava plateaus, where are the big normal faults left over from continents separating etc.). At this stage it probably helps if you've spent ages staring at a map of Earth and thinking about the geologic history behind various features.

Though as noted, I did end up changing quite a few things in the process of creating the map. It's always a bit hard to sort of "undo" previous work but I do believe that you have to be somewhat willing to make changes and experiment with different layouts in order to get the best result. It's somewhat risky in terms of working motivation though: if you end up re-doing an area a number of times and still aren't really happy with it, it can eat at your "mapping motivation". That's why it's probably better to first sketch things out and have some plan behind such changes before implementing them. I've lost count of the number of times I've changed something up only to find out that the new layout wasn't really better than the old one (or even outright worse).

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## arsheesh

I just finished skimming this thread Charerg and must say that I am thoroughly impressed with the work you've done on this project.  I've wanted to do a world-building project such as this for some time, but have always been a bit intimidated by all that such a project entails.  As time allows I'll be coming back to this thread, as well as browsing the resources you've linked to.  Thanks a bunch for the inspiration.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## Pixie

> Good to hear that you found it useful! I think you should definitely post an update about the tectonics, if only to get some feedback, since that can always be useful. And yeah, tectonics can take a *really* long time if you go deep into the details.


Just posted something, following this advice. 
Again, thanks for the tutorial and push.

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## kacey

Thanks for posting some insight on youre process for doing the elevation this is really useful I think Ill give that a try. I think this project is just amazing I can only dream of ever creating something like this.

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## shadixdarkkon

Charerg, first of all let me say that you are seriously an inspiration.  You and Pixie's maps are exactly the kind of thing I want to create for my world.  However, like I've seen you mention a bit, I too have a terrible case of perfectionism, I need detail and accuracy.  Could I ask how you initially got the shape for your map, and where you got all your information on plate tectonics?  I've been searching but most of what I've found has been relatively simple, beginner stuff. 

For example in one of your most recent updates you had a map of fold belts and small rifts and all sorts of that kind of stuff.  Do you have any good recommendations for someone wanting to learn that level of complexity and detail?

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## Charerg

> Charerg, first of all let me say that you are seriously an inspiration.  You and Pixie's maps are exactly the kind of thing I want to create for my world.  However, like I've seen you mention a bit, I too have a terrible case of perfectionism, I need detail and accuracy.  Could I ask how you initially got the shape for your map, and where you got all your information on plate tectonics?  I've been searching but most of what I've found has been relatively simple, beginner stuff. 
> 
> For example in one of your most recent updates you had a map of fold belts and small rifts and all sorts of that kind of stuff.  Do you have any good recommendations for someone wanting to learn that level of complexity and detail?


Well, the initial map (the one on page 1) was essentially simply drawn painstakingly (with a mouse, no less) over the course of several weeks and several revisions. Although since then the coastlines have changed quite a few times (and will change again in the future). I don't know if there are too many shortcuts when it comes to drawing the coastlines (aside from generating random clouds, I guess).  If you're using PhotoShop, you could try the techniques in this tutorial. I suppose the main advice is to first draw the general shapes roughly and only work out the detailed coastlines later on.

A good starting point is always drawing things out on paper. Of course, the more you plan ahead while sketching your world, the more satisfied you're likely to be with the final result. So try to put some thought into climate and tectonics even when sketching the initial landscape (though I realise this advice can be quite hard to follow unless you're already well versed with those subjects), particularly if you have some pre-conceived ideas of how you want the climate and/or terrain to turn out in some specific regions.

You could also try sketching things out with GPlates in 3D. It's pretty slow since you have to draw everything point-by-point but it can still be potentially useful, especially for the polar areas.

Here are a few examples from an unfinished test project I did recently to try this out (it's basically a world initially sketched on paper and then in GPlates):

Equirectangular:


Polar view:



As for the tectonics and geology, there are several resources. Wikipedia covers a lot of topics (and often has links to academic papers). There's also academia.edu, where you can sign up with a google account and search for academic papers. Christopher Scotese's Atlas of Plate Tectonic Reconstructions is very useful and contains the "12 rules of plate tectonics". I'd also recommend checking Scotese's youtube channel, as well as EarthByte, those have a lot of plate tectonic reconstructions.

It's also a good idea to just create something and post it here for feedback, if only to get some practice. Ultimately creating even semi-accurate tectonics for a fictional world is not an easy task and it does take some practice. If you check out my initial tectonics maps in the opening pages of this thread, you'll note that my initial maps weren't very good.

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## shadixdarkkon

> Well, the initial map (the one on page 1) was essentially simply drawn painstakingly (with a mouse, no less) over the course of several weeks and several revisions. Although since then the coastlines have changed quite a few times (and will change again in the future). I don't know if there are too many shortcuts when it comes to drawing the coastlines (aside from generating random clouds, I guess).  If you're using PhotoShop, you could try the techniques in this tutorial. I suppose the main advice is to first draw the general shapes roughly and only work out the detailed coastlines later on.
> 
> A good starting point is always drawing things out on paper. Of course, the more you plan ahead while sketching your world, the more satisfied you're likely to be with the final result. So try to put some thought into climate and tectonics even when sketching the initial landscape (though I realise this advice can be quite hard to follow unless you're already well versed with those subjects), particularly if you have some pre-conceived ideas of how you want the climate and/or terrain to turn out in some specific regions.
> 
> You could also try sketching things out with GPlates in 3D. It's pretty slow since you have to draw everything point-by-point but it can still be potentially useful, especially for the polar areas.
> 
> Here are a few examples from an unfinished test project I did recently to try this out (it's basically a world initially sketched on paper and then in GPlates):
> 
> Equirectangular:
> ...


My problem (admittedly more mental than anything else) is that I can't even get good starting shapes that I feel good about to start refining.  I feel like everything I try to draw feels wrong.  I'm not sure how to even get something to start with.

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## Charerg

> My problem (admittedly more mental than anything else) is that I can't even get good starting shapes that I feel good about to start refining.  I feel like everything I try to draw feels wrong.  I'm not sure how to even get something to start with.


