14:00 instructions for GIMP users: 1: Add new layer. In the window “create new layer” make sure for Layer Fill type the transparency option is selected. And just make sure the layer that is your image is at the very top. You should have your image (in this case outlines of the plates with transparent background) be at the very top, and have the image of your planet with the arrows and other stuff at the very bottom. This way, you can draw under the plate outlines but still see where your continents and other stuff is if you need it. 2: Choose whatever color you want in the “Change foreground window”. Then, click the “edit” button at the very top and then click “Fill with FG Color”. That should be the color you just chose. 3: Go to the layers window and select the layer you just created. Right click on that and click on “Add layer mask”. On the “Add layer mask” window click White (full opacity) option. 4: In the Layers window, there will be two thumbnails/squares, click on the right one. Then in the “Change foreground color” window, choose the darkest black. Click the bucket fill tool and just fill the entire layer with it. The layer should now be transparent and you should be able to see your base image layer. 5: Now you just choose the whitest color and select any tool you want for when you are ready to color. You will need the white whenever you want to color. And make sure in the Layers window, in any of the layers you use for coloring, the second square is selected. It will be black. 6: If you need other colors, duplicate one of the layers you are using for coloring and repeat step 2. For step 2, remember, the foreground color is displayed in the left square of the layers window. It should be selected when filling with FG color. 7: That should be it. Keep your coloring layers in order. For example, if the highest point on your planet has the yellow color selected, keep that layer with the color yellow right below your transparent plates layer. And when you’re done, just delete the layer with arrows and other symbols and export the image.
Sorry to bother you but how do you get the separate layers (Continents being separate layers to arrows etc). When i import it to GIMP it is all one layer.
Isaac Petherbridge I added a new layer with full transparency, then I just traced over the plates. It's just using the screenshot method Artifexian showed.
so I am using GIMP, and when I export my map from GPlates and open it in GIMP, it all comes out as one single layer. do I just have to deal with this, or is there a way to get all my feature layers to show up?
@@twi3031 I know this is an old comment, But what you can do is export 2 different images from Gplates, One with you Plates/Arrows and One with the Landmasses. You can do this by disabling the view of those layers in Gplates before you export it. Now just open the two different images in GIMP as separate layers
I LOVED the tutorial! If there are any more things that you feel like you need to explain further, don’t be afraid to make a tutorial for it. It really helps.
As it seems like all you are using GPlates for is drawing in 3d, you can basically get the same effects straight in Photoshop by creating a 3D sphere mesh and then drawing on it. Then you can easily switch between looking at it in 3d and looking at it in 2d without ever changing the program. Just wasn't sure if you were aware of that functionality.
Thank TH-cam for not notifying me that anyone commented on this till now. Use 3D->Create Shape From Layer->Sphere. To see the 2D representation then look at your Layer and right below it, it should say Textures>Diffuse>Layer Name. If you double click on that layer name it'll open up the 2D version. I'm using CS5, but hopefully this is the same in other version.
@@kitty.miracle Make sure that Photoshop is set to actually allow you to access your RAM (Edit->Preferences->Performance). Otherwise the only other option is to get more RAM (I've got 32gb).
These kinds of tutorials are a nice change from the usual videos. Technically all of your wor(l)dbuilding videos are tutorials, so I didn't see a huge difference. What I am saying is that if it's at all possible, I wouldn't mind more of these kinds of videos from time to time. :)
Artifexian I was recommended your video via youtube itself, and I have been looking for your channel for years and didn't even know it. I have been building a small world for a table top game for a long time, i fear sometimes it'll never see the light of day. And i feel like I owe it to this world to really flesh it out even if my players never see it. You have answered so many of my questions already and i thank you from the bottom of my heart for producing all that you have and yet to do.
So... After JUST watching your previous video on this subject, I was overjoyed to find that you had made the tutorial that you had said you would if enough people responded to it (to which I thank your multitude of viewers. Awesome is the only word I can use to describe it right now. I use GIMP instead of Photoshop, but I have been taking tutorials for Photoshop and translating them into Gimp-usable resources for as long as I have been using graphics programs, so no worries there. THANK YOU! (I hope you don't get sick of me saying that, because it will probably happen a lot as I watch more of your flabbergasting and awe-inspiring videos) You have a very concise methodology to your light-speed jargon that I find motivational, inspiring, and very progressive. You are an artist as well as a teacher, and I am humbled by your knowledge on various subjects. We all started small once, but it is the dream of the possibilities that keeps us growing into what we should/want to be. Keep up the great work. Cheers.
This may be late, but I am curious as to how you go about doing multiple plates when in gplates. You skipped that part in the main video (understandably) but for your tutorial video, you only had to outline one plate. My question specifically is: do I just treat each plate as something separate and try to get the edges on top of each other the best I can or is there a way to connect the plates so the edges do not overlap each other?
For future references and people who may have the same question: The way I do it (I know, not specifically what you asked) is to draw the relatively close to each other, but not let them overlap. This way there will always be a small slit. You may think now that's bad, but it's actually not problematic at all, as those tectonic plates you've drawn are just references for yourself (and physically it is also ok, if you just say that those are the trenches of converging plates or in general the activity (e.g. spreading ridges, island arcs or volcanic arcs). For more information about tectonics I used this website with very easy to understand illustrations: www.geology.com/plate-tectonics.shtml
@@Alasius I am fairly sure that M. Polo's problem issue is that if he starts to draw a plate somewhere else, like on the other side of the globe, a thick, long white line will follow from wherever he put down the last dot (I.E. on the other side of the globe). That is my problem anyway. How do I go about preventing this, please?
This is an old comment but I figured I’d let people know this for future reference: to do what you are asking, you first create the line geometry, without duplicating edges of neighboring plates, for the whole plate network. You then use the GPlates included Topology tools to construct closed plate polygons from segments of the various polyline geometry by selecting each edge in sequence and assigning it to a plate until it is closed. Check out section 5.1 of the tutorials on the GPlates website’s tutorials section, at Earthbyte.
