Imperiana (tectonics onward, advice appreciated)

[Eldresh]

So this is a fantasy map I am working on for an upcoming D&D campaign. I decided to start with tectonics for this map because I felt that it would give me a better ground to build off of and make the world look a bit more realistically designed. Charerg's GPlates tutorial was a big help with this part, and I really recommend checking it out. I started out with a supercontinent breaking apart around 200 Mya and went forward from there, with some of the continents moving off to more distant areas and some of them ending up colliding (I'm aware the collision of the three continents in the center is probably a bit... strange, but after a month or two of playing around with ideas this ended up being the most realistic way I could get the kind of mountains I wanted in the main continent).

200 Mya
image_200.00Ma.png
150 Mya
image_150.00Ma.png
100 Mya
image_100.00Ma.png
50 Mya
image_50.00Ma.png
Present Day
image_1.00Ma.png



The velocity map is a bit of a mess, but I'm really not overly concerned with it, to be honest.

Present Day - velocity
image_1.00Ma (velocity).png

And here I've got my coastlines down (which I might revise a bit in places, I've been considering adding more islands somewhere) and some rough mountain placement.

Present Day - coastlines + mountain layout
Imperiana.png

Please let me know what you think, or if you think something looks a bit too strange and might need to be revised some more. I'll be working on the elevation map once I've got this to a place I'm happy with.

[Charerg]

Very nice start! Have you considered using flowlines to represent expanding ocean floor? If you're looking to create realistic tectonics, making use of flowlines can be extremely helpful.

[Eldresh]

I did use some flowlines to double check my plate movement, but I'm likely not going to depict the ocean as anything other than a flat color on the final map. This is being created for a D&D campaign I have coming up and due to time constraints I'm doing what I can to try and save time working on it.

[Eldresh]

Imperiana (main continent elevation).jpg

Elevation update for the main continent. I'm mostly photoshopping and wilburing real-world height maps together for time's sake, with some manual adjustments here and there. If I had a tablet I'd probably give doing it by hand a shot, but as it stands I'm trying to get the world map for this campaign done sooner rather than later. Probably going to go over the southwest most part of the mountains with wilbur again and tweak it.

[NadirtheFox]

I really like how this map looks like This sharp transition from lowlands to mountains makes them really stand out and I like it for some reason XD I think I just find the idea of one tectonic plate being squeezed between two others kinda cool. And it sorta reminds me of Anatolia
The only "problem" I see is that based on your tectonic model I don't see a reason why the eastern part of these mountains is that high. The plates seemed to be moving rather slowly and I don't think there would be enough forces to uplift them so much :/ Maybe it would make sense to keep the eastern range slightly lower than the western one?
Other than that: keep up the good work

[Eldresh]

Fair enough. I could try toning them down a bit on that side.

EDIT: Lowered the right-hand mountains some, fixed up the islands, and did some tweaking to the southwestern part of the mountains and a few other places. Also got some work done on the smaller continent towards the middle.

Imperiana (in progress).jpg

[Eldresh]

Imperiana (in progress).jpg

I think I'm done with elevation. I modified how I intended to do my polar continents a bit and replaced the bottom right small continent with some islands for the sake of polar distortion not destroying what's left of my sanity. If everything looks good I'm probably gonna move on to working through Azelor's climate tutorial.

EDIT: Fixed some things that were bugging me about the antarctic continent. Think I'm at a point where I'm happy with elevations.

Imperiana (in progress).jpg

[Eldresh]

Got some work done on the first steps of the climate tutorial. Probably going to change that low pressure area over the middle continent in January, and maybe scale back some of the low pressure areas in general. I based the pressure around the polar continents off of what's going on with Antarctica on Earth.

Other area I'm considering changing is the way those bands of high pressure look in the southern hemisphere in July, might break them up a bit more.

Currents
Imperiana.jpg

January - pressure
Imperiana (in progress).jpg

July - pressure
Imperiana (in progress).jpg

[Eldresh]

Refined my air pressure zones a bit and I think I'm happy with them now. Unless anyone spots anything off with them, I'll probably move on to winds.

January
Imperiana - air pressure - January.jpg
July
Imperiana - air pressure - July.jpg

[Eldresh]

So here's what I've got for winds. I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to do with them in a few places, but they're at a point where I'm pretty happy with them.

Winds - January
Imperiana - winds - January.jpg

Winds - July
Imperiana - winds - July.jpg