Just draw out a continent or two on paper and once you're happy, translate them into a digital format, adjusting as necessary. It's probably helpful to narrow down the task at hand: concentrate on one continent at a time, and don't try to get overly detailed to begin with, that really isn't necessary for a first sketch. You're probably overly exaggerating that some shape "feels wrong" if that's how you feel, or maybe you didn't sketch things enough on paper beforehand to have a clear vision about how you want the shape to turn out. Things rarely work out for me either if I just sit down to "draw something" before first creating a paper draft about what the shape/layout should look like. 

Basically, I think you need to be more patient with yourself and get rid of the perception that anything you draw is "automatically wrong", and probably draw a lot more quick sketches before settling on the final shape. Remember that your first creations don't have to look perfect: drawing maps is something that you get gradually better at and develop an "eye for shapes", but you need to keep doing it in order to develop those skills  :Wink: .

Btw, if you haven't done so yet, I'd recommend checking out Tiluchi's Pangarap (and his earlier Ayesha): that should give some ideas about how to get started with a project like this.

Edit:
As a bit of a motivating picture/extremely minor update here's the rather ugly "current state" of my Central Eocidar elevation map: as you can see it doesn't look very good yet (since I've been too lazy to sink a lot of hours into the map so far). Just as a reminder that these things start from humble beginnings: every map looks ugly to begin with.

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## shadixdarkkon

> Just draw out a continent or two on paper and once you're happy, translate them into a digital format, adjusting as necessary. It's probably helpful to narrow down the task at hand: concentrate on one continent at a time, and don't try to get overly detailed to begin with, that really isn't necessary for a first sketch. You're probably overly exaggerating that some shape "feels wrong" if that's how you feel, or maybe you didn't sketch things enough on paper beforehand to have a clear vision about how you want the shape to turn out. Things rarely work out for me either if I just sit down to "draw something" before first creating a paper draft about what the shape/layout should look like. 
> 
> Basically, I think you need to be more patient with yourself and get rid of the perception that anything you draw is "automatically wrong", and probably draw a lot more quick sketches before settling on the final shape. Remember that your first creations don't have to look perfect: drawing maps is something that you get gradually better at and develop an "eye for shapes", but you need to keep doing it in order to develop those skills .
> 
> Btw, if you haven't done so yet, I'd recommend checking out Tiluchi's Pangarap (and his earlier Ayesha): that should give some ideas about how to get started with a project like this.


So another question then (plus I need more posts before I can start my own thread D: ).
How viable would it be to start with a supercontinent and then use GPlates to break it up?  Instead of sort of working backwards?

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## Charerg

> So another question then (plus I need more posts before I can start my own thread D: ).
> How viable would it be to start with a supercontinent and then use GPlates to break it up?  Instead of sort of working backwards?


There actually was one con-world around that attempted just that (here's the thread). As to how viable it is, it depends a lot on what you're aiming for. There's nothing wrong with that approach, but it gives you somewhat less control over what the present day landscape of the world looks like. I haven't attempted that method myself, but I do think it demands a reasonably good understanding of plate tectonics (and in that sense is probably a more difficult starting point for a beginner). Could still be useful especially as a relatively quick learning project, but I'm not sure if it's too viable for the sort of multi-year "endless WIP" projects mysefl and Pixie are doing  :Very Happy: .

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## Pixie

Yeah, I'm with Charerg on this one. Starting from pangaea will avoid a bunch of problems, but you still need to know your tectonics for it. Specially, you need to understand what drives the movement of plates. But go ahead - we're here for you!  :Very Happy: 

Now, if you want to start your thread and still need a 5 posts count, why not look around and write some praise in the finished maps section. Take a little bit of time, find some maps that are catchy to you and just tell their makers what is it that you like about them, or ask about how they made them. Basically, engage.

Once you start your WIP thread, I promise I'll drop by for a hint or two  :Wink:   (and I'm sure I'll get to it after Charerg)

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## shadixdarkkon

Okay, last question, I promise.  :Razz:   So, I pretty well understand *most* of the tectonic processes, but there is one thing that I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around, and I've asked around on Reddit a bit to no avail.  My question is what causes the breakup of supercontinents.  I browsed the stuff from Scotese, but the only thing of substance I saw was that subduction is main driving force for plate movement.  Buuutt when you look at tectonic reconstructions basically none of the plates that include a landmass are being subducted when Pangea breaks apart.  This linkhttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...entered-en.svg shows that even today the the plates that hold the major landmasses are moving even though most of them aren't subducting anywhere.  So is there any information on what made Pangea break up the way it did?

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## Pixie

> Okay, last question, I promise.


If that's your only big question,  then you're up to date with the current science . The mechanics of supercontinent breakup aren't well established yet,  most likely there's a sum of several processes over various places in the continent. To start a con-world I think it's safe to establish initial cratons more or less randomly and then break it anyway you wish. 
Also,  don't forget that there are subduction boundaries that turned into continent-continent collisions.

Sent from my vernee_M5 using Tapatalk

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## Charerg

As Pixie remarked, the "true nature" of tectonic processes remains somewhat elusive, there are many questions yet to be answered. However, *if* a plate is under slab pull, it's basically guaranteed to be dragged into a subduction zone. And that mechanism definitely did play a big role in the formation of Pangaea (and Eurasia). Even in the breakup phase, several movements can be explained through slab pull (Africa [more recent movements], Arabia, India and Australia). But you're correct that it doesn't explain everything.

Like Pixie said, you can make some breakups semi-arbitrary, without any slab pull in play (like the opening of the Atlantic), just keep in mind that if a plate does get subjected to slab pull, that's going to have a major effect on the movement (both direction and speed). I don't know if you've checked my GPlates tut, but I did a semi-accurate table there averaging plate velocities for the past 50 million years, that probably gives a better idea of the relative speeds than just looking at the velocities of present day plates.

