Fantasy Maps & Plate Tectonics
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- Опубликовано: 18 мар 2018
- Using plate tectonics to create fantasy maps.
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LINKS:
► TRIPLE JUNCTIONS (PAPER): earthweb.ess.washington.edu/br...
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► PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL: • 1 - Fantasy Map in Pho...
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SPECIAL THANKS TO
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► Daniel Palmer
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Thanks for watching everyone. It means a lot. :)
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As a geology major, a fantasy fan, and a nerd for world building, this is an oddly specific itch being scratched.
Seems like there is a lot of us with the same specific itch 😭
not a geology major, but I love me some plausible world building
I'm a History-Geography teacher-in-training, and today my mentor told me today that I have to teach plate tectonics to the children in a useful and fun way the next month, in order to be evaluated as teacher. And just when I came home... this video was uploaded! It's super handy and super easy to understand! Can I borrow some ideas for teaching the children plate tectonics? Thanks in advance :D
Of course but can I request that you use this video instead. I skimmed over bits that weren't directly relevant to worldbuilding but should be included in an educational setting.
ruclips.net/video/KE3XluGaTSY/видео.html
Of course! There's never enough material, thanks
You look lile a nice guy :D
@ryathoma This is entirely missing the point. Yes, plate tectonics can't be *directly* observed based on the time scales during which it takes place, but we've observed the consequences of plate tectonics *enough* to form strong hypotheses that explain many of the phenomena we see around our world - And in fact, these predictions seem to hold rather well when observing other planets.
There's still so, so much we don't know, of course. You always have to remember that we've seen only a sliver of everything in the universe that can be learned from. I wouldn't discourage actual criticism of plate tectonics, but dismissing it on the basis that you only want to know about things that occur on your timescale throws out most science along with it. You may as well stick to microbiology and bemoan how we can't do any real science on things larger than a thumb. Which is a ridiculous notion.
Plate tectonics is a tentative, but workable and solid model. The idea that the world is static leaves more questions unanswered, and plate tectonics is *already used economically*. Oil companies will find oil these days by noting previously discovered oil reserves, and then look at where they originated and how they moved away from locations that used to neighbor them - Then, they often find oil in those regions, which are now distant and seemingly unrelated, but share their origins with the reserve that was found by humans first.
@Aaron Speedy I wish I could tell you, just for posterity - Alas, I barely remember, and my reconstruction is almost entirely based on reverse engineering my response.
The general claim was some crackpot theory that plate tectonics were bogus, the logic being that no one's ever seen them move. Something tiring and silly like that. The exact details are lost to time, and the irony there is quite a chuckle.
"the more islands the merrier!"
I think I subconsciously remembered that line and followed it way too much in my last map because it ended up with so many coastal islands that it looked as if every continent was surrounded by a swarm of lumpy bees
AND REMEMBER, these islands were visible from a whole planetary map view so I'd say that each of them were about the size of a small central-European country!
I've been chilling out on the coastal islands in my new redesign
Lol you could make Earthsea 2: Electric Boogaloo!
Artifexian: "I don't want to make an earth clone."
Also Artifexian: Immediately creates Hawaii.
7:56 looks very Afro-Eurasia to me...
@@dondeestaCarter There's an island chain on the left, 7:26
the flat version looks like a very large Crimea
It’s litteraly how Hotspots work you get a line of small island. He perhaps could’ve more randomized the sizes but the plates slow down over time so the hotspot is linger in the same spot, creating bigger island as the chain goes on
@Nicholas Abenroth That's how those things from lol. there's not much you can do differently
I love when Artifexian makes explains half a semester of geology in 8 minutes and more interesting.
He covered like 3 or 4 out of 20 chapters in my text book
Protip for making up large island/ continent shapes: get a small bag of rice and pasta shells, shake, pour onto piece of paper and draw round the outline of the mess you just made. Works surprisingly well
will try this
That's actually a really cool idea.
Next-Level: Order a pizza and use the grease stains on the bottom of the box to make continents and coastlines.
