Tried Fractal Terrains demo and I have some questions
TopherBrennan
Newcomer
I tried out the Fractal Terrains demo, and there are some things I really like about it. For example, it seems to handle actually mapping on a globe well, when the competing products I've looked at mostly don't even try to do this, and when they do do it very poorly. However, as I've tried to follow the tutorial (http://www.fracterra.com/CGTutorial/), I've run into some issues:
* First is the "boxy glitch" issue described here: https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/9104/resolved-ft3-boxy-glitches-on-map-at-180-longitude. It seems that having such glitches on your map has a side-effect of messing up river generation—when I try to generate rivers with the most blatant version of this glitch on the map, no rivers at all seem to appear. I have tried following the instructions for fixing the issue in the linked thread, but have been struggling with completely eradicating the artifacts—even when I can no longer see the artifacts on the map, the remnants of them still seem to act as attractors for rivers, which is quite bad for river generation.
* Making substantial edits to the map can, of course, significantly change what percentage of the map is sea. However, there's no easy way to tell what percentage of the map is sea after making a bunch of edits. Often, I end up with maps that look "wrong" to me in terms of not looking like they match Earth's level of water coverage (even when using an equal-area projection like the Hammer projection). But without a way of actually computing water coverage, my eyes could be playing tricks on me, and I worry about overcorrecting as I try to fix the problem. It's not even clear to me how strictly the program adheres to the "sea percentage" in the world settings—when I cycle through works, some end up looking a bit sparse in terms of the amount of land, though again that could be an illusion.
I get the impression that the demo I'm using may be missing some recent features, so it's possible either or both of these issues are fixed in the full version. Any information that could help me decide whether the program is worth the money would be greatly appreciated.