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## NadirtheFox

Big thanks for sharing with us your wilbur process Charerg  :Smile:  I personaly haven't had time yet to try it out but I am sure that many people will find it usefull. Oh and I saw that you're working on Central Eocidar now - I can't wait for results  :Very Happy:  One question though: how are you going to handle distortion on a globl map? Are you going to erode high latitude areas in polar projection and then try to connect everything somehow (what I can imagine beeing a tricky task) or you are just not using wilbur for global map?

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## Charerg

> Big thanks for sharing with us your wilbur process Charerg  I personaly haven't had time yet to try it out but I am sure that many people will find it usefull. Oh and I saw that you're working on Central Eocidar now - I can't wait for results  One question though: how are you going to handle distortion on a globl map? Are you going to erode high latitude areas in polar projection and then try to connect everything somehow (what I can imagine beeing a tricky task) or you are just not using wilbur for global map?


I'm basically just creating the height maps for each region separately and then I'm going to blend them all together into the global map. So no, I don't plan to use wilbur for the world map, I'll make the height maps for each area separately, roughly dividing large continents like Eocidar based on the drainage basins.

For example, the map of Akanrias was actually in Equirectangular Oblique projection (just as polar and even mid-latitude areas will be). Whereas the map of C. Eocidar I'm working on (though only sporadically right now) is in standard Equirectangular (and you can see part of Akanrias there, now reprojected back into Equirectangular).

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## Pixie

> I'm basically just creating the height maps for each region separately and then I'm going to blend them all together into the global map. So no, I don't plan to use wilbur for the world map, I'll make the height maps for each area separately, roughly dividing large continents like Eocidar based on the drainage basins.
> 
> For example, the map of Akanrias was actually in Equirectangular Oblique projection (just as polar and even mid-latitude areas will be). Whereas the map of C. Eocidar I'm working on (though only sporadically right now) is in standard Equirectangular (and you can see part of Akanrias there, now reprojected back into Equirectangular).


I have been toying with the idea of using Wilbur to expand the resolution of my heightmap one it's finished. But it seems to me that it would be better to use equal area projections, particularly in higher latitudes.. I haven't yet come to a conclusion about this, specially since it's pretty far away down the line. Thoughts? 

... sent from mobile ...

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## Charerg

> I have been toying with the idea of using Wilbur to expand the resolution of my heightmap one it's finished. But it seems to me that it would be better to use equal area projections, particularly in higher latitudes.. I haven't yet come to a conclusion about this, specially since it's pretty far away down the line. Thoughts? 
> 
> ... sent from mobile ...


Well, equal area projections have their own distortions, so I'm not sure if it makes as much of a difference as one might think. I believe the key is to just split the world map into smaller chunks, then you can either use equirectangular oblique (centered on the area you're working on), or really any other projection that works for you. Because if you try to process the whole world at once it's still not going to produce good results even if you do use an equal area projection, since then the distance and shape will be distorted (which will make it more difficult to work on the map also).

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## Pixie

> Well, equal area projections have their own distortions, so I'm not sure if it makes as much of a difference as one might think. I believe the key is to just split the world map into smaller chunks, then you can either use equirectangular oblique (centered on the area you're working on), or really any other projection that works for you. Because if you try to process the whole world at once it's still not going to produce good results even if you do use an equal area projection, since then the distance and shape will be distorted (which will make it more difficult to work on the map also).


I wasn't thinking about processing the whole map at once, but only making those chunks in equal area projections.. Using an oblique equirectangular is almost the same, I guess, and easier to reproject into the original. I'm glad I asked for your thoughts  cheers! 

... sent from mobile ...

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## Charerg

I thought I'd post another update of sorts.

I'm still not quite finished with the low-res map of C. Eocidar, though it's getting there. Here's the current state:



This hasn't been run through Wilbur yet, so this is all basically hand drawn stuff so far. Also the below sea level areas are exaggerated on purpose since I know those regions will get partially filled, and also the endorheic basins of the interior likely have water levels below sea level like the Caspian Sea (due to the arid climate). Those regions I envision as largely dried up at present day, though formerly they formed a large inland sea connected to the ocean. They have since become isolated due to the eruption of the M'alabar flood basalt (the blob of volcanic mountains), generally dropping sea level (colder climate and big glaciers in the north), as well as the accretion of the C'thuana terranes to the southwestern margin of Eocidar (which resulted in orogenic uplift). I might post something more detailed about the whole process at some point.

I adjusted my process a bit in the sense that I only plan to make two resolutions: the low-res and the high-res. With that in mind, I've aimed towards greater detail even at this low-res stage (saving myself work in the future when the time comes to work on the high-res map), which is one reason this is taking a while. Additionally the Eastern Pan-Eocidarian mountains (the big plateau in the center of the map) have been a bit of a headache. That's one area that I didn't really have clearly sketched out, and I'm still not quite 100% happy with it (though it's getting better compared to my earlier iterations). Aside from that, I'm fairly satisfied how the map is turning out though, and hopefully I'll be able to move on to the high-res version in the not too far future (though I hesitate to make any predictions since that damn plateau seems to be taking lots of scrapped sketches and revisions, though I'm confident I'll "get it right" eventually).


Edit:
As a mini-update I went and dropped the elevations of the aforementioned plateau drastically. Things are immediately starting to look a bit more balanced and plausible, given that this should be a heavily eroded area (though I'll probably re-uplift some regions).

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## davoush

Wow - amazing as always. I can really picture Aduhr as a real place. Do you make the elevation in raster or vector?

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## Charerg

> Wow - amazing as always. I can really picture Aduhr as a real place. Do you make the elevation in raster or vector?


It's a raster.

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## Pixie

Those inner mountainranges still seem too pronounced to me, and that seems more of an issue than their overall altitude, which is fine. But this is me nitpicking, and you know how I can nitpick - fortunately, I can also deal with being ignored, so don't you worry too much.