These videos are relatively old, but SO HELPFUL!! This revolutionized my worldbuilding process. I haven't gone through all these steps yet, but I'm really excited to see where this takes me. Building on tectonic plates already has my outlines looking more realistic. Thank you, from the distant future. :3
Artifexian, well, if you figure the locations with the most evaporation and the global wind patterns, then working out where the water gets pushed to shouldn't be a problem. Figuring out how much of the water gets how far might be another story, but your elevation map should help there. Temperature works in a similar way, where heat is carried by the wind/ocean currents, though the more important factor is latitude and the global heating effect from the mere existence of the atmosphere.
Thank you for this tutorial! I'm going to be using it when I start work on my own fictional world in a few weeks. Having a map will save me a *lot* of time with the writing and lore.
if you have these programs and don't know how to use them but don't want to watch a 5 hour tutorial on how to do simple stuff, then I would say that this video is great for that simple, easy, everything explained - wonderful
Thanks for the reply! I'll check out some tutorials for Gimp before attempting this myself- thank you for your reply and your quality content! Keep up the fantastic work :)
Edgar, GIMP has similar capabilities, but the UI works a bit _screwy_ if you're used to Photoshop. Generally speaking unless you're a complete newbie to GIMP, a Photoshop tutorial can be followed by a GIMP user with some additional effort.
If you by chance are using gimp, and find the guide tool confusing, and tried using the grid with the aspect ratio Artifexian is using, but it's off... set the height and width to 84, It'll give you a 12x6 grid without any awkward "half" squares.
This was great. Thanks for this addition to the already amazing predecessor. Just helps ironing out some of the kinks from only watching the flying-overview vid.
Those last two videos are wonderful. I was trying to make a method like this for my self but I am too lazy. But this is incredible close to what I wanted. So let me give you the highlights of what I put together, maybe is good enough to add to your method in a later revision or maybe for the people interested in this kind of things. My goal was to make a process to make "geographical correct" and beliveble world from scratch. 1. Start with fewer tectonic plates. Three or four are enough. Decide the movement of said plates. 2. Make a pangea like continent. Just like the one you make here. It should be almost an entire plate. The ideal scenario is to make that the bigest individual plate the continental plate but at the same time the rest of the plates (the oceanic ones) combined should be bigger so you could end up with one very big continet and one gigantic ocean sorrounding it. 3. Move your tectonic plates in the direction that you had decided in the first step like 5 or 10 cm. When two plates separte them self enough, they will break on two separated plates. The same with the "transform boundaries" (when two plates not necessarily collide together but they "grind" because they move in oposite directions from the top view). Colliding plates will create mountains or new continents/islands depending if they are continental or oceanic correspondiently. 4. Repeat all the above a couple of times until you have like 10 plates and you are satisfied with your oceans and continents. 5. Ice ages: They are important geograficly because they change the landcape and the water level globally. A warm planet will have more water, thus the water level will be higher. The same planet in an ice age will have more land. Also, te parts of the planet that will be under ice will form fiords, mainly on the north and south poles. Think in the norwegian and chilenial fiords. So dont make fiord-like borders your Ecuador. 6. Rivers: They start on high terrain where presipitations are high or from the snow/ice melting from mountains or glaciars and they literaly slide to the ocean following the lower land. So, track the current of your rivers because is important. Small rivers converge in bigger ones. Take a look at the Missipi, the Nile, del Plata, the Yellow or the Amazon and you will see. 7. Lakes: rivers will follow the lower land and water will fill the basins, overflow them and keep going to the ocean in the same direction making a lake. Is not uncomon that various rivers converge in the same basin because, well the basins are the lower ground. 8. Rivers and lakes will leave their impront in the landcape. Think in the Grand Canyon. 9. After this, place the climate. I know is long but this can help you to trace a whole lot of things like migrations, animal species, lost civilization, even religious belives and mitologies to explain what happened to the earth. Hope this help someone.
Unfortunately I don't. And it happens for me, as well. I can only redirect you to the discussion under the top comment. Xeno Shvetsario's idea seems good. Edit: deleted some nonsense I had written
I watch these things for wb ideas and try to receate/adapt what I want into html/JavaScript so can learn a little programming and also copy and paste my code to blogger
Nice workflow. I like manual processes more than automated ones for the most part; it doesn't seem like much of a hobby if everything is computer generated anyway
I'm 100% with you. I tend to shy away from procedurally generators as much as possible. They're a great help if inspiration is lacking but I'd rather the shapes came from me.
I'm actually really pleased with my first attempt. Just by drawing lines and leaving it up to chance it's amazing how well you can avoid replica Earths. Although my plan was to start with a supercontinent and simulate the plate movement tearing them apart, smashing them together, forming rifts and mountain ranges etc, by the time I'd had a look at my plates, I ended up inadvertently creating a 2 major continent kinda thin. Like Gondwana and Laurasia, only even further apart. One continent looks like a really deformed Ireland, and the other looks like nothing in particular, but I'd say approximates a chunky deformed horeshoe.... kinda. Total plate numbers: "Deformed Ireland" - 5 continental plates. 3 small in the North, with a "Deformed Ulster" plate covering the north pole. 2 larger plates in the south. "Deformed Horseshoe" - 4 medium sized continental plates - 3 of them forming a sea front in the Antarctic circle at about 75 degrees south. 5 Oceanic plates, the smallest about the size of the largest continental plates, and the other 4 progressively larger. 4 minor plates (think Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Scotia). I haven't yet determined which way all the plates are moving yet so I don't know what's converging, diverging etc, but these are basically plates that likely formed when 2 plates were diverging as another tried wedging between them, and since they didn't tesselate perfectly, and area of thin crust was created. Theyd be the first to subduct into the mantle if converged upon, and I'm thinking they'd be good for volcanic activity, islands, etc. So 18 plates in total. That sounds about right. Still not familiarised with Gplates, so I did a lot of tidying up in GIMP and re-importing, but that means I can link to an imgur upload of my creation if you want to load it up and check it out in various projections. imgur.com/a/ieApJSv
This video is just amazing. I know it may not be a big deal, but i really appreciate that you take the time to say the commands you are using. Its really useful and i did really enjoyed all of the video, definitely. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this. :-)
Quick suggestion - i havent watched the video yet but you might want to work with negative space when drawing the plates initially. start with a black canvas and cut out holes in it till you got nice plate borders
When exporting as an SVG to GIMP from GPlates, is it possible to preserve the layers and/or disable the gridlines? I find myself having to select them by color, and then manually tracing the continents to be able to paint-bucket them for an initial land/ocean map.