Those are good ideas. I recently tried taking snapshots of my cat's food after she'd eaten some of it. The wet food will mound and clump, and she'll eat away at edges and a bit from the middle, giving interesting shapes. Just pull it into Gimp and trace the edges.
There are also a few online island generators that use different coastline algorithms. Here's a good one: ahw.wikidot.com/random-island-generator
Also: watch 3Blue1Brown's video on fractals to get the roughness down
Love how nobody seems to be mentioning the fact that you offered to make a more in-depth tutorial on how to do this.
Frankly speaking, i would love to see that. You always think of things from the ground up in a way that I envy, so i'm sure that despite any length it would be both entertaining and informative.
Anyone else on board with Artifexian making a full in-depth tutorial on this alone?
I would love such video as well.
You're currently my favorite small RUclipsr. High-quality and informative videos are something this site desperately needs.
Not to blow my own horn but ye it does.
I'm not sure I would exactly consider 84k subscribers small, but otherwise I very much agree!
Way too small considering the content quality.
Seriously deserves more subscribers...
But kids nowadays... they prefer Logan Paul!
Anonymous71475 I’m a kid and I watch Artifexian!
With this and the temperature vid, realistic worlds here I come!
Oh, but theres more. Winds patterns, ocean currents, biome...so so much more.
Oh, yes, wind patterns would be really neat.
Also, the concise table of what happens where is quite helpful. I know plate tectonics in principle, but having the effects put together somewhere as a starting point is a useful thing.
Thanks! :)
Artifexian Rain shadow!
Um you need biomes. Mark Rosenfelder's "Planet Construction Kit" goes in it biomes and climate
Artifexian 👀
You could have just said "Gplates is a free program that lets you draw on a sphere," and this would still be a worthwhile video.
(Not saying that the rest of the video isn't good, but that's really useful for anyone who cares about making spherical worlds.)
Seriously, I've been dying for a good 3D planet mapping thing like Gplates for this wierd Science Fantasy universe I've been thinking about. I paused the video as soon as it came up on screen to go check it out.
It's too much work to get it to function though
Dammit, missed a trick :P
Timothy McLean I’d love to find a really good tool like this, only for raster painting on the globe. Blender can do this, but it’s a huge program for the purpose and can get a bit boggy because of that.
Artifexian completely unrelated to the comment but, why do you use Mac?
Sounds good to me, I can't wait till we start doing cultures and civilizations
Might be awhile but we'll get there eventually.
Same :D
I've been writing programs that generate plates and continents like you did here, what interests me next is climate, and how species appear and spread, namely humans (or similar).
And city structures!
The part of worldbuilding that actually matters!
God, I wished I'd heard of Gplates a few years ago, modeling plate tectonics of a spherical world using the 2D maps I'd made on Photoshop was incredibly frustrating, especially when in came to the poles (thinking about the relative velocity of a tectonic plate stretched over the top of the map is hard!)
One thing to note when it comes to the placement of continents is the impact it has on global climate - from what I gather, having landmasses over the poles generally leads to colder average temperatures globally. Assuming you have a European-esque society at a Europe-ish latitude, you probably ought to have a landmass at a pole.
Also, knowing where the oldest portions of continental plates are can also be helpful. One of the main reasons Canada, South Africa and Australia are all so mineral rich is that they have very old portions of continental crust (cratons). If most of the diamonds in a world come from X place, making the crust there ancient makes sense.
Great comment! Will be taking about climate soon.
I like to use a program called Clima-Sim to help with the weather-making of the planet. It's a bit rudimentar, but it allows you to draw your own landmasses and it calculates the weather pattern for you. Don't know how realistic it is, however
www.weathergraphics.com/climasim/
“We’re going for function over form”
*makes beautiful map*
holy shit, you fucking killed me dude!
as that one person who stressed about the plate tectonics of my fantasy world being unrealistic when i was 9, this man is a blessing to me
I'd be down for a GPlates tutorial, and maybe something on how to create Photoshop elevation maps. Really like your channel, by the way, especially now with the great animations, visualizations, and explanations. Keep up the good work :)
Cool! You vote has been cast. Thanks for watching, pal.
me too.