On your previous work on climate, most of the area in Central Eocidar is desertic, right? Which makes those lakes perfect candidates for huge below sea-level salt pans  :Wink:

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## Charerg

> Those inner mountainranges still seem too pronounced to me, and that seems more of an issue than their overall altitude, which is fine. But this is me nitpicking, and you know how I can nitpick - fortunately, I can also deal with being ignored, so don't you worry too much.
> 
> On your previous work on climate, most of the area in Central Eocidar is desertic, right? Which makes those lakes perfect candidates for huge below sea-level salt pans


That's a good point, and I'll definitely flatten things out further by lifting the elevations around the plateau, especially in the interior, though the eastern flank will probably remain relatively steep. That said, the overall prominence of the mountains is also a part of the working process to a degree: it's a lot easier to create those ancient ranges (with my greyscale technique at least) if you "start out big" and figure out the grain of the mountain ranges, arranging the fold belts in a way that makes sense relative to the direction of stress in the collision. Then you can start adding in erosion and flattening things out. 

Though overall the eastern Pan-Eocidarian mountains are probably going to be relatively tall for their age, something akin to the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (which is notably taller than the Appalachians or the Urals despite similar ages).

And you're spot on about those large lakes (well, they're going to lose ~80% of their area eventually due to evaporation), the western portion of Central Eocidar is bound to be extremely arid. A vast salt desert around those depressions is exactly what I had in mind  :Wink: .

Edit:
Also, I guess I might post my progress, though there's not a lot to show. Still fiddling with that plateau, for the moment it's been uplifted a bit, especially in the central region.

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## Charerg

Once again, time has been slipping by with relatively limited progress on Aduhr. I've been a bit busy with irl stuff, so working on the map has been fairly sporadic activity. That said, now that I have a few weeks off, I've been able to sink more hours into mapping and get some actual progress done.

Still not quite done with the low res of the southern portion of Central Eocidar, but I feel I'm finally getting there. At long last, I managed to wrestle that plateau into shape which I'm fairly happy with. Here's the current state:



I also made some experiments with the older Akanrian highlands visible here, some of which may be partially implemented eventually.

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## Eldresh

I've been really enjoying watching your progress with this map! You put a lot of time and detail into it and it really shows.

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## Charerg

I finally finished the low-res map of (southern) Central Eocidar and scaled up to final resolution. Here are the maps:

Azel elevations:


Char elevations:


Gradual:


I haven't started to modify these beyound the Wilbur stage, so there are still a few left-overs like the river connecting the endorheic basins to the oceans (necessary for Wilbur to work out the river flows correctly), and also basically all the 0-50 m terrain has been filled up by the precipiton erosion (that tends to happen, especially with the low-res maps).

However, there shouldn't be anything too major left to do in the high-res stage, mainly just small adjustments and details. So hopefully I won't spend half a year working on the high-res version  :Razz:  (damn it feels good to finally have that low-res finished, took waaaaaay longer than I initially planned).

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## Eldresh

This is really starting to come together. Yeah its a little rough right now, but that's what the high-res stage is for. What really stands out for me is the way the mountains in the middle wrap around into that curve as they change directions a bit; it can be headache-inducing to get right, but it really looks like it flows naturally.

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## Charerg

Once again, its been a good while since the latest update. With the elevation map, I decided to postpone work with the high res map of Central Eocidar, and instead expanded the area I'm working on to include all of C. Eocidar, since that makes for a more natural boundary in terms of drainage basins. Ive also done some work on updating the tectonics as well as the coastlines of some continents, so Ive been sort of working on three things.

As theres been some interest in a more in-depth look at how to produce the elevation maps, I thought Id post one technique I use that is a relatively quick way of creating a reasonably detailed height map. For this, Im going to work on the large island east of Eocidar that keeps switching its name (at present its called Dealenos).


For this technique, its crucial to have an established scale explaining what each RGB value corresponds to in terms of elevation. In my case, the scale goes in 25 m intervals (though now that Im using Gimp 2.10 I could use a more detailed 16-bit scale, Ive decided to stick to my old 8-bit scale for now).

0 RGB:   -150 m
1 RGB:   -125 m
2 RGB:   -100 m
...
6 RBG:   0 m
...
255 RGB:   6225 m
The basic idea is to generate clouds and then tailor them to represent specific elevations, which are then painted onto the map, starting from low elevation and moving upwards from there. So _Filters->Render->Clouds->Plasma_ (or whatever method of generating random clouds you prefer) and create some clouds.


Next up, desaturate the cloud (_Colours->Desaturate->Desaturate_) and scale them to represent the lowest elevation levels with _Colours-Levels_. Since I want this layer to correspond to elevations between 0 and 150 metres, Ill set up the output to 6 RGB min and 12 RGB max.


Then set the layer mode to _Lighten Only_ and add a black layer mask (making the layer fully transparent). Pick a nice cloud brush or scatter brush (the exact settings and opacity are at your discretion) and start erasing the mask.


Once youre happy you can apply the layer mask and optionally add a Land Mask so you dont end up painting over the ocean (which you probably dont want to do).


Then you can apply the land mask and merge your new layer down. Now might be a good time to check how the map looks like converted into coloured elevation:


From this point onwards, its essentially rinse-and-repeat with progressively higher elevation levels. Remember that you can always re-generate layers as necessary (or modify them individually, if you create an actual layer stack instead of keeping everything merged into one layer, which is an alternative method), as well as manually paint and blur the elevations as necessary. I tend to mix the various techniques pretty freely. If you wanted to quickly create the elevations for a large area, you could work on an entire continent (or even a world) at the same time, and progressively add layer after layer with increasingly higher elevations to quickly create a reasonably good height map while still maintaining a much better level of control than if you were to simply generate some clouds and use those straight up as the de-facto elevation map.

Heres my island after adding the next two layers (150 to 300 and 300 to 450 metres), as well as some manual modifications (blurring things together and so forth).


And after yet another two layers (this time I increased the interval: 450 to 600 and 600 to 900), and of course further blurring and other minor modifications. 


(At about this point I realised I had my eraser tool set to use the hard edge setting  :Surprised: . And here I was wondering why things seemed so jagged and required quite a bit of manual blurring. Whoopsie)

And after the layers 900 to 1200 and 1200 to 1500:


With the base topography more-or-less done I switched into manual modification with just smooth brush for the most part, lowering areas here and there, making the ridges of some mountain ranges sharper, lifting some areas up and so forth. This is what I ended up with (perhaps not quite final, but close).