When mapping the continents with GPlates with the Digitised Polygon Tool, would you create new features for every continent, or just one continuous line?
I'm having an issue with painting in the layers? i have every layer set and masked in black but i don't know how to paint in the layers, it'd be absolutely great if you knew how to help, i'm on windows by the way.
1:03 what's the equivalent of guide layouts in paintDotNet? Edit: I used another layer and a grid maker plugin. Adjust the size until you have the 6 by 12 grid mentioned
I heard somewhere that plate tectonics are actually pretty rare, astrologically speaking, but pretty essential to form habitable planets. Nevertheless I think it would be interesting to try to base a fantasy setting on a planet that did not have plate tectonics - What life would form without the geographical features that promote such diversity, or with the less regulated global temperatures offered by the shifting of the plates? Even political boundaries are often based on geographical features that would not be present on non-plate worlds. Does anyone know of a good example of such a setting already?
So, there have been papers writing about 'stagnant lid' planets. From what I can gather, there is no consensus on how things would play out. Some say no plate tectonics = no life. Others say stagnant lid planets could be tectonically active for a small window of time - so life might work on such planets. That's not to say that there would be plates rather tectonic activity would limited to outgassing. IIRC.
Hmm it could be useful for a "secondary habitation world" where life gets introduced at a later time via terraforming whether technologically or magically depending on setting.
I don't know any example but plate tectonics IS a quite important regulatory system. In a Planet with no plates the probability of having Life IS low to non existant and the world itself may end Up as a snowball, or a cold dessert.
So, this is a pretty heavy question, and I fully understand if you don't have an answer! My fantasy world has a lot of landmass that circles round the poles and not much at the equator, so I decided that it would be best to use two azimuthal maps (projections with the poles at the centre and the equator around the edge). Would you have any idea how to project these onto a sphere in Gplates?
No matter :) I am going to look into it myself. I also happen to know how to use Maya, so I can do something with that if all else fails. Thanks for responding.
How do we draw specific plates? Like how many we should have and where to put them Also whenever i try and do my midatlantic ridge, i always end up with them all pushing each other instead of colliding/diverging/doing all the cool stuff that plates do in the real world
Check out the main video for more on this. Tl;dr there's no real limit on how many plates you can have but I tend to try and keep it relatively earth-like. And you can put plates anywhere. It's totally up to you. For your second point, again watch the main video. You'll see how I deal with the mid-atlantic ridge stuff there.
I don't undestand how I can move a feature. I have the plates and traced a continent I had made before and now I want to move the continent to fit the plates but I can nowhere find a tool to move the contintent. I can only move single vertices which doesn't really help me.
When drawing the continents on the spherical map how much detail should we be aiming for? Should we be trying to get every little change in the shoreline or should we just be going for a basic shape?
I'm upset I couldn't watch it sooner because of my broken internet. Still, a great video and will absolutely be using this when my world comes to this point, thanks a bunch!
It will be sorted soon I'm sure. Thank you for the support though! Really love the channel! Have you ever thought about doing videos reviewing Conlangs or people's created worlds? I know it has been done by other people but I'm sure you can do it better!
yeah i'm not able to complete the geometry in gplates. I can make lines, but getting infinitely closer together without ever allowing me to close the shape
Am I meant to trace all the plates? Can they touch? How do I save them? What happens if I don't do any tracing? How do I move the view while drawing? This tutorial is not really applicable for people who want more than two plates...
I'm a little confused. Other than making sure the poles made sense, what purpose did going in and adding the plates and arrows and whatnot as features in GPlates serve?
I appreciate the direct method, and the bits of humor, and even though I'm not a Mac user, the instructional points were clear and explained enough for me to understand and translate to what needs to be done on a Windows PC
Awesome videos! Lately, I have been helping a friend world build a fantasy world and as I have a minor in climatology and like studying geography as a hobby I'm pushing for a high degree of plausibility and realism, so this stuff is great. Any thoughts do delving in deeper into the actual plate building aspects of Gplates for yet more realism? Things like the different types of land masses you get based on different plate interactions, different types of orogenic (mountain-building) events, and simulating things such as ocean currents and Koppen climate zones.
Pretty cool tutorial. Well explained and very helpful. Can you recommend good tutorials for the simulations in gplates? Knowing how the landmasses and plates moved throughout the years could also be helpful for realistic geography.
The one in the doobly-doo is the best I could find. I warn you though, it's not worth the hassle. Set up your world like I did in the video and then just think back one step. Hypothetical example: Continent A and B are currently moving apart. That means they once were touching - possibly converging. So, I'll put some old mountains (eg appalachians) in where they once touched. This give you a set of new mountains (currently converging boundaries) and old mountains (no longer convergng boundaries). Which is a lot of realism for very little work. Simulating millions of years of tectonic activity is great and will give you realistic results but is it worth the time?
Might be worthwhile if you’re modeling the evolutionary history of things like the vicariant speciation of alligator mississippiensis and alligator sinensis. If you’re at a fairly high level of detail, highly disjunct habitats of closely related species like that can be great fun.
Colin Paddock It was really only for geological worldbuilding purposes. But yes, it can be really helpful for more detailed and specific situations. And fun, too! But I’m a fairly lazy person, unfortunately 😅
Hey is there away to design planets with different coloured skies, in accordance to our own perception? And if there is could you do a video on it explaining it.
I'm wondering how to compensate for the equirectangular projection, in particular where to put my tropics and my (ant)arctic circles. In this 12x6 grid, where would I put those?
I think there might be a way to adapt this tutorial so you can do all your map drawing in Inkscape. It'd be easier if GPlates would import SVG data directly, rather than convert it to a raster.
I'm having trouble with importing into g-projector. When I try importing the elevation map that I made in photoshop (and save as-ed as a JPG), I get an error message from g-projector that my image is too large. Help??
G plates can even simulate plates?! Wow I really need this, I was super dreading figuring out how I was going to decide how continents moved around on my world over the huge time scales I have.
It is probably skipable for short timescales of only a couple million years at most but for 10+ million years or longer as there were some pretty big changes on those timescales on earth it would probably become far more important. No idea how you would handle a story over such long time scales but that is a separate issue. >_>
First of all, great tutorial! I would not mind seeing another one at all. And for some reason, I really like how you say "wonderful," "magnificent," and stuff. It's kinda funny for whatever reason. Secondly, how do you make plates touch each other? Like, I can't make two plates share the same line so it's accurate. Or are you not that precise..?
You can add nodes to the shapes and if you check "Snap nearby vertices" when moving them it will kind of line up… but it's an absolute nuisance to do properly.
Im having trouble at the guide layout part, the tab its not the same and doesn't have a proportion settings like yours so i have to do it manualy, but when i do it manualy the proportion seems to be off and not well divided. Im using photoshop cs6
Would there be a way to follow this tutorial up until you finish the plates outlines in GPlates then use the Saderan method of generating continents (using the clouds filter in Photoshop) and merge the two? I’m so bad at drawing continents.
Amazing tutorial! I have a quick question: I am creating a world with lots of plates, so do I make a new feature for each plate? I tried it on two plates, and the border looked kinda ugly (in your other video it looked perfectly flush). What should I do?
When creating more than 2 plates (which as you said is basically a requirement), would I create a different group for each plate? Or a singular group for all of the plates?
Having used windows throughout my childhood, I discovered macs in uni and just liked the experience better. Macos is more simple imo...which isn't necessarily better just better for me. Also, the ecosystem keeps me locked in despite my frustration with apples stuff sometimes. Those new macbook pros are thrash!
Artifexian I mean, mac just looks like an eyesore to me, like, why does the file browser look like that, where's the task bar, why are the tray icons and window menu bar at the top and not on the program window, look, imo if i had to choose between using Mac or cutting one of my toes off I'd wholeheartedly choose the latter because atleast the agony would go away after a few months, but that's just me.
Ye, I can see that. Apple has a different aesthetic to the PC market and that's cool. People just gotta pick the one they like the best. I will say though that there's a lot to like in windows 10 - the touch stuff is really cool. The surface line of computers look very promising and I'm keeping an eye on how they progress. I think it's important to never, through ignorance, become loyal to a brand. Really important to see what the market in general is doing. On the phone side of things, the Pixel 2 looks SIIIIIIICK! Much want. :)
So I'm trying this now and I can't seem to get Gplates to actually display the lines that I draw. After hitting "create" after I've outlined my plate it just disappears and won't come back up no matter how I mess with the draw style.
Ahhhh, once I selected "distant past" and "distant future" for the plates they were fine and started showing up. Normally I'd delete this comment but I'll leave it for posterity.
14:00 instructions for GIMP users:
1: Add new layer. In the window “create new layer” make sure for Layer Fill type the transparency option is selected. And just make sure the layer that is your image is at the very top. You should have your image (in this case outlines of the plates with transparent background) be at the very top, and have the image of your planet with the arrows and other stuff at the very bottom.
This way, you can draw under the plate outlines but still see where your continents and other stuff is if you need it.
2: Choose whatever color you want in the “Change foreground window”. Then, click the “edit” button at the very top and then click “Fill with FG Color”. That should be the color you just chose.
3: Go to the layers window and select the layer you just created. Right click on that and click on “Add layer mask”. On the “Add layer mask” window click White (full opacity) option.
4: In the Layers window, there will be two thumbnails/squares, click on the right one. Then in the “Change foreground color” window, choose the darkest black. Click the bucket fill tool and just fill the entire layer with it. The layer should now be transparent and you should be able to see your base image layer.
5: Now you just choose the whitest color and select any tool you want for when you are ready to color. You will need the white whenever you want to color. And make sure in the Layers window, in any of the layers you use for coloring, the second square is selected. It will be black.
6: If you need other colors, duplicate one of the layers you are using for coloring and repeat step 2. For step 2, remember, the foreground color is displayed in the left square of the layers window. It should be selected when filling with FG color.
7: That should be it. Keep your coloring layers in order. For example, if the highest point on your planet has the yellow color selected, keep that layer with the color yellow right below your transparent plates layer. And when you’re done, just delete the layer with arrows and other symbols and export the image.
Sorry to bother you but how do you get the separate layers (Continents being separate layers to arrows etc). When i import it to GIMP it is all one layer.
Isaac Petherbridge
I added a new layer with full transparency, then I just traced over the plates. It's just using the screenshot method Artifexian showed.
You are incredible. Thank you!
so I am using GIMP, and when I export my map from GPlates and open it in GIMP, it all comes out as one single layer. do I just have to deal with this, or is there a way to get all my feature layers to show up?
@@twi3031 I know this is an old comment, But what you can do is export 2 different images from Gplates, One with you Plates/Arrows and One with the Landmasses. You can do this by disabling the view of those layers in Gplates before you export it. Now just open the two different images in GIMP as separate layers
Man, one day you're talking about phonotactics, the other one you're doing this. #respect
All in a days works. :)
I LOVED the tutorial!
If there are any more things that you feel like you need to explain further, don’t be afraid to make a tutorial for it. It really helps.
Awesome! Will keep that in mind.
As it seems like all you are using GPlates for is drawing in 3d, you can basically get the same effects straight in Photoshop by creating a 3D sphere mesh and then drawing on it. Then you can easily switch between looking at it in 3d and looking at it in 2d without ever changing the program. Just wasn't sure if you were aware of that functionality.
Interesting!
can you explain how to switch from 3d to 2d?
Please tell us how.
Thank TH-cam for not notifying me that anyone commented on this till now. Use 3D->Create Shape From Layer->Sphere. To see the 2D representation then look at your Layer and right below it, it should say Textures>Diffuse>Layer Name. If you double click on that layer name it'll open up the 2D version. I'm using CS5, but hopefully this is the same in other version.
@@kitty.miracle Make sure that Photoshop is set to actually allow you to access your RAM (Edit->Preferences->Performance). Otherwise the only other option is to get more RAM (I've got 32gb).
I've been walking through all your videos and I just wanted to say, I'd never be able to do all this without your guides. You're awesome.
These kinds of tutorials are a nice change from the usual videos.
Technically all of your wor(l)dbuilding videos are tutorials, so I didn't see a huge difference. What I am saying is that if it's at all possible, I wouldn't mind more of these kinds of videos from time to time. :)
Cool! Thanks pal. We'll see what the future holds.
Artifexian I was recommended your video via youtube itself, and I have been looking for your channel for years and didn't even know it. I have been building a small world for a table top game for a long time, i fear sometimes it'll never see the light of day. And i feel like I owe it to this world to really flesh it out even if my players never see it. You have answered so many of my questions already and i thank you from the bottom of my heart for producing all that you have and yet to do.
So... After JUST watching your previous video on this subject, I was overjoyed to find that you had made the tutorial that you had said you would if enough people responded to it (to which I thank your multitude of viewers. Awesome is the only word I can use to describe it right now. I use GIMP instead of Photoshop, but I have been taking tutorials for Photoshop and translating them into Gimp-usable resources for as long as I have been using graphics programs, so no worries there. THANK YOU! (I hope you don't get sick of me saying that, because it will probably happen a lot as I watch more of your flabbergasting and awe-inspiring videos) You have a very concise methodology to your light-speed jargon that I find motivational, inspiring, and very progressive. You are an artist as well as a teacher, and I am humbled by your knowledge on various subjects. We all started small once, but it is the dream of the possibilities that keeps us growing into what we should/want to be. Keep up the great work. Cheers.
I liked this sort of tutorial video. It allows you to talk in more depth like you do on the podcast. Great video, looking forward to the next one!
Cool! Thanks for watching, pal.
"New Guide Layout"
Ok, whatever else I glean from this video, you've made it absolutely worth my while with this one photoshop tip!
I just wanted to say, I recently came upon your channel, and I've watched a fair bit and this is brilliant. Love your work!
Hosanna, the great allknowing Artifexian is here!
Please Language again
Next video.
This may be late, but I am curious as to how you go about doing multiple plates when in gplates. You skipped that part in the main video (understandably) but for your tutorial video, you only had to outline one plate. My question specifically is: do I just treat each plate as something separate and try to get the edges on top of each other the best I can or is there a way to connect the plates so the edges do not overlap each other?
For future references and people who may have the same question:
The way I do it (I know, not specifically what you asked) is to draw the relatively close to each other, but not let them overlap. This way there will always be a small slit. You may think now that's bad, but it's actually not problematic at all, as those tectonic plates you've drawn are just references for yourself (and physically it is also ok, if you just say that those are the trenches of converging plates or in general the activity (e.g. spreading ridges, island arcs or volcanic arcs).
For more information about tectonics I used this website with very easy to understand illustrations:
www.geology.com/plate-tectonics.shtml
@@Alasius I am fairly sure that M. Polo's problem issue is that if he starts to draw a plate somewhere else, like on the other side of the globe, a thick, long white line will follow from wherever he put down the last dot (I.E. on the other side of the globe). That is my problem anyway. How do I go about preventing this, please?
@@Luka1180 Finish the shape and then make a new one. Just like he does with the arrows.
This is an old comment but I figured I’d let people know this for future reference: to do what you are asking, you first create the line geometry, without duplicating edges of neighboring plates, for the whole plate network. You then use the GPlates included Topology tools to construct closed plate polygons from segments of the various polyline geometry by selecting each edge in sequence and assigning it to a plate until it is closed. Check out section 5.1 of the tutorials on the GPlates website’s tutorials section, at Earthbyte.
@@codex4046 okay but how do you finish a shape? because it will still always keep trying to connect the dots even after a shape is done
These videos are relatively old, but SO HELPFUL!! This revolutionized my worldbuilding process. I haven't gone through all these steps yet, but I'm really excited to see where this takes me. Building on tectonic plates already has my outlines looking more realistic.
Thank you, from the distant future. :3
This series is great so far! Can’t wait to see how you are going to apply climate and biomes!
Me too. :)
Artifexian, well, if you figure the locations with the most evaporation and the global wind patterns, then working out where the water gets pushed to shouldn't be a problem. Figuring out how much of the water gets how far might be another story, but your elevation map should help there.
Temperature works in a similar way, where heat is carried by the wind/ocean currents, though the more important factor is latitude and the global heating effect from the mere existence of the atmosphere.
Thank you for this tutorial! I'm going to be using it when I start work on my own fictional world in a few weeks. Having a map will save me a *lot* of time with the writing and lore.
Yup! Besta luck.
if you have these programs and don't know how to use them but don't want to watch a 5 hour tutorial on how to do simple stuff, then I would say that this video is great for that
simple, easy, everything explained - wonderful
Thanks. I tried to cram as much if the basic in as I could. I hate it waffle tutorials.
Edgar this is amazing, you're some kind of otherworldly inspiration to me. Seriously, your levels versatility and dedication are mindblowing.
Daw! Thanks pal. Glad you enjoyed. :)
Very well executed, this will definitely help me when drawing fantasy maps, thank you!
Glad you enjoyed. :)
More like these!! Do you have any experience with Gimp?
None. But I'm assuming it very similar to photoshop.
Thanks for the reply! I'll check out some tutorials for Gimp before attempting this myself- thank you for your reply and your quality content! Keep up the fantastic work :)
GIMP has a bit of a steep learning curve, took me a few hours to really figure it out. Would recommend using tutorials
Powder Physics cheers mate, doing that now!! :)
Edgar, GIMP has similar capabilities, but the UI works a bit _screwy_ if you're used to Photoshop. Generally speaking unless you're a complete newbie to GIMP, a Photoshop tutorial can be followed by a GIMP user with some additional effort.
If you by chance are using gimp, and find the guide tool confusing, and tried using the grid with the aspect ratio
Artifexian is using, but it's off... set the height and width to 84, It'll give you a 12x6 grid without any awkward "half" squares.
thank you so much i was just about ready to ram my forehead through my desk trying to figure this out
thank you so much I was about to smash my laptop into the wall
This was great. Thanks for this addition to the already amazing predecessor. Just helps ironing out some of the kinks from only watching the flying-overview vid.
Those last two videos are wonderful. I was trying to make a method like this for my self but I am too lazy. But this is incredible close to what I wanted. So let me give you the highlights of what I put together, maybe is good enough to add to your method in a later revision or maybe for the people interested in this kind of things.
My goal was to make a process to make "geographical correct" and beliveble world from scratch.
1. Start with fewer tectonic plates. Three or four are enough. Decide the movement of said plates.
2. Make a pangea like continent. Just like the one you make here. It should be almost an entire plate. The ideal scenario is to make that the bigest individual plate the continental plate but at the same time the rest of the plates (the oceanic ones) combined should be bigger so you could end up with one very big continet and one gigantic ocean sorrounding it.
3. Move your tectonic plates in the direction that you had decided in the first step like 5 or 10 cm. When two plates separte them self enough, they will break on two separated plates. The same with the "transform boundaries" (when two plates not necessarily collide together but they "grind" because they move in oposite directions from the top view). Colliding plates will create mountains or new continents/islands depending if they are continental or oceanic correspondiently.
4. Repeat all the above a couple of times until you have like 10 plates and you are satisfied with your oceans and continents.
5. Ice ages: They are important geograficly because they change the landcape and the water level globally. A warm planet will have more water, thus the water level will be higher. The same planet in an ice age will have more land. Also, te parts of the planet that will be under ice will form fiords, mainly on the north and south poles. Think in the norwegian and chilenial fiords. So dont make fiord-like borders your Ecuador.
6. Rivers: They start on high terrain where presipitations are high or from the snow/ice melting from mountains or glaciars and they literaly slide to the ocean following the lower land. So, track the current of your rivers because is important. Small rivers converge in bigger ones. Take a look at the Missipi, the Nile, del Plata, the Yellow or the Amazon and you will see.
7. Lakes: rivers will follow the lower land and water will fill the basins, overflow them and keep going to the ocean in the same direction making a lake. Is not uncomon that various rivers converge in the same basin because, well the basins are the lower ground.
8. Rivers and lakes will leave their impront in the landcape. Think in the Grand Canyon.
9. After this, place the climate.
I know is long but this can help you to trace a whole lot of things like migrations, animal species, lost civilization, even religious belives and mitologies to explain what happened to the earth. Hope this help someone.
Nice one!
12:00 When I load the .svg in Inkscape, it gets compressed into a single layer. Do you, or anybody else, know why this might be?
Unfortunately I don't. And it happens for me, as well. I can only redirect you to the discussion under the top comment. Xeno Shvetsario's idea seems good.
Edit: deleted some nonsense I had written
So, the only reason we need G-plates is to make sure all of our lines work on a globe? We don't use the program for anything else?
Yes, it's better to map in 3d if at all possible. You can use gPlates to simulate tectonic movement but the learn curve is super steep.
I watch these things for wb ideas and try to receate/adapt what I want into html/JavaScript so can learn a little programming and also copy and paste my code to blogger
Your videos are so amazing I've been watching since 2015
Old school artifexian-fan! Awesome. :)
Thanks
Yeah I also remember it was the early 2015 I barely got my phone and it was somewhere in March on my birth month.
Nice workflow. I like manual processes more than automated ones for the most part; it doesn't seem like much of a hobby if everything is computer generated anyway
I'm 100% with you. I tend to shy away from procedurally generators as much as possible. They're a great help if inspiration is lacking but I'd rather the shapes came from me.
I'm not english native but your videos help me so much, thanks Artifexian !
I'm actually really pleased with my first attempt. Just by drawing lines and leaving it up to chance it's amazing how well you can avoid replica Earths.
Although my plan was to start with a supercontinent and simulate the plate movement tearing them apart, smashing them together, forming rifts and mountain ranges etc, by the time I'd had a look at my plates, I ended up inadvertently creating a 2 major continent kinda thin. Like Gondwana and Laurasia, only even further apart. One continent looks like a really deformed Ireland, and the other looks like nothing in particular, but I'd say approximates a chunky deformed horeshoe.... kinda.
Total plate numbers:
"Deformed Ireland" - 5 continental plates. 3 small in the North, with a "Deformed Ulster" plate covering the north pole. 2 larger plates in the south.
"Deformed Horseshoe" - 4 medium sized continental plates - 3 of them forming a sea front in the Antarctic circle at about 75 degrees south.
5 Oceanic plates, the smallest about the size of the largest continental plates, and the other 4 progressively larger.
4 minor plates (think Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Scotia).
I haven't yet determined which way all the plates are moving yet so I don't know what's converging, diverging etc, but these are basically plates that likely formed when 2 plates were diverging as another tried wedging between them, and since they didn't tesselate perfectly, and area of thin crust was created. Theyd be the first to subduct into the mantle if converged upon, and I'm thinking they'd be good for volcanic activity, islands, etc.
So 18 plates in total. That sounds about right.
Still not familiarised with Gplates, so I did a lot of tidying up in GIMP and re-importing, but that means I can link to an imgur upload of my creation if you want to load it up and check it out in various projections.
imgur.com/a/ieApJSv
This video is just amazing. I know it may not be a big deal, but i really appreciate that you take the time to say the commands you are using. Its really useful and i did really enjoyed all of the video, definitely. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this. :-)
Quick suggestion - i havent watched the video yet but you might want to work with negative space when drawing the plates initially. start with a black canvas and cut out holes in it till you got nice plate borders
Ye, that would work. Lot's of different strategies could work here.
I appreaciated this format as well. I love your other videos and thank you for taking the time!
When exporting as an SVG to GIMP from GPlates, is it possible to preserve the layers and/or disable the gridlines? I find myself having to select them by color, and then manually tracing the continents to be able to paint-bucket them for an initial land/ocean map.
THANK YOU SO MUCH IT HAS BEEN PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO ANYTHING ON THIS
No probs, pal. Glad you enjoyed.
When mapping the continents with GPlates with the Digitised Polygon Tool, would you create new features for every continent, or just one continuous line?
I’m so glad you made this tysm Edgar ;-;
No probs. Thank you for watching.
OK, this is a lot more useful than the last episode lol
I'm having an issue with painting in the layers? i have every layer set and masked in black but i don't know how to paint in the layers, it'd be absolutely great if you knew how to help, i'm on windows by the way.
I've tried on many occasions and cant get it to work
This is just what I'm looking for! Thank you so much!
Glad you enjoyed. :)
This was very informative and intuitive! Thanks for that, I'm going to try this out sometime in the near future :)
Awesome! Glad to be of help.
1:03 what's the equivalent of guide layouts in paintDotNet?
Edit: I used another layer and a grid maker plugin. Adjust the size until you have the 6 by 12 grid mentioned
I don't understand what he's doing to make the elevation map. how does he use the brush tool? i'm so frustrated
Thank you! This really helped, make more of these when needed!
Will do! I imagine they won't be very often but yes when needed they'll happen.
I heard somewhere that plate tectonics are actually pretty rare, astrologically speaking, but pretty essential to form habitable planets. Nevertheless I think it would be interesting to try to base a fantasy setting on a planet that did not have plate tectonics - What life would form without the geographical features that promote such diversity, or with the less regulated global temperatures offered by the shifting of the plates? Even political boundaries are often based on geographical features that would not be present on non-plate worlds. Does anyone know of a good example of such a setting already?
So, there have been papers writing about 'stagnant lid' planets. From what I can gather, there is no consensus on how things would play out. Some say no plate tectonics = no life. Others say stagnant lid planets could be tectonically active for a small window of time - so life might work on such planets. That's not to say that there would be plates rather tectonic activity would limited to outgassing. IIRC.
Hmm it could be useful for a "secondary habitation world" where life gets introduced at a later time via terraforming whether technologically or magically depending on setting.
Are you sure? 'cause i think there are tectonics plates on some comets
I don't know any example but plate tectonics IS a quite important regulatory system. In a Planet with no plates the probability of having Life IS low to non existant and the world itself may end Up as a snowball, or a cold dessert.
I really enjoyed this video!
Great! Was worried that people mightn't like it because of how different the style is.
So, this is a pretty heavy question, and I fully understand if you don't have an answer!
My fantasy world has a lot of landmass that circles round the poles and not much at the equator, so I decided that it would be best to use two azimuthal maps (projections with the poles at the centre and the equator around the edge). Would you have any idea how to project these onto a sphere in Gplates?
Damn! I don't know of that's possible. Gplates only accepts a couple of projections and I don't think azimuthal is on of them. :(
No matter :) I am going to look into it myself. I also happen to know how to use Maya, so I can do something with that if all else fails. Thanks for responding.
How do we draw specific plates?
Like how many we should have and where to put them
Also whenever i try and do my midatlantic ridge, i always end up with them all pushing each other instead of colliding/diverging/doing all the cool stuff that plates do in the real world
Check out the main video for more on this. Tl;dr there's no real limit on how many plates you can have but I tend to try and keep it relatively earth-like. And you can put plates anywhere. It's totally up to you.
For your second point, again watch the main video. You'll see how I deal with the mid-atlantic ridge stuff there.
Those software suggestions are going to be helpful I think. Thanks!
I don't undestand how I can move a feature. I have the plates and traced a continent I had made before and now I want to move the continent to fit the plates but I can nowhere find a tool to move the contintent. I can only move single vertices which doesn't really help me.
Excellent! Really interested in other uses of this program!
When drawing the continents on the spherical map how much detail should we be aiming for? Should we be trying to get every little change in the shoreline or should we just be going for a basic shape?
I'm upset I couldn't watch it sooner because of my broken internet. Still, a great video and will absolutely be using this when my world comes to this point, thanks a bunch!
No problemo, pal. Glad you enjoyed. Sorry about your gammy internet.
It will be sorted soon I'm sure. Thank you for the support though! Really love the channel! Have you ever thought about doing videos reviewing Conlangs or people's created worlds? I know it has been done by other people but I'm sure you can do it better!
Awesome, thank you so much! This was perfect, and I can't wait to start making my own maps! :)
Excellent! :)
yeah i'm not able to complete the geometry in gplates. I can make lines, but getting infinitely closer together without ever allowing me to close the shape
My kora, I follow you since "How to make a star" or something like that
Wow! That was a looooong time ago. Thanks for sticking around. :)
great tutorial thank you, I just wished the example had more than two plates to learn how to create more shapes from an existing one.
Am I meant to trace all the plates? Can they touch? How do I save them? What happens if I don't do any tracing? How do I move the view while drawing? This tutorial is not really applicable for people who want more than two plates...
This video is amazing!
Keep on it.
Will do. Thanks for watching.
Love the tutorial style :D
Cool! Thanks for watching and, assuming your the same robin hilton, thanks for your patreon support. It means a lot. :)
I'm a little confused. Other than making sure the poles made sense, what purpose did going in and adding the plates and arrows and whatnot as features in GPlates serve?
This is actually a really good tutorial considering that it doesn't seem like you usually make tutorials.
Cool. Was nervous about making this video. Like you say, tutorials aren't really my bag.
I appreciate the direct method, and the bits of humor, and even though I'm not a Mac user, the instructional points were clear and explained enough for me to understand and translate to what needs to be done on a Windows PC
Very nice tutorial. I would definitely like to see more of these. Probably easier for you to make this vs drawing.
You have no idea. This took about 8 hours. As opposed to 2-3 weeks.
Great video - I wouldn't mind seeing these when you touch on a technique in another video
Hey, he did record a tutorial! Thank you VERY MUCH!
No probs, pal. Glad to be of service.
Awesome videos! Lately, I have been helping a friend world build a fantasy world and as I have a minor in climatology and like studying geography as a hobby I'm pushing for a high degree of plausibility and realism, so this stuff is great. Any thoughts do delving in deeper into the actual plate building aspects of Gplates for yet more realism? Things like the different types of land masses you get based on different plate interactions, different types of orogenic (mountain-building) events, and simulating things such as ocean currents and Koppen climate zones.
Thank you! This was a great Tutorial!
Pretty cool tutorial. Well explained and very helpful. Can you recommend good tutorials for the simulations in gplates? Knowing how the landmasses and plates moved throughout the years could also be helpful for realistic geography.
The one in the doobly-doo is the best I could find. I warn you though, it's not worth the hassle. Set up your world like I did in the video and then just think back one step. Hypothetical example:
Continent A and B are currently moving apart. That means they once were touching - possibly converging. So, I'll put some old mountains (eg appalachians) in where they once touched. This give you a set of new mountains (currently converging boundaries) and old mountains (no longer convergng boundaries). Which is a lot of realism for very little work.
Simulating millions of years of tectonic activity is great and will give you realistic results but is it worth the time?