Me too
Me three!
I'd be up for that. Despite being a young whippersnapper, I am so hopeless at nearly every kind of software!
I for one am absolutely in favour of a long word-heavy video, though i might be biased since i'm also subscribed to Isaac Arthur.
His channel is brilliant. Everyone should check it out.
Another Isaac fan, nice.
@@Artifexian You guys should collab one day.
I'd like it if you did in-depth tutorials on the programs (but also more conlang stuff because that's my favourite part of your channel)
Cool! Don't worry I alternate conlanging and worldbuilding so there definitely will be more.
i love how conlanging and worldbuilding go hand in hand and the way you teach others how great stuff like this can be is why your channel is awesome
Please please PLEASE continue with this! Most especially, I'm desperate for a lengthy, in-depth, intimidating video about how to turn a map like this into something with CLIMATES and WEATHER and WIND and CURRENTS. Pretty please? Love your content, so glad you've stuck around for so long, and super happy that Patreon is working for you~
I work at a small research lab, and your podcast introduced me to GPlates, which I’m now using for our models!
Haha! Awesome. What are you researching?
_3 years later_
still no reply to artifaxian
This video could be titled things the DM thinks about and players don’t notice.
Another vote here for a more in-depth look at GPlates (and GProjector). At first glance it looks like there's a lot more to it than just "drawing lines on a sphere", but it looks pretty intimidating for a casual user.
There is. You can use the program to simulate plate motion but it get's pretty darn complicated. Just use it as tool to draw on a sphere and then export that drawing.
I'd love to watch the tutorial!
On a side note, as a geophysicist I found the explanation/descriptions of plate boundaries to be very concise and well explained. Good job!
It's a good thing that the people on the internet were "cool with it" and you did decide to do a complete tutorial series!
For anyone struggling with shapes for landmasses, or caves, or canyons, or mountains, or lakes/islands/oceans - pretty much anything... Go out and start taking pictures of puddles and water stains. I've found in particular that churned mud, time-worn gravel (lots of hidden dips and holes), and rough surfaces like rubber barn flooring, cement slabs or patio tiles are all great about leaving weird, unique shapes. If in lack, simply pour, dribble, splash or hose a bit of water on a floor or wall outside. If you want more crescent-like shapes, wet the underside of a bucket that bulges up (inside) in the center a bit, and let it sit for a while on a textured surface.
If you want change over time, either add more water in the same place or wait for it to evaporate a bit. This can give great erosion or water-/ocean-level variations, and if you use the same spot, you'll often get shapes similar but not exactly the same, because the texture will channel the water down the same paths. If you're REALLY dedicated, you can trail a running/leaking hose around a driveway/parking lot, take pics of the entire length, and stitch them together to create the path of rivers, tunnels, or what have you.
Stains/patterns on walls of pretty much anything, but particularly public bathrooms (marble-like textures), wood panels, etc. There's also clouds; foothills are especially great, but pick any day or direction that there's lots of cumulous (big puffy cottonballs), you're set. If you know someone that splits/cuts wood, ask to poke around in the scraps; chunks, knots, or sometimes bits of the more pithy wood can be great sources for close-ups of some mountains or a valley, and flat sliver/shavings can give silhouettes for mountain peaks or cliffs.
FYI if you have access to a farm of any sort, congrats! That's where I found most of this stuff - and went crazy with pictures on my breaks, to the others' complete and UTTER bafflement, hahaha. Oh yeah, did I neglect to mention everyone will look at you like you're nuts if you start taking pictures of puddles? It was a blast =P
And yes, I have used these. In fact, my worldbuilding partner and I have mostly completed maps for geography, biome-distribution, tectonic plates, wind bands, and seasonal temperature variance based on a map created from a couple really neat-shaped puddles and a bucket-ring water stain. It's great fun, and an enjoyable challenge doing a reverse-engineering build like that - making all the pieces fit, figuring out the how/why of wonky spots, and designing cultural progression based on shapes and connections of landmasses that just don't happen on Earth. We had a few surprises when it came to climates, and were challenged in figuring out how native organisms and technology deal with them. And if you get REALLY stuck... Either use a different puddle, or simply change what's not working.
