Koreth, or Me Being Overly Ambitious

[shadixdarkkon]

So, this is the test map for the style that I'll be using for the map of my planet, Koreth. Koreth is almost identical to earth in terms of size, mass, and day/year length, but is geologically younger and more active, leading to more dramatic plate tectonics. I would love some feedback on both the geography/coastlines/terrain, as well as the overall style and presentation of the map.

For reference, the area pictured is approximately 3500km across, not accounting for distortion from the projection.

[morne]

Looks absolutely amazing. All the topography looks really great. Would love to hear more about your process, especially how you went about doing the ocean topography. Seriously, so impressive. I remember seeing your satellite-style terrains on Reddit. Glad you're still working on the world!

[Michi il Disperso]

Yeah, stunning! I agree on the ocean topography, it looks really realistic

[shadixdarkkon]

Looks absolutely amazing. All the topography looks really great. Would love to hear more about your process, especially how you went about doing the ocean topography. Seriously, so impressive. I remember seeing your satellite-style terrains on Reddit. Glad you're still working on the world!

Thank you! I'm actually a huge fan of your work, I've seen your atlas posts both on here and on Reddit, and have been following your tutorial thread!

As for my process, its very, very slow to be honest. I started on GPlates, building the tectonics and making adjustments over and over until I finally had continents I liked. Then I took a 40k pixel wide bathymetry map from NASA and started cutting and pasting, making adjustments as needed. Once I had enough ocean and most of the main continental crust done, I took a large watermask of earth from the Natural Earth website, and started cutting out pieces of coastline, keeping all of the tectonics in mind as I went. Where mountains should be, volcanoes, plains, glaciation, etc. After all of that I took a 40k pixel heightmap of earth and copy/pasted terrain from that, adjusting for latitude as I went with that as well. That part takes the longest, especially since its where I want the most detail. All of that is done in GIMP.

After all of that, I used a combination of Wilber (thanks waldronate) and Quadspinner GAEA (I have the $99 version) to do some minor river and erosion processes. Plop everything together, do some masking and apply color gradients that I made myself, and this is the final result.

[morne]

Quadspinner GAEA (I have the $99 version) to do some minor river and erosion processes.

Really curious to know what nodes (I presume Erosion) and settings you are using here, I've done some experimenting and while the results aren't horrible, fine details in the terrain tend to get blown away by Gaea's erosion processes. I don't think the program is meant to handle terrain at a continental scale. Also, not sure if you use this, but the rivers function in the Erosion node come out looking not so great.

[shadixdarkkon]

Really curious to know what nodes (I presume Erosion) and settings you are using here, I've done some experimenting and while the results aren't horrible, fine details in the terrain tend to get blown away by Gaea's erosion processes. I don't think the program is meant to handle terrain at a continental scale. Also, not sure if you use this, but the rivers function in the Erosion node come out looking not so great.

I've definitely had the same issues. I use the erosion node and the fluvial node. For the erosion node, click the feature scale drop down and set it to something like 100-500. Also, if you have a mask of areas that are just mountains you can use Microerosion to get some nice, finer details.

I definitely agree about the rivers looking bad though, that's why I use Wilbur for the rivers.

There was this post by santos

[QUOTE=santos;409564]Attachment 119016

that had some really, really good looking terrain at a good scale, but I wasn't able to reproduce it, even copying his nodes exactly.

[morne]

I've definitely had the same issues. I use the erosion node and the fluvial node. For the erosion node, click the feature scale drop down and set it to something like 100-500. Also, if you have a mask of areas that are just mountains you can use Microerosion to get some nice, finer details.

I definitely agree about the rivers looking bad though, that's why I use Wilbur for the rivers.

There was this post by santos

Attachment 119016

that had some really, really good looking terrain at a good scale, but I wasn't able to reproduce it, even copying his nodes exactly.

Yeah, I saw the same thing, I got some results that looked similar, but not as good. I think my biggest problem has been using Erosion wholesale on the entire terrain, sounds like some masking might do me some good. Thanks! I haven't experimented with Microerosion yet.

[Naima]

Looks very good and belieaveable!

[shadixdarkkon]

Looks very good and belieaveable!

Thank you! I've been lurking on here for a while and am a huge fan of your maps, so the compliment means a lot!

[morne]

Looking really, really good! I love the shapes of the continents. Feels very realistic but also quite different from Earth.