Hopefully this gave some insight and ideas if youre struggling with creating your own fictional elevation maps. I figure I might as well use this post for something of an update on my progress with Aduhr as well.


So, heres how the low-res map of Central Eocidar looks at present, with the western margins largely done. The red line denotes the northern boundary of the area Im working on, bounded by the northern arm of the Trans-Eocidarian rift as well as the Neyhra Trough (an aulacogen).


As a bit of a sneak peek into the updated tectonic model, heres this region of Eocidar at c. 100 Mya, when Dealenos and the northern landmass of Neraduhr begin to diverge from Eocidar.


Some of the coastlines are still fairly WIP in the above (as I mentioned Im reworking quite a few of them). Heres how the situation looks like around 75 Mya, close to when the ridge between Dealenos and Eocidar becomes extinct.


So, thats it for this update. Theres more to come in the hopefully not-so-far-away future. Feel free to ask any questions/provide feedback and have a mappy February!

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## Charerg

Well, rather more time has passed than I planned for this to take, but I've finally managed to finish the low-res map of Central Eocidar. As mentioned in my previous post, I decided to cover the whole area rather than just the southern half. Central Eocidar in general was a relatively ill-defined area and has been somewhat problematic in the past as well, when it comes to the details of the topography. It took me a long while to come up with something I'm happy with, but now that the layout has finally been ironed out, hopefully doing the high-res map will prove to be less troublesome.

Here's the low-res upscaled in resolution and almost straight out of Wilbur:





As usual, feedback is welcome, and hopefully the next update will come up bit sooner than half a year from now  :Wink: !

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## Charerg

Ok, time for another update (it seems I make these on a roughly biannual schedule). I finished up the elevations for Central Eocidar, here are the results.

Elevations:


And something of an unusual gradient (this is the "Tropical Colours" shipped with GIMP) along with bump mapping, as a bit of a test:


So, after a rather longish process I finally managed to get that portion of the map done. In hindsight, I think skipping the initial low-res stage was probably a mistake, the process really could have benefited from more concepting, in terms of spending less time revisioning the layout in the mid-res stage. Also, I guess I probably spent more time fiddling with all the minor details than I really should have, given that this took me roughly two years, whereas the previous segment (Akanrias) was done in a month! Oh well, it's a much bigger area than Akanrias as well I guess.

Anyway, with Central Eocidar now complete, that's 2/3 of the continent done, only leaving the final segment (Menorias) before the whole continent is finished! Although I might also sculpt the elevations for the polar landmasses before moving on to the climate phase (my plan being to first build the elevations, then the climates, on a continent-by-continent basis). However, before I get started with that, I'll post some extra content about Central Eocidar (tectonic boundaries, average elevations etc.) and I might even make a general tectonic update.

Hope you like the maps and looking forward to any feedback!

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## Ryan Pourchot

Looks amazing Chareg! The last one with the tropical colors us oddly appealing. 
The central part looks like it would be arid.  Due to the mountains on both coasts cutting off the moist air currents from the ocean maybe? 

Good work always. 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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## MrBragg

This is incredible and a huge inspiration! The tropical colors certainly make the highest elevations pop!

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## Charerg

> Looks amazing Chareg! The last one with the tropical colors us oddly appealing. 
> The central part looks like it would be arid.  Due to the mountains on both coasts cutting off the moist air currents from the ocean maybe? 
> 
> Good work always. 
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


I guess the smoother transitions between colours in the "tropical gradient" makes it a bit better looking with a seamless elevation map (reminds me a bit of colour schemes used in real-world topographical maps, like this one). The central and western parts of the continent are indeed bound to be very arid, though especially the central region has a very large drainage shed, resulting in some major river systems and a vast lake in the basin. In the geological past of this world, it is envisioned that the present-day endorheic basins of Central Eocidar were vast internal seas connected to the ocean. After more recent tectonic developments closed the connection with the ocean, the seas have mostly dried away (leaving massive salt deposits behind) and C. Eocidar has become a very arid landscape.

And I guess that's a good step to move on to the map of tectonic and geologic features:


The bright blue (subduction), red (divergence) and green (transform fault) represent the present-day boundaries of the Eocidarian plate and the Umeakar micro-plate. The old aulacogens (Great Akanrian Trough ~140 Mya, Neyhra Trough ~95 Mya) are drawn dark red. The major (recent) flood basalts have also been marked, of these, the Andauban and Aemarike LIP are 100-80 Mya old, whereas the M'tuwi is an active hotspot.

The dark yellow represent recent (50-0 Mya) sutures between the main Eocidarian landmass and major terranes (these collisions, alongside with the eruption of the M'tuwi flood basalt, were responsible for closing the central basins of the continent). Bright yellow marks the Ilanga Fault Blocks, a region with distinctive basin and range topography (formed 160-140 Mya alongside the Great Akanrian Trough).

The orange lines, on the other hand, approximately mark the sutures from the assembly of the ancient supercontinent Panwara, resulting in the Pan-Eocidarian Orogeny (of which the central plateaus and eroded mountain belts are remnants). The assembly of Panwara isn't exactly dated since I haven't built my tectonic model that far back, but I envision it to have occurred perhaps 400-350 Mya.

And I think that is sufficient coverage for one post. I might post something a bit more detailed about some of the tectonic events like the history of the "Eocidarian Cordillera" (as I've dubbed the western mountain belt for obvious reasons), and maybe some short vids/gifs of the tectonic model as I keep updating it. Glad to hear that this has been inspiring some further forays into fantasy tectonics and all that, keep up the good work and thanks for the feedback  :Wink: !

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## MrBragg

> I might post something a bit more detailed about some of the tectonic events like the history of the "Eocidarian Cordillera" (as I've dubbed the western mountain belt for obvious reasons), and maybe some short vids/gifs of the tectonic model as I keep updating it. Glad to hear that this has been inspiring some further forays into fantasy tectonics and all that, keep up the good work and thanks for the feedback !


