Need a push in the right direction

[Gump Rat]

Hello worldbuilders,

I am someone who has been trying to get into worldbuilding as a pastime. Unfortunately, the actual mapping part of it is not my strong suit I am much more comfortable with the smaller points of world building. I was hoping a kind sole could help "fill" the provided map. I put the fill in quotes because I do not need any kind of detail, I just have no clue where any biomes, mountains, or rivers would even go. Pure rudimentary markings are fine in fact I am more than happy to detail the map my own at a later point. For the most part I have no pre-thought on where thing should be or what I would like on it in fact I think it will be fun to world build on a map that I'm not entity planning. The only thing I know I would like is diversity of biomes to play with. I'm not entirely sure where Copyright would fall into this sense I'm asking for a push in the right direction. If it's something you would like to discuss by all means I am all ears.

thank you for looking over my selfish request,
Gump

Also, this is the land masses I drew up for the world map

[waldronate]

It's a nice set of squiggles, which means that they look exactly like a map in isolation. To offer much more beyond really basic encouragement, I'd need to know if this is a map of part of the world or all of the world. If it's all of the world, what map projection is this? How large is the world? I'd guess this is a request of the "I want a world just like Earth but with stuff in different places" type, but it's hard to say for sure. If this a whole-world map for an Earthlike world and the projection is something vaguely rectangularly, there is an awful lot of land and not much ocean.

One question that you haven't answered (beyond vague "worldbuilding") is the purpose of this map. But we'll put that aside for now.

From the request, I'd say that you want a scientifically plausible world. It turns out that plausibility is in the eye of the beholder (and there are several large groups of highly-trained paladin/art-critic multiclasses out hunting them down right now to find it). Some folks would tell you that you need all manner of tectonic simulations and climate simulations and other stuff. I, on the other hand, say that you're probably good enough just drawing lines on the map and calling them "mountains". Then head to your local internet search engine and search for "biomes by latitude" and "rain shadow deserts" to see how that sort of stuff works. If you can remember that water flows downhill, you have all the tools that you need to make a moderately-plausible map.

For an example of an implausible whole-world map, see this:

[johnvanvliet]

i am assuming this is a whole world map but NOT in simple cylindrical projection

i will play with it tonight and see what i come up with

[Tiana]

You just want a push? Okay! Go for it! It'll be good experience, it's fine if you get it 'wrong', make a WIP thread and do a few trial and error runs! You got it! I believe in you!

[johnvanvliet]

so far all i have is a height map
this is a 8 bit copy of the 16 bit image

--- just a quick heightmap , that is remapped to simple cylindrical ---



i still have to make a color texture

and a quick texture that is bump mapped

[TheSeventhCrow]

I assume for the ease of worldbuilding, this world's atmosphere and solar system are fairly similar to Earth's, and will use that as an example. If it isn't feel free to apply this general topic to whatever you have going on in the world.

In order to place biomes, you have to consider the climate (obviously). On Earth, it is generally warmer year around near the equator, but also more humid, meaning that there are more jungle type biomes there. Going a little farther north and south, there are more deserts because it is still normally hot, but drier. (That is due to the wind patters. The air goes up near the equator and down at 30 degrees.) Anyways, you can follow this pattern all the way to the poles, where it is coldest year around. Then of course you have to consider weather patterns and whatnot because those also affect the Earth. This seems like a lot to think about just for a map, which is exactly why I don't do all of this for every map, but I did study the patterns on the Earth, so I am familiar with the concept. Then I can see where it would likely be, and work from there.

For geologic features, I use plate techtonics. Yes, I realize this is nerdy, and shows I am studying a geology related field, but it really does help create more realistic maps. We know when looking at something if it is realistic or not, even if we don't know why, and techtonic plates can be a large reason why. Assign techtonic plates to your map based on what it looks like could be possible (this really doesn't matter, just go for it.) Then decide what direction they are moving. Also can be pretty random for the most part. Then all you have to do is see where two plates hit on land-- boom mountains. All of the different combinations that are used in plate tectonics (where they meet, pull apart, and slide against) paired with the two different types of plates (whether it is two land, two sea, or one each) to determine the type of geologic feature there. It doesn't have to be perfect, but using this can make maps much more realistic.

I hope this was helpful, but let me know if a visual example would be helpful.