The Tectonics update is now live, and represents a massive step forward for world generation tools.
Everything has changed.
New workflow
The new workflow is all about the simulations. The simulations are run by specifying a geological/eroded age with the Megaannum sliders in the Tectonics and Erosion tabs. You can click/drag on the slider to set a specific age or use the buttons to the left and right to watch the history of the planet unfold, pause it at any point, or reset the simulation.
You can always re-run either simulation, but each run will be different as they are not 100% deterministic simulations and small random changes build up and cascade into large differences over these timescales. So even with the same seed, just re-running the simulations can give entirely different geographies.
While the simulations are running you can swap between any of the visualisations or projections, and most of the parameters can be changed to have their effects immediately applied to the simulation going forward. Some parameters are marked << like this >> and these will reset the simulation if altered.
Tectonics simulation
After you've set up your quality and initial conditions, start the tectonics simulation by setting a Megannum age. I find it usually takes a few hundred Ma before it starts to really look good. Play around with the interactions between gravity, erosion, rigidity, and to get creative with continent shapes and mountain ranges.
Erosion simulation
Once you've stopped the tectonics simulation, you can run the erosion simulation, which carves mountains and coastlines with hydraulic, thermal, and tidal erosion. The effects build up slowly but become noticeable around 25Ma and I find the sweet spot to be about 50-60Ma.
Climate modelling
Climate is simplified to the physical processes of insolation, greenhouse, and rainfall, and runs alongside the simulations. However this comes at a performance cost so if you're noticing a framerate hit, switch to the Elevation or Magma/Sedimentation visualisation -- where the climate modelling is paused until the simulation ends or you switch to another visualisation.
PS. The next major update will be a realtime atmospheric climate simulation.
New UI
- Hovering the mouse over the planet shows a detailed breakdown of the surface
- Hovering the mouse over a button or parameter shows a tooltip explaining what it does
- Many parameters now map to physical properties
- Hints for how to control the camera with the mouse are available in the top left by hovering the mouse over them
Known issues
As far as I could I've attempted to address all bugs and issues, but I'm aware of two which I still haven't gotten to the bottom of.
- Sometimes the tectonics simulation will randomly just "implode", and all crust will disappear except the newest crust at plate boundaries. This can be fixed by changing the seed or quality but when it happens it is annoying
- Sometimes when starting the tectonics simulation the app will hang for a bit before it starts