Try it. It's fun! In fact - if you read this, Artifexian, I offer you a challenge: Take a picture (or multiple) of a puddle/stain, or have someone send you some (I've got tons!), and make a video on reverse-engineering a realistic geography and biome-spread out of it. You don't have to, of course, but good luck - and have fuuuunnnn - if you do =D And if you should decide to go all-out like we did, I'd love to see what you end up with!
I would love a program tutorial, even if it's long
Consider your vote cast.
Artifexian Awesome!
You're one of my favorite worldbuilding channels! I would definitely watch an in-depth video on GPlates.
Cool! Vote. Cast
Honestly you explained it so well that by minute 3 I had forgotten this was about fantasy maps.
It looks like your whole channel specializes in stuff I've frantically been searching for! Great video and I'll be digging in for more.
I love how you make this stuff so simple. I've been struggling with this for probably about a year to be honest, and making very slow progress mostly by fudging things. This is going to be very helpful, I'm sure.
Awesome! I will say boiling down an entire area of research into one >10 min video inevitably will involve over simplifications and omission so I implore you to use this and a starting point for you learning.
Edgar, your videos never cease to amaze me!
I love mapmaking, I've been looking forward to see your video on maps and tectonics; in short this video is perfect!
You do great work, keep it up!
Will do. Thanks for watching, pal.
another thing to note is rainfall dynamics. where water evaporates in mass, where it falls, how far it gets inland before it is blocked, or cannot go further. for example many supercontinents have large central desserts.
I love your work, Edgar, and I've been so unreasonably excited about this video for the longest time. Thanks a bunch, and keep it up!
Finally! I love your mapping videos, and I have learned so much about these topics thanks to you! Much love
Much love coming right back at ya. Glad you enjoyed.
Man I've been trying to find this, only to have realized added this to a playlist that specifically tells me to remember this.
Another thing to note about mountains is that they don't have to be located on the edge of *current* plate boundaries. Mountains take hundreds of millions of years to fully erode, and both the Appalachian mountains in the USA and the Ural mountains in Russia are nowhere near present-day plate boundaries, but in the distant past were on the colliding edge of the supercontinents Pangea and Laurasia, respectively.
The tutorial was very helpful, but honestly my favorite part of the video was your map. It looked fun and inspires me to learn more about map-making.
Congrats, everyone! You just got taught not one, but TWO chapters out of a 100-level college geology textbook!
I absolutely needed this video, thanks Edgar!
I've been looking for software to draw on spheres for a while (even as soon as yesterday), my prayers have been answered!
Be prepared for a bit of a steep learning curve. Gplates is a legit science tool and as such it not really design to do worldbuilding. You gotta fight it a bit. Stick with it.
Artifexian is gplates limited to perfect spheres or can one work with varyingly warped oblong spheres (due to centripetal force)?
I'll likely never use it as it sounds to complicated but I was just curious.
Artifexian
Mmmh.. Guess I'll have to deal with it, good worldbuilding requires lots of work after all!
Artifexian how do you get a picture overlayed onto the sphere
Thank you for uploading this video, I really enjoy how well you explain these concepts and how well-produced your videos are.
So cool! This video hit the sweet spot of being just technical enough to promote more realistic fantasy worlds without being so complex as to be confusing. For sure going to use this next time I build a world.
For the last decade or so, I've been using an icosahedron as an approximate sphere for world building. Gross features are worked out with it unwrapped, refined in 5 facet pentagonal maps, and further refined in the triangular facets. Lets me use 1 program.