Definitely do this if you get a chance--would be super interested to see what you've got!

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## Harrg

Grayscale map is my favorite yours map style. Sometime I whant stole it to play with texturing.

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## LowerSpatialDimension

First off, I'm incredibly impressed by these maps; the amount of research, skill,artistry and effort that's going into them is truly inspiring! However, I'm getting hung up on one aspect that's causing me trouble myself, and that's scale. The shape and realism of your mountains are incredible, but to my eye they look like regional (aka small-scale) mountains, such as could be crossed in a day or two of hiking. Given the scale of your world I would guess that these mountains are meant to be much larger, approximating entire mountain ranges like the Rockies or Himalayas. However, at those scales mountain ranges look much different than the ones you've illustrated; they look more like clusters of noise, and individual ridges are impossible to discern. I've uploaded a couple images to demonstrate what I'm seeing:





With that in mind, a few questions:

A - Am I misinterpreting the scale of your map?

B - If not, did you choose to represent your mountains as you did for artistic reasons?

Or,

C - Did you choose to represent them as you did because the tools you're using (Photoshop, Wilbur), don't allow for that level of detail and resolution?

I ask because, as I set out on my own mapmaking journey, I want to make sure that I get the scale of my mountains right before spending many hours fleshing out the height maps. However, I'm also pretty inexperienced with Wilbur so I want to make sure I don't work on a scale that the program can't handle.

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## Charerg

@LowerSpatialDimension:
You are correct with the scale, these are indeed vast continental-scale mountain ranges. I suppose the ridges being a bit pronounced in places is more of a result of the artistic process than anything else (after all, I'm also human, so these aren't 100% realistic of course  :Wink: ). It's also a conscious choice in the sense that I intentionally work at relatively low resolutions, so I'm not necessarily aiming for extreme detail in these global-scale maps (that is better kept for regional maps). 

Though Wilbur does have trouble with high resolution images (it can still handle maybe 4000x2000 pretty comfortably, for example), so if you intend to use Wilbur it's a good idea to keep that in mind (though myself I haven't found it a hindrance).

Edit:
Btw, I calculated the average elevation for C. Eocidar and ended up at about 720 metres, falling about halfway between Asia (915 m) and Africa (580 m).

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## Charerg

> Definitely do this if you get a chance--would be super interested to see what you've got!


Here's a bit of something, a gif of the supercontinent Panwara breaking apart (this covers a period from 160 to 60 Mya). Many of the coastlines for the eastern continents are being revised (and to a degree already have been revised but not quite updated to the tectonic model), so in some places the coastlines are notably "off" here (namely with Anapar, the part between the Ngabre Craton and Akanrias). There are a few other things off, like the location of the EASZ (East Akanrian Shear Zone), which I've changed since creating the elevation map for Akanrias (and the region will eventually undergo a bit of an update).



But the .gif gives shows pretty well how crustal extension along the Akanrias-Eocidar boundary results in the creation of the Great Akanrian Trough and the Ilanga Fault Blocks, as well as the Meiana Block being separated from the mainland and the formation of the Elebrion Fault.

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## Charerg

So, I mentioned I would post something about the geologic history of C. Eocidar's western mountain belts (dubbed the "Eocidarian Cordillera" since they're mostly inspired by the real-world mountains of that name). I actually have a fair bit worked out for how various parts of the mountain range formed, ranging from different terranes docking with Eocidar to subduction of submarine plateaus. But since I keep most notes in my head it's all a bit disorganized, and this post ended up being mostly about the history of the C'thuana terrane, so I guess I'll call this post "part one" on this topic.

With the intro out of the way, let's dive in and take a look at Aduhr 200 Mya:

Needless to say, this is all very WIP still and the further back in time we go, the less detailed things become. But at present the C'thuana terrane is envisioned as originating from the southern margins of Panwara, diverging at about 250 Mya. The main reason for the divergence is the NW movement of Panwara: there is a retreating subduction zone on the southward margin of the continent, and this causes the C'thuana block to break off. Overall, a similar process to what went on with Japan diverging from mainland Asia, or Stikinia from Laurentia for an even better example.

Next up, a few screenshots from the ages 150 and 100 Mya:


At 150 Mya, it can be seen how Panwara begins to break up, and the subduction zone south of the supercontinent has shifted into rapid advance from its former state. This cause a new subduction zone to form at the southern margins of Nomune (the southernmost piece), subducting the now-quite-aged crust of the "C'thuana Sea". At 100 Mya, the mid-oceanic ridge is subducted and the C'thuana Plate itself falls under slab pull, beginning to once again converge with Eocidar.

Finally, here's a look at Eocidar 50 Mya:

Here, the C'thuana terrane is on the verge of colliding with Eocidar, a process that will eventually close off the western interior sea. To the north of the continent, the collision between Urgaleon and Eocidar is proceeding, which will result in the opening of the Trans-Eocidarian Rift, breaking the continent in two (the epeirogenic uplift, normal faulting and flood basalts released as part of this process will close off the eastern interior sea). Besides the C'thuana terrane, there are also two smaller terranes (K'wira and T'kalo) that have been accredited to Eocidar at a later date than C'thuana. As their exact movements remain a bit in flux, I decided not to go in too deep about those just yet (maybe in future if I ever complete the tectonic model for that Indonesia-like region SW of Eocidar).

And with that, I think we can close off "part one". The next part will discuss the northern portions of the cordillera and how they acquired their present-day structure.

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## HandwaviumAdAbsurdum

I came across this project a few days back and I was taken aback. I have never before come across a worldbuilding project which has put this much emphasis on geological plausibility. All the time you've spent refining your plate motion model in gplates has really paid off. Much of your topology looks very convincing, and is testament to the astounding level of research and study you've put into this project. For example, the concave shape of the Eocidarian Cordillera is very reminiscent of the Bolivian Orocline, both in terms of its curvature and its elevation, and I can see how they very well might have shared a similar tectonic evolution. I also have to say that the basin and range topography at the northeastern end of the Great Akanrian Trough is absolutely inspired.

If I have one criticism, however, it would be that your rift systems are maybe a bit too linear. You have these unbroken, gently curving lines, when what one would expect lots of smaller unconnected rift basins following a general axis of extension. In some areas you might even have multiple rift basins running parellel to each other. 

This criticism does not apply to the Great Akanrian Trough which has clearly reached a far more advanced stage of extension. The width of the trough suggests to me that it should be mostly submerged, and may have begun seafloor spreading at its widest portions before becoming inactive. The remainder would have reached a transitional stage with a thin veneer of continental lithosphere. After this one would expect a degree of postrift subsidence of not just the trough itself, but also the flanking horsts. Then we need to take into account 140 million years of sediment being deposited, but even then I still think it would be more reasonable for more of the trough to be submerged. What I have in mind is something along the lines of the Bay of Fundy, at least for the southwestern part of the trough, getting progressively deeper as the trough widens. At northeasterns portion, I'm thinking something more along the lines of the Mozambique Channel or Davis Strait, with oceanic lithosphere overlain by thick sediment. 

Speaking now from more of a geopolitical point of view, this alternative setup would have some interesting implications. Two strategically important locations would emerge: one south of the Ilanga fault blocks where we already see something very reminscent of the Strait of Hormuz. This narrowing of the gulf serves as not only a viable crossing point but also a vital choke point, where shipping going in and out of the gulf can be controlled. A longer gulf would only increase the strategic importance of this choke point. There would also now be a narrow land route between the southwestern end of the gulf and the ocean which would serve as a narrow isthmus connecting Akanrias with the rest of the continent, very much akin to the Isthmus of Suez connecting Africa and Eurasia. To me, at least, this would be a desirable consequence, but if it isn't to you then you could explain the current topography of the region by having this area move over a hotspot and causing uplift that way.

Keep up the good work. I'll be following this project eagerly!

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## Charerg

@ HandwaviumAdAbsurdum:
Making more of the Akanrian Through submerged is something I considered at one point, and even made a sketch of how it would look like. However, I wasn't too happy with the overall look, so I ultimately decided against it (largely on aesthetic grounds admittedly). In geologic terms the trough definitely should be deeper than it is. My main explanation for the abnormally high elevations of the Akanrian Trough (as well as many other cases in C. Eocidar) is that the continent is undergoing active rifting and I envision something like the African Superplume causing major epeirogenic uplift (more or less the "hotspot explanation"). The feedback is still much appreciated, though (and who knows, perhaps I will change my mind at some point)  :Wink: .

The Trans-Eocidarian Rift System turned out to be a pretty big headache for me (especially the central portions), with many revisions. The rift is envisioned to be more "mature" along the western parts, while the eastern part is somewhat less developed, with a major strike-slip component. But I definitely see your point here, the rift system could surely be a bit more complicated in structure. After I've finished the remaining parts of the continent, I'll probably do a bit of touch-up on the previously completed portions (C. Eocidar and Akanrias), so this is something I'll probably revisit in the future.

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## Charerg

As a bit of a status update on the project, I've mostly been working on updating the coastline of Menorias (northern portion of Eocidar), but not quite finished with that. However, I did get sidetracked a bit and ended up working on the long-planned update on Akanrias. There's been some adjustment of the coastlines and elevations, incorporating most of the feedback received on the subcontinent (the Ingilo region is much "flatter" now and in general elevations have been toned down a bit in the older, heavily eroded portions of the subcontinent). I also reworked the Great Akanrian Trough a bit, so a greater portion is now submerged. Another area that received a major update is the East Akanrian Fault Complex (EAFC), which has been realigned and repositioned to match the updated tectonic model. As a part of this update, the eastern fold belts have also been adjusted.

I thought it might be interesting to compare the subcontinent back in 2018 when I first started to work on the greyscale elevation map with the current iteration:
 

I must admit that I shudder a bit to look at the older version of Aduhr, which is probably a good sign (since it means there's been progress  :Very Happy: ). So although the elevation map is a very time consuming project, one can't help but feel a degree of satisfaction when looking at the difference between the two maps (that is, before everyone posts that they actually prefer the old version). Anyway, that's it for this update, comments are welcome as usual, and hopefully I'll have an update on Menorias in the not-too-far-out future.

Edit:
Apparently I drew the EAFC as a dextral (right-lateral) transform fault here (it should actually be _sinistral_ like in the original map of the tectonic features).

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## Charerg

As another status update, I've now finished redoing the coastlines of Menorias (northern portion of Eocidar). I realised I haven't posted the world map in a while, which has undergone some major changes since its previous iteration. So I thought this might be a good time for that:



The southeastern region has been basically compeletely redone (and as can be seen here, the shapes and coastlines are still WIP in those areas). A new micro-continent (Balarr) has also been added with a somewhat uncertain tectonic history. As far as the rest of the map goes, Nemeias is largely finished, apart from some final touch-up in a few places, and I'll probably update the coastlines of the polar continents after the elevations for Menorias are done. Still a lot left to work on, but with most of Eocidar now finished, it doesn't look quite as daunting anymore  :Very Happy: .

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## MrBragg

Wow, those are some big changes!  Did you have to majorly revise your tectonic model to accommodate all that?

The elevation maps for Eocidar, Menorias, and Akanrias look absolutely fantastic--looking forward to seeing the evolution of the other regions  :Smile:

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## Harrg

It is impressive. How will u think work with northen and southen poles?

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## Charerg

> It is impressive. How will u think work with northen and southen poles?


