Concentrating Land Mass Generation in FT3

I'm wondering if there's a way to adjust the generation of land masses to make them more concentrated near the equator? For example, the terrain I'm getting tends to be fairly evenly distributed North-South, and I would prefer if my North and South poles were somewhat more bare, if that makes sense. I make a map, and think, wow that looks great, but then put it on a sphere and go, "oh. that's definitely not what I had in mind." I could easily Photoshop some extra blank canvas on top and bottom, but obviously, that would ruin it in all sorts of other ways. I'd really like if the software could just generate it for me, and if I could have my land masses limited to something like within latitudes 50n-50s, and then anything beyond that I can paint myself. Any ideas?

Comments

  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    Try this:

    1) Make a selection for the area that you want to exclude. Holding down the Shift key allows additional pieces to be added to the current selection. I recommend the Equirectangular projection for this kind of work to make getting polar parts easier.
    2) Use Select>>Feather with a value of about 3 to smooth the transition. The exact amount will depend on the editing resolution, but 3 is a good starting point for common sizes.
    3) Use Tools>>Global Set>>Land Roughness Edit with a value of about 0.2. This value will reduce the overall contribution of the fractal function in the selected areas, making them smoother and lower altitude.
    4) Use Tools>>Global Set>>Land Offset Edit with a value of about -20000. This value will push the selected areas below sea level.
    5) To hunt for interesting worlds, hold down the Shift and the Control keys while you click the next world or previous world buttons. The system will tell you that your edits will be lost, but if you're holding down Shift+Ctrl when you click "yes" on that warning, your edits will remain. If you hold down Alt as well, your selection will stay, too.
  • Hey, that works great, thanks!

    Just to clarify, though, in my case, step 3), Tools >> Global Lower >> Land Roughness with a value of 0.9 worked for me, according to what I perceived your intentions were.
  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    How much you drop land roughness is a matter of personal preference. The closer you bring the roughness to 0 from its initial value of 1, the flatter the terrain will be. I like to keep a bit of the fractal part in there to avoid totally flat things.
  • Thanks Joe ! That was one of my backburner questions I have been meaning to ask.
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