That's a great tutorial. Every fantasy world creator needs to watch it. However I have two big complains. First one: It's not Earth crust fragment is broken into fragment but more preciesly our planet lithosphere which consist uppermost mantle (made of ultramafic peridotite) and the crustal part (made of continental/intermediate/oceanic rocks). That's why instead of *"plate"* term you should have used *"lithosphere"* one . For example Eurasian tectonic plate despite of it's name is not enteirly made of continantal (felsic+intermediate) rock material. It also contain oceanic (Atlantic Ocean +Western Mediterreanen Sea+Arctic Ocean) crustal rocks. Of course there are a few plates made of continental rocks but they are small ones and some geologist don't even recognise them as a separate tectonic units. And one small thing: mantle convection currents are not moving tectonic plates but rather gravitional slides.
This was awesome, I learned more about thectonics than in school in just 5 minutes. I could see you making new more detailed maps for hours.
i DESPERATELY needed that gplates program, i had no idea it even existed. bless you, artifexian
Yes please, an in depth tutorial would be great!
Cool. Vote cast.
I would be very much interested in this same kind of video for a torus shaped planet!
Same deal except when you go to draw your plates make sure the left and right sides match up AND the top and bottom.
I've been working on making the world I'm building as realistic as possible, and I think this one single video has just provided a bigger boost to the realism than every other map-building video I've seen combined. This is _insanely_ useful information, and you explained it so simply and so well, with really relevant graphics and examples. Wonderful work, dude. You are _awesome._
Just found the video its great! I have a question is there a way to determine locations of crucial resources like metals and salts?
I waited ages for maps!!!
Thank you!
I know. Im sorry. Who knew constructing and entire fictional universe would be take so long.
Artifexian
Im building my fictional world from years, tbh. And you are even building a whole universe. Hands down for the effort, mate.
This is the exact episode I've been waiting for. I love you, man.
wow i was watching old vids the jump in production value is amazing :) currently fighting world builders disease , but loving how in depth you get :D
*Continental plates are thicc*
You’re a great channel!
Cheers, pal. :)
Artifexian could you please make a video about binary planets
THIS IS THE VIDEO I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR FOR MONTHS!!!! Please make more videos!! I will watch them all
I am currently downloading GPlates. Thank you for telling the Internet about this wonderful way to give realistic interpretations of creator-made worlds.
Awesome! Loved the video. Always wanted a way of making maps spherical haha
By the way, why do you put your 'pangea' in the north hemisphere? Any apparent reason, like personal, is it just because where the most land mass is, it's going to be the place humans or the creatures there consider north?
No reason at all. On another day I might have been in the south.
Artifexian ok, thanks Bro, love your work!
North and south are kinda arbitrary anyway.
I mean, take a planet rotating counter-clockwise, with an axial tilt above 90 degrees.
This can be interpreted as north being 'down', that north and south are swapped logically, or that the entire solar system is treated as being inverted.
(after all, a counter-clockwise rotation with a tilt above 90 degrees is functionally equivalent to a clockwise rotation with less than 90 degree tilt)
It could be interpreted based on the balance of land and water, or just about any number of other factors.
If the magnetic poles are vastly out of line with the geographic ones, even more options present themselves.
But in the end, while having a 'north' and 'south' equivalent broadly makes sense (except perhaps where the magnetic and geographic versions are way out of line, in which case you may end up with these being separate concepts), there's no real reason for either of the two possible interpretations.
You could have a culture declare 'north' equivalent to east, but that's just a swapping of terminology, and the way planets are it doesn't make sense to define outside of either the magnetic poles, or the poles defined by the axis of rotation. If a culture DID do that it would imply having an arbitrary set of direction concepts.
Perhaps you could have a culture that doesn't think in rectilinear terms, leading perhaps to directions spaced around a hexagon, but that's not really that different in practice, even if the terminology that would result would be different. (you'd find that either the north-south or east-west equivalents would likely be an 'inbetween' direction comparable to 'south-east' logically.)
Why cultures would do that I wouldn't know, but the north/south thing being arbitrary wouldn't really change.