The same way I work on basically everything beyond the 30 N/S latitudes: reproject the area to equirectangular oblique centered on the region I'm working on, then project back to equirectangular once finished. I've found that this method removes most of the projection-induced inaccuracies, while it's easy to project the eq. oblique back to regular equirectangular. For example, here's Menorias projected to eq. oblique (centered on -90 E° and 35 N°), and clipped from the world map:






> Wow, those are some big changes!  Did you have to majorly revise your tectonic model to accommodate all that?
> 
> The elevation maps for Eocidar, Menorias, and Akanrias look absolutely fantastic--looking forward to seeing the evolution of the other regions


I did update the tectonic model a while back, though at that point I already had most of the revisions in mind, so in a sense I didn't have to change the tectonics (since I already built the tectonic model to represent the updated map before redrawing the coastlines). I guess my latest tectonics overview has become quite outdated, and I should probably post an updated one at some point. Though most of the plate movements remain similar, just more refined and with more of the details worked out. I guess the big change is that Anapar, which used to be a continent, has now collided with Nemeias (forming that large horn-shaped peninsula). Instead of Anapar I now have the aforementioned Balarr as a new micro-continent in the SE quadrant of the world map, however Balarr will have a different tectonic origin (and that hasn't really been defined yet). Here's how the tectonic model (so far) looks at 0 Ma (not quite up-to-date when it comes to position of Balarr and the coastline of eastern Nomune):



And as an example of some of the details, here's Nomune at 50 and 20 Ma, respectively. I used to have the minor sea opening between the island of K'yatahi and mainland Akanrias at ca. 300 Ma, but in the updated tectonic model it makes more sense that this is a recent event. The continent of Nomune changes direction from a southern vector to a more southwesterly course at 50 Mya, and as part of this movement, K'yatahi detaches from Akanrias. This is actually something that isn't reflected in the topography yet (since the mountains surrounding the sea would be expected to be taller now that they've been formed much more recently).

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## Charerg

Work on the elevation map for Menorias has now passed the low-res stage. After attempting to skip the low resolution phase with Central Eocidar, I learned the hard way just how much work you can save by spending the time and effort to create a good low resolution map. For me, the problem with working at higher resolutions with my elevation maps has always been that I tend to focus too much on the little details, and then if the "big picture" isn't in a finished state yet and I make some changes, all that work spent on sculpting out the small details gets thrown in the bin...

So having learned from my past misfortunes, I started out working on Menorias at extremely low resolution (300x277). And with that stage now finished, here's the result upscaled to mid-res (600x554) and passed through Wilbur:



Considering that I spent around two years working on C. Eocidar, progress on Menorias has been quite rapid so far. We'll see if I'll be able to keep this up  :Wink: !

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## ThomasR

Those shapes are mesmerizing ! I cannot give insight as it's not really my area of expertise but it is beautiful.

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## Charerg

New year, and here comes a new update on Aduhr. I've finished the mid-res stage for Menorias, leaving only the high-res stage left to do until the subcontinent is finished (and also the whole continent, as this is the last piece). Here's how the map looks like (straight out of Wilbur pretty much):



I think I'll complete the polar continents before moving on to the climates (the original plan being that I would map first the topography, then the climates, on a continent-by-continent basis). Since Eocidar and Urgaleon are essentially part of the same landmass, it makes sense to lump them together for the purposes of working out the climates.

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## Charerg

Time for another of what seems to be bi-annual updates on Aduhr. So, I've finally finished Menorias, completing the continent of Eocidar (hooray!). Here are the maps:

Elevations:


Gradual (with bump map):


Unlike the previous maps, I spent the effort to remove the artifacts produced by Wilbur (essentially doing a lot of manual blurring post-Wilbur). As a result, Menorias has more of a "smooth finish". Previously I decided to leave the artifacts to add a bit of "randomness" to the map, though in hindsight I think I prefer the cleaner look. If you don't know what I'm referring to, here's a great post by Waldronate going over the limitations of Wilbur.

Next up, after adding Menorias to the world map and doing a lot blurring and a bit of touch-up in the already completed regions, I'll start work on the coastlines of the polar landmass (the continent of Urgaleon). I think I'll first sculpt the non-glaciated topography, then add the glaciers in afterwards (although I'll have to take the isostatic depression caused by the massive ice sheets into account there).

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## Harrg

Hooray! I like the results. Is there an opportunity to see the whole map with Menorias and Eoсidar? The map looks clean. 
The creation of subglacial relief is a really interesting thing, especially at polar latitudes, I really want to see your results. Finaly you can always hide them under a white spot - "glacier". Are you planning to make changes to the polar topography due to maximum glacier?

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## Charerg

This is how the world map looks right now:



It displays pretty well how bad the distortion gets once you hit the 60+ latitudes. I recommend upload into Map to Globe (or similar) to get a 3D view  :Wink: . Although I purposefully left the extreme northenmost mountains pretty vague since I knew I'd need to work on them in a different projection than the one I used with Menorias.

@Harrg:
I'll try to take the expansion of the glaciers into account in the topography (lots of lakes). Though I'll probably not go super-deep into detail in the world map (that is better left for regional maps).

EDIT:
The average elevation of the whole continent (Eocidar) turned out as 630 metres, putting it in a similar ballpark to the Americas (North 610, South 560) and Africa (620).

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## Harrg

It looks much cooler on a sphere!
I suspect Urgaleon and Uraduhr will be entirely covered by an ice cap, like Antarctica. And the relief will be strongly pressed in the center of the continent.
The north of Menorias will probably be much more indented by fjords than it is now. Probably the best solution would be to finish the topography in northern Nemeias before crushing the world with an ice age.

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## Charerg

Well, I finished the minor update on the rest of the continent (mostly just blurring out those aforementioned Wilbur-artifacts). I think I'll deal with the polar continents before doing more major revisions (there are a couple of areas that could use some further work).

Anyway, I experimented with another gradient (this time with the saturated colours originally used by Pixie). It turned out looking pretty good, though I still feel my scheme with the greater contrast is more practical while working on the elevations. But the more saturated scheme definitely gives a really nice look, with the colours blending together:

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## Harrg

Damn it looks really cool!

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## Charerg

After a rather long time since the latest update, here's one. I've finished redrawing the coastlines of the polar continents, as well as going into bit more detail with their tectonic history (I might post something more detailed about that at some point). Work on the elevation map has also passed the low-res stage, this is how things look like:



This is the deglaciated geography (still figuring out how I want to implement the glaciers).

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## Harrg

Finaly! I waited ur update so much. It`s look very cool. You keep teasing us parts. can you show how the whole world map looks like now?

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