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Alright, so I'm working on making the general outline of the world. Got the circle thingies, easy. But what comes next?
For me, I then drew using a protractor a circle on a sheet of paper. Using a pencil, I drew on a large single continent, a pangea (or however that's spelt). Then I used the mighty scissors and cut it out. This shape, which looked oddly like a giant Casper, is my starting base. This shape is the entirety of the land on my world, with only the remote possibility of some volcanic hawaii-like islands which weren't a part of the original pangea (nor a part of my current plan).
Right, so I take this single piece of paper, and I cut it up into, say, thirteen individual plates. From what I've looked up, I've noticed that Earth only has seven (NA, SA, EU/As, Af, Ind, Ant, Aus). This means that Zind is going to probably be a bit more mountainous than Earth (I think). I then outlined these plates with a sharpie, slapped them on my scanner, and scanned them into the computer. I had to redo the outline of each of them in paintshop pro in order to get vectors that I can turn and move easily. These scanned plates I transfer over to my world file, and there we go, cut-up pangea in a globe.
Now comes the tricky part (not the difficult part, that comes later), spinning and moving the plates in a way that isn't absolutely ridiculous. I probably failed at this, but seeing as both India and Australia was once part of South Africa, I figure that extremes can exist. One thing I kept in mind was that my world only spins in one direction, so most of the plates were rotated in the same direction, though not all to the same degree. Why'd I do this? Dunno, just felt right and seemed to make sense to me, an individual with 0 ranks in knowledge(geography).
So I've got my plates set up. A couple of them just look wrong, and I figure I'd break them up into small islands that drag across the distance between where it ended up, and where it's partner plate ended up. Seemed to work out well and produced essentually three major island chains. I figure that's how I want them layed out for good, so I merge the various vector/layers into one vector/layer.
Ok, so at the moment I got two layers. The background layer with the big blue circles (R45, G172, B253 gives a nice blue). And the first layer with all the lines, some of which cross each other. I copy this second layer, and line it up perfectly on a new layer. I call this layer "Outline". Returning to my main layer, using the magic wand, I select everything but the land masses, and then invert my selection. I then fill it white, killing all the working lines on this layer. Thankfully, my Outline layer preserves the lines for me. This is important.
Now, wherever lines overlap, I use the spraypaint tool to spray some brown. The whole regions where lines are overlapping is mountains. These are the areas where plates have smashed into one another, sending land high into the sky. When I did this, I noticed an area where three plates overlapped, with a fourth one not too too far away. That tells me that it's gonna be an area with lots of volcanic activity. Meaning probably few civs, if any. I make the Outline layer invisible since I don't think I need it anymore.
On a new layer, I put in the equator and the tropics. I appropriately label this layer "Equator/Tropics". With this, I know generally what areas are warm and generally where the frozen wastes of Zind will be. This much I know.
Unfortunately, now comes the difficult part. For the rest of the world, I have to decide which areas are plains, which are forests, which are swamps, which are jungle, and which are deserts. I know mountains in hot climates tend to have jungles on one side, and deserts on the other, based on how clouds being forced over said mountains are forced to lose their moisture, feeding one side while starving the other of water. But I don't know which side of the mountain is supposed to be which. As for the forests and swamps, the later is in temparate zones with high water, and the former in temparate zones with regular water. But how do I know where high water and low water are? And how do the plains fit into all this? I know here in Canada, on the west side of the Rockies we have a very mighty forest, and the large portion on the east are the plains (aka prairies), until we get far enough from the mountains for the clouds to be able to build up considerably. But then I also recall that the prairies are mostly sediment from the decayed ancient mountains that once formed Ontario & Quebec, and I have no idea how to work that into my world creation either.
Hmmm...
If anyone has a knowledge of formation geography, help would be appreciated. I've uploaded the image as it is now to http://rintaran.klap...s/ZindRough.jpg . Comments are of course welcome.
For me, I then drew using a protractor a circle on a sheet of paper. Using a pencil, I drew on a large single continent, a pangea (or however that's spelt). Then I used the mighty scissors and cut it out. This shape, which looked oddly like a giant Casper, is my starting base. This shape is the entirety of the land on my world, with only the remote possibility of some volcanic hawaii-like islands which weren't a part of the original pangea (nor a part of my current plan).
Right, so I take this single piece of paper, and I cut it up into, say, thirteen individual plates. From what I've looked up, I've noticed that Earth only has seven (NA, SA, EU/As, Af, Ind, Ant, Aus). This means that Zind is going to probably be a bit more mountainous than Earth (I think). I then outlined these plates with a sharpie, slapped them on my scanner, and scanned them into the computer. I had to redo the outline of each of them in paintshop pro in order to get vectors that I can turn and move easily. These scanned plates I transfer over to my world file, and there we go, cut-up pangea in a globe.
Now comes the tricky part (not the difficult part, that comes later), spinning and moving the plates in a way that isn't absolutely ridiculous. I probably failed at this, but seeing as both India and Australia was once part of South Africa, I figure that extremes can exist. One thing I kept in mind was that my world only spins in one direction, so most of the plates were rotated in the same direction, though not all to the same degree. Why'd I do this? Dunno, just felt right and seemed to make sense to me, an individual with 0 ranks in knowledge(geography).
So I've got my plates set up. A couple of them just look wrong, and I figure I'd break them up into small islands that drag across the distance between where it ended up, and where it's partner plate ended up. Seemed to work out well and produced essentually three major island chains. I figure that's how I want them layed out for good, so I merge the various vector/layers into one vector/layer.
Ok, so at the moment I got two layers. The background layer with the big blue circles (R45, G172, B253 gives a nice blue). And the first layer with all the lines, some of which cross each other. I copy this second layer, and line it up perfectly on a new layer. I call this layer "Outline". Returning to my main layer, using the magic wand, I select everything but the land masses, and then invert my selection. I then fill it white, killing all the working lines on this layer. Thankfully, my Outline layer preserves the lines for me. This is important.
Now, wherever lines overlap, I use the spraypaint tool to spray some brown. The whole regions where lines are overlapping is mountains. These are the areas where plates have smashed into one another, sending land high into the sky. When I did this, I noticed an area where three plates overlapped, with a fourth one not too too far away. That tells me that it's gonna be an area with lots of volcanic activity. Meaning probably few civs, if any. I make the Outline layer invisible since I don't think I need it anymore.
On a new layer, I put in the equator and the tropics. I appropriately label this layer "Equator/Tropics". With this, I know generally what areas are warm and generally where the frozen wastes of Zind will be. This much I know.
Unfortunately, now comes the difficult part. For the rest of the world, I have to decide which areas are plains, which are forests, which are swamps, which are jungle, and which are deserts. I know mountains in hot climates tend to have jungles on one side, and deserts on the other, based on how clouds being forced over said mountains are forced to lose their moisture, feeding one side while starving the other of water. But I don't know which side of the mountain is supposed to be which. As for the forests and swamps, the later is in temparate zones with high water, and the former in temparate zones with regular water. But how do I know where high water and low water are? And how do the plains fit into all this? I know here in Canada, on the west side of the Rockies we have a very mighty forest, and the large portion on the east are the plains (aka prairies), until we get far enough from the mountains for the clouds to be able to build up considerably. But then I also recall that the prairies are mostly sediment from the decayed ancient mountains that once formed Ontario & Quebec, and I have no idea how to work that into my world creation either.
Hmmm...
If anyone has a knowledge of formation geography, help would be appreciated. I've uploaded the image as it is now to http://rintaran.klap...s/ZindRough.jpg . Comments are of course welcome.
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