You thought me plates better than my Science teacher
THANK YOU! So many world-scale fictional maps just throw oceans, landmasses, volcanos, mountain ranges, and so on around practically at random, with no thought at all as to how things would actually work. The Sword Coast in the Forgotten Realms is a big example, but even maps made by otherwise very good, thoughtful individuals working everything out on their own fall into this trap. This video should be mandatory viewing for anyone looking to create a new world, no matter what the setting.
You just can't imagine how happy this video made me.
Thank you very much,for taking the time,and effort to make this
When you watch a video for worldbuilding help but watch a video version of your science book
Program Tutorials would be helpful!
Cool.
I cannot stress how useful this video was. I didn't use Gplates at the time because I was working off a really old computer but even just taking a plastic ball and drawing shapes and arrows on it was a HUGE help in creating a geographically realistic fantasy world. I find that this form of world building can lead to even more interesting stories mainly because you are forced to imagine how the world is shaped from the very beginning. How people's interact with their environment and eventually each other from across land and oceans is an amazing exercise in world building.
You are an absolute beast at explaining things.
Like, ignoring the worldbuilding aspects of the vid, which are the reason i came in the first place, you still explained like 4 or 5 aspects of plate tectonics that I never managed to understand. You're so good at dissecting the way something works and making it clear for everyone else. And don't even get me started on the conlang series. It's basically why I'm into linguistics.
Seriously, though. This is gold.
that was very informative, though i don't think most fantasy maps are designed to cover a globe. In fact it adds to mystery that parts of the world are yet undiscovered.
Absolutely! But you as the author shouldnt be discovering your world at the same time as the reader. Worldbuild on the globe scale and only show a fraction of your work.
You as the author should not be filling in details of your world blindly, nor should you shackle your narrative to the tyranny of trivial realities.
Are oceanic-continental transform boundaries possible?
Technically possible but very unlikely. If you look at a map of Earth's plates you may notice that continental plates usually have shelves that extend far out into the ocean which make the boundaries oceanic-oceanic. It is possible to have them interspersed along a subduction zone where the plate motion matches up just right, but as stated before, very unlikely
Take a look at the San Andreas Fault. Much of it is either inland or offshore, but there are a couple fairly long stretches where the transform lies along the coastline.
The San Andreas Fault is entirely a continental-continental plate boundary. Though yes, it does cross into the ocean, and it's on the boundaries of the North American (continental) and Pacific (oceanic) Plates, the area where the faultline is is continental crust. There used to be another oceanic plate between the Pacific and the Americas (the Farallon Plate, which only has a few remnants left), which has mostly subducted under the Americas by now, and when the part of North America that is now the current location of the San Andreas Fault crossed over it, the North American Plate essentially dumped some of its land onto the Pacific plate (the plate boundary moves further east over time, and so the North American plate basically leaves land on top of the Pacific Plate). Also, the San Andreas Fault lies east of the Farallon Islands, which were actually a coastal mountain range during the last Ice Age, with the land between them and the current California coastline being a vast plain (San Francisco Bay was also a large valley). You can't say that the faultline is oceanic at any point, because it's still on the continental shelf-it's still continental crust. Therefore, the San Andreas Fault is continental-continental.
By the way, I am very sorry for this long-winded response. I just couldn't help myself.
Jack de Reduvo It's alright
Often times, you won't find a "true" transform boundary; there's always some amount of pushing or pulling along the boundary since it's not a straight line. A continental-oceanic transform boundary will probably push up some mountains on the oceanic side as it slides past, catching on all the rough spots.
I once was lost. but now I am found. Before I watched this video, I had already mapped out a sector of space with 219 star systems in it, with a total of 5403 celestial bodies (including the stars in the systems), and narrowed in on 98 systems with main sequence, single stars to base my fantasy world in. Then I narrowed it down to 43 that had planets with the highest habitability percentage, and finally to 18 with the nearest-to-Earth-like planets in their habitable zones. As of two days ago I decided on one system, and went about fleshing a mock model of the main celestial bodies (minus the moons, terrain maps, asteroids, and comets.) That done, I focused in on my pride and joy, the world that will be built with life. And started thinking about terrain. In the process (while knowing little to nothing about geological thing-a-ma-jiggers) I went on a quest to see how various land masses and features were formed. Got a pretty good understanding of the shifts our planet has gone through, and wanted to be as complete and realistic as possible. I was entirely , if not failing outright at a place to start. I had the Fractal Terrains program, but it lacked the ability to incorporate a way to science up the plates. I had just recently found and downloaded the Gplates program and the accompanying projection one. I opened it up... and.... oh how lost I was. Didn't have any damn clue which way was up, or how even to get at a start. THANK YOU! (And double THANK YOU! for the link to the Gplates Tutorials) I watched this video through once without stopping and I had an "ah-HA!" moment. Then proceeded to re-watch and pause it multiple times, as my brain lacks the ability to keep up with your auctioneer vocals, and whiz-bang graphical talent. Absolutely excellent job. And for a third time, THANK YOU! You have gained yourself a SUBSCRIBER. I look forward to pouring over more of your various hyper-intelligent ramblings. Well played, sir. Well played...
I've needed a software like Gplates for so freaking long! Thank you! And thanks for the refresher on tectonics. I got only so much out of my geography course last semester.
How does one get the initial map from gimp to gplates?
What happens when plates are moving at a 90 degree angle in relation to each other?
I think that would just result in a divergent boundary either way
Divergent
i'll be honest, i wasn't expecting much from a youtube algorithm recommendation, but this is some pretty slick presentation, clear speaking voice, good info, nice job
When Artifexian uploads a new video my day get's 1000% better
I think I would like it .w.
Awesome!
Can you show how to do that photoshop thing in GIMP?
No, I don't use GIMP. Can only show you photoshop and gplates.
Artifexian But like, where did you got the tutorial for photoshop? Maybe GIMP has same options and I can do it too there.
The vast majority of the time, there is a very equivalent function named similarly.
Create a new file in GIMP, make the width twice the height (2:1 aspect ratio).
This next bit will be more tedious, I'm not amazingly skilled with GIMP and I can't find a method of applying guides in a grid as simply as Photoshop.
Image > Guide > New Guide
OR
Image > Guide > New Guide (by Percent)
Then, you're going to have to do some math. Either figure out what percentage of the box is taken up by each row/column (divide 100 by the number of each you want. In Edgar's example that would be 100/12 and 100/6 or 8.3% and 16.6%), or figure that out in pixels (same math, just replace the 100 with actual pixels in your image). Place those guides at each multiple of the number you got, rounded to the nearest percent/pixel. So, copying the example here would give the values for percents of: (Vertical) 8, 17, 25, 33, 42, 50, 58, 67, 75, 83, 92; (horizontal) 17, 33, 50, 67, 83. For pixels that would be Vertical: 167, 333, 500, 667, 833, 1000, 1167, 1333, 1500, 1667, and 1833. Horizontal: 167, 333, 500, 667, and 833.
Then it's just drawing on the box like any other paint program.
I would assume that GPlates just imports the file once you export it from your drawing program (GIMP or PhotoShop)
Also, questions in the reddit.com/r/worldbuilding subreddit would likely get you significantly more experienced help than I am capable of lending. They're nice folk over there, and it's an impressively supportive community!
Tomewyrm Draconus thanks!
It was stunning to see how much work was put into that Video.
Loved it.
as someone who makes custom planet textures for videos, this was very helpful, I now know to add much water, have islands all over the edges of ocean plates, and have canyons not just formed by water
No tutorial, more language! You also get a heart❤
Cool! Vote cast, let's see what greater Artifexia thinks.
Artifexian
He answered😍 Your videos make my days!
Actually, I personally groan a little every time I see that the video you uploaded this month was about language. It's interesting and all, but Im here for the science.
Your tutorials are the most anticipated videos, and the realization that it'll be another month before the next hurts a bit.
I like both and I'm really into language but I like the idea of a tutorial.
Eric xD
flat earth joke
kek
(VERY informational bideo, quick enough to watch on the bathroom, informative enough to allow for hours of directed imaginative creation)
Awesome!
(lil bias, i was actually in a struggle to create the physical part of my story-thing-y, well, now i have the star system and the planet very well directed, 4 more months of procrastination and i'll be all dandy and worldbuilt)
I love you, I love this video, I'm gonna cry at how specifically useful this is to me at this moment in my life. This is 100 times better than my original plan for my map making.
Please, go ahead with it! I found by chance this video and is kinda alluring - the making of a world consistent with tectonics and stuff! Very interesting!
Whence did the awesome beard go?
Not feeling the beard at the moment. It'll probably make a comeback in the future.
I have got some almost scientific problem with this.
Almost all habitable, almost all water covered, good atmosphere world can create through evolution an homo sapiens or other intelligent aliens, but could they support civilization?
CGP did a video on this, on why some civilizations advanced faster than others, for example european>meso american civs. It mostly depends on geography: the perfect spot is covered by water and stretches east-west, in order to have a diverse fauna to addomesticate. The mediterranean and roman empire's land has been incredible for this: water on all sides, defendable positions over the mountains-deserts-rivers, a vast sea for fast travel, trade and communications...
Making a big pangea makes the inlands arid and the water scarse, although present.
Also, this is the strategy gamer in me, but wouldnt it be boring to have your whole history all based on one giant continent where all the wars, conflicts, and countries are? WW2 is fascinating because it is fought on many teathers, making it so diverse. If we all lived on a big pangea, history would resemble chinese history, where a single giant country has all the spotlight and nothing different happens (country has civil war>peace reinstablished>country has civil war>peace...)
Definitely up for a more in-depth version of this kind of video. It's been on my mind recently, so this'd be a great place to get that information!
Wow, I haven't been in your channel for a while. I enjoyed your older hand-drawn videos, but this is completely new quality. Really awesome channel.
A tool I use when doing islands and hotspots is to impose a cloud layer over my tectonic plates and gradient map it to be as generous or conservative as I like and then dot in volcanoes and islands where I see hotspots placed by the clouds - good trick to easily drop down a bunch of islands quickly
Yours is one of my favorite yt channels, certainly the best I know for world building. I'd probably watch an unedited livestream of you derping around with that world building problem so yeah, you've piqued my interest.
I never thought my education in GIS and fantasy map making would collide together. This brings me so much joy.
YES. Yes, I am interested in such a tutorial. That sounds AMAZING.
As a beginning geology student, seeing this taken into consideration when it comes to fantasy worlds makes me incredibly happy
Thanks a lot for this series!
I also like the LCARS style headers in the video.
The quality of the videos is getting better and better!
This came at just the right time. I've been trying to work out how to make a map using plate tectonics as a basis. This gives me everything I need. Thanks.
Awesome sauce. Glad you enjoyed.
It's good having you back Edgar :)
A note on islands: some amateur map-makers often throw in way too many islands as opposed to too few. Make sure that you keep the number of your islands believable, and make them believable by their position on a map. Hotspots will have fewer islands in the same area than plate boundaries!
This one video taught me more about plate tectonics than a full year of Earth Systems in 9th grade did.
You'd be surprised how hard it was to find something like this, been looking for awhile. Watching more after work.
This is by far the best world building video I've yet seen on YT. As an arrogant SOB who mostly assumes he's got this stuff down, I watch most and go, "Yeah, yeah". I already plot latitude and longitude onto my maps and create climate charts based on such as well as elevation and continentality. Here I actually learned.
This was very helpful! Thanks for making this vid. I would like to see that in-depth discussion you mention at the end. It might be of use to many folks.
I like the depth you went into. I will be watching more of your videos.
That tutorial on gplates would be very appreciated. I’m working on a map and didn’t even know gplates existed. Now I have to go and see if what I have so far looks good in 3d. Thank you for this!
Hey Artifexian, just dropped by to say that your tutorial on Photoshop would be very helpful and useful. I think it has been established that you're an awesone teacher and your lesson would be a gem. Thank you very much