Height maps are really good. They help figuring out where the hydrosphere goes, whether an area is fertile for crops or better for livestock grazing, whether a city or castle is in a defensible position, and where choke points would be that armies are forced to fight in.

Terriffic start to a very informative series! I love how much thought went into the (fantasy-) realism behind the map. I feel my own mapmaking will be greatly improved with this approach.

I would strongly suggest you go re-look at some satellite earth footage. The coastlines are long smooth stretches followed by some broken parts and then smooth stretches again. Areas where it's smoother have more population closer to the coast, and areas where it's jagged have their cities further inland, probably because it's too rocky at the coast. But again it depends where you're looking, most of Africa is pretty smooth. South America is jagged on the west coast and smoother on the east coast. Just balance it out, don't assume one or the other is wrong. Otherwise great videos, really enjoy your stuff.

Generally, plate boundaries fall into 3 categories: convergent, divergent and transverse Convergent boundaries are associated with subduction zones with deep trench’s and island arcs and mountain ranges. Examples of these are japan and the Himalayan mountains. Island arcs are often the sites of chains of volcanoes. The Ring of Fire around the Pacific Ocean is an example of this. Divergent boundaries are associated with rift zones. These are generally found within the oceans but can be nascent of failed oceans found within continents an example of this is the East African rift system and Red Sea in Africa. They can also exhibit volcanism. Transverse zones exhibit strike slip motion. While exhibiting little mountain building or volcanism, they are areas were topographic features such as mountain chains or rivers can be offset creating unusual juxtapositions of terrain, wild bends in rivers, and lakes and swamps abutting areas of higher elevations. All plates intersect at triple junctions. The direction of motion and compression and the nature of the crystal materials oceanic or continental) determines the type of plate boundary that will results. Most plate boundaries are combinations of the three basic types, I.e. convergent and divergent boundaries typically have an element of strike-slip motion. Crustal plates ride over fixed hot spots originating from the mantle. This creates a track of volcanism within a plate and often represent areas of significant rare Earth mineralization. Gold, