Using fractal terrains

[Nightshade]

Hey, I have a question for those of you that use fractal terrains to generate world maps. Some settings for world creation, using a UWP, are obvious such as water % and diameter. What about other settings? Has anyone developed a system that works for atmosphere? Traveller atmospheres are indicated in the UWP but how do you translate that to fractal terrains settings?

I'd also be interested in any other settings system for FT that you might be willing to share.

 

[Gadrin]

not sure since I've never used fractal terrains.

I notice that some descriptions of planetary atmosphere don't apply them uniformly. Victoria is one (I think) where there are concentrated areas of good/normal air at lower levels (canyons) than other places. I think there's a place in Vilis subsector that's similar (Digitus? at least in Behind the Claw).

so you might apply the taint/fog of the intro to landing on the planet in Alien to a region or range band, rather than applying it uniformly.

can you apply a fractal within an existing area defined in the program ? sorta like a fill color in one of the paintshop programs. sounds like it might be several
extra steps, maybe not.

 

[ravells]

I use FT. If your question is really asking, 'is there a way in which I can convert all UWP settings into FT somehow and end up with a planet consistent with those settings?' The answer is (I think) no, (kind of).

FT does not, for example draw cities or populated areas just elevation maps (from which are extrapolated climate, temprature etc maps on a fairly basic model imo, although you can alter temparature / climate settings individually).

For my money, you'd be better off using FT to draw the basic planet coastlines and then import the result into photoshop or similar and add to it there.

You may want to repost your question on the Cartographer's Guild site (see below - shameless plug), there are people there who produce beautiful maps using FT with other programmes, like this one (click the thumbnail in the first post for a bigger picture). It looks just like a real atlas, except it's of a fictional place.

I'll run FT tonight if I have time and see if I can come up with any ideas about replicating UWP data into FT settings, your question had never occured to me before!

Ravs

 

[Vargas]

Does anyone know what, if any, legal restrictions there are on using FT output in prodcuts for sale? I wouldn't think there are any but I'm curious.

 

[taishon]

Ft/CC2

Whats cool about this combo package is the ability to make a sector map which is linked to a subsector to a start system to a FT file which shows the planet spinning or other views to various coninental CC2 files to town files etc...you get the idea...I like the hot linking capability. So..you may not be able to all the UWP stuff (although you can manually do it pretty well)..all the CC2 mapping can handle this quite well.