Might be worthwhile if you’re modeling the evolutionary history of things like the vicariant speciation of alligator mississippiensis and alligator sinensis. If you’re at a fairly high level of detail, highly disjunct habitats of closely related species like that can be great fun.
Artifexian I didn’t see the link in the doobly-do (sorry, shame on me). But I guess I’ll do as you suggest if it’s really that complicated. Thank you.
Colin Paddock It was really only for geological worldbuilding purposes. But yes, it can be really helpful for more detailed and specific situations. And fun, too! But I’m a fairly lazy person, unfortunately 😅
Hyacinth Laziness is my downfall as well. Which reminds me: I need to get to work on my blog. After Monday, my queue is going to be empty!
First, I think, love the videos, thanks for uploading more often now
No probs, pal. Glad to be of service.
What version of Photoshop is this? My version doesn't have the option "New guide layout".
How does the lines look so smooth when he zooms in? I only see it very pixelated
Hey is there away to design planets with different coloured skies, in accordance to our own perception? And if there is could you do a video on it explaining it.
I'm wondering how to compensate for the equirectangular projection, in particular where to put my tropics and my (ant)arctic circles. In this 12x6 grid, where would I put those?
Tobylus Sanchez one latitude line would be 30°, so then just estimate
Amazing helped me so much!
Awesome!
Artifexian just started the podcast yesterday. On episode 05!
Is it possible for you do an update to this video?
I think there might be a way to adapt this tutorial so you can do all your map drawing in Inkscape. It'd be easier if GPlates would import SVG data directly, rather than convert it to a raster.
How do we do this for a torus shaped world please?
All I can say in this regard is that both left and right AND top and bottom edges of a 2d map need to match for the map to be toroidal.
I'm having trouble with importing into g-projector. When I try importing the elevation map that I made in photoshop (and save as-ed as a JPG), I get an error message from g-projector that my image is too large. Help??
I am having the exact same problem...
actually...i am getting the nullpoint error when i try to load my image. I have tried everything I can think of but still can't get past the error
G plates can even simulate plates?! Wow I really need this, I was super dreading figuring out how I was going to decide how continents moved around on my world over the huge time scales I have.
It's REEEALLLLY time consuming and not straight forward.
It is probably skipable for short timescales of only a couple million years at most but for 10+ million years or longer as there were some pretty big changes on those timescales on earth it would probably become far more important. No idea how you would handle a story over such long time scales but that is a separate issue. >_>
Dragrath1
Time travel, probably.
@@leysont Or very old people
Yes, but what if you want more than one plate, do we create a new shape? Do we continue the current one?
JBcaptian
I just created new shapes. I don’t think you can continue existing shapes
Wow, great tutorial! Many thanks
No probs. :)
Artifexian your tutorials helped me a lot in making homebrew rpgs :D You're great!
Wow this is magnificent!
i try to do the polygon lines in GPlates but they simply don't show up, i can't see them. how do i combat this?
Great video, very helpful! Thank you
Is it possible to use for maps that I already have made, to get a view on how my world will look in a few million years?
You showed us how it worked with illustrator - how would it work, if you don't use illustrator, and export it as a .img?
First of all, great tutorial! I would not mind seeing another one at all. And for some reason, I really like how you say "wonderful," "magnificent," and stuff. It's kinda funny for whatever reason.
Secondly, how do you make plates touch each other? Like, I can't make two plates share the same line so it's accurate. Or are you not that precise..?
I'm not that precise. I mean the plates boundaries are largely just guides which can be hidden in the final map.
You can add nodes to the shapes and if you check "Snap nearby vertices" when moving them it will kind of line up… but it's an absolute nuisance to do properly.
Im having trouble at the guide layout part, the tab its not the same and doesn't have a proportion settings like yours so i have to do it manualy, but when i do it manualy the proportion seems to be off and not well divided. Im using photoshop cs6
Would there be a way to follow this tutorial up until you finish the plates outlines in GPlates then use the Saderan method of generating continents (using the clouds filter in Photoshop) and merge the two?
I’m so bad at drawing continents.
Can you do one on how to correctly develop your plants and animals
Eventually, but it's going to be awhile before I'm ready to do biology.
I like this tutorial. ☺️
Cheers, pal.
Amazing tutorial! I have a quick question: I am creating a world with lots of plates, so do I make a new feature for each plate? I tried it on two plates, and the border looked kinda ugly (in your other video it looked perfectly flush). What should I do?
When creating more than 2 plates (which as you said is basically a requirement), would I create a different group for each plate? Or a singular group for all of the plates?
Benjamin Durange single group. You’ll have to trace over them
If I already have a map drawn, and just want to have a more accurate landscape, how would I use it with gplates?
i need more like this, just random worlds *-*
How do you make a 12 by 6 grid if you don't have photoshop?
+Artifexian why do you use Mac?
Having used windows throughout my childhood, I discovered macs in uni and just liked the experience better. Macos is more simple imo...which isn't necessarily better just better for me. Also, the ecosystem keeps me locked in despite my frustration with apples stuff sometimes. Those new macbook pros are thrash!
Artifexian I mean, mac just looks like an eyesore to me, like, why does the file browser look like that, where's the task bar, why are the tray icons and window menu bar at the top and not on the program window, look, imo if i had to choose between using Mac or cutting one of my toes off I'd wholeheartedly choose the latter because atleast the agony would go away after a few months, but that's just me.
Ye, I can see that. Apple has a different aesthetic to the PC market and that's cool. People just gotta pick the one they like the best. I will say though that there's a lot to like in windows 10 - the touch stuff is really cool. The surface line of computers look very promising and I'm keeping an eye on how they progress.
I think it's important to never, through ignorance, become loyal to a brand. Really important to see what the market in general is doing.
On the phone side of things, the Pixel 2 looks SIIIIIIICK! Much want. :)
If two plates are going in a similar direction in relation to one another, at the border of them, what would you do?
So I'm trying this now and I can't seem to get Gplates to actually display the lines that I draw. After hitting "create" after I've outlined my plate it just disappears and won't come back up no matter how I mess with the draw style.
Ahhhh, once I selected "distant past" and "distant future" for the plates they were fine and started showing up. Normally I'd delete this comment but I'll leave it for posterity.
I'm assuming MSPaint works just as well?
How do you get rid of the grid in gplates?