Another Realistic Conworld, in development

[Peter Toth]

Hello Guild,

I'm already working on my next project, a more Earthlike world than Kaunis, my previous project. Like morne, I am attempting to follow Nikolai Lofving Hersfeldt's tutorial on the site Worldbuilding Pasta, which I consider premium quality in terms of realism.

So far I've created a tectonic history consisting of two supercontinent phases on Gplates, although I'm not very satisfied with the results (and therefore I haven't included it here.) For those tectonic experts, could you please let me know if my plate movements and mountain placements are plausible? (If the tectonic history video would help, I can include it upon request.)

I've deliberately created two polar continents, which will host massive ice caps. I'm planning a sea level somewhat lower than that of the current Earth, and at the same time, a somewhat colder pattern of climates.

Here's the world map in equirectangular, before I've drawn detail for the polar continents:



Next, here is the map rotated 140 degrees longitude, 89 degrees latitude; it shows the work I've done on the polar continents, which can be seen in the middle and on the outer edges:



Finally, here is some detail on the first continent, which can be seen on the first map enclosed in a box:



In the next little while, I'll be developing the topography on the remaining continents; afterwards, I'll tackle the world climate in the same fashion that morne has already done so.

Thank you for your interest.

Peter

[Turambar]

Off to a great start! I'm afraid I can't help you much on tectonics questions, but I was curious which program(s) you are using for your continents?

[johnvanvliet]

from the look of the shaded relief image it looks as if you are using a 8 bit height map and NOT the recommended 16 bit height map

[MrBragg]

For the tectonics, I think it would help to indicate the direction of subduction as right now we're kind of left to guess who is going under whom and that makes it hard to figure out what is happening in some places.

[Peter Toth]

Thank you Turambar, johnvanvliet, and MrBragg for the feedback.

1) To create this map, I used Gplates to define the tectonic plates and develop the tectonic history of the world. When I reached a satisfying configuration of continents, I imported the map into Photoshop, where I drew the topography and coastlines. The river networks were all generated in Wilbur but I'll probably end up deleting some rivers that fall into desert zones or rainshadows. I also used GProjector to rotate the coordinate frame in order to work on the polar continents.

2) I'm not sure which height map I'm using. I did, however, use a posterize adjustment layer over the original greyscale altitude map, so I'm wondering if this is what you're referring to. I chose 10 levels from the dropdown menu at first, then changed it to 20 later. Also, I've stroked the contour lines resulting from the adjustment layer, slightly.

3) Thanks MrBragg; I'm planning to clarify the subduction zones in a future update, but for now, convergent boundaries are purple, divergent centres red, and transform boundaries, green. I'll also submit the tectonic history video in a future update.

Again, thanks for your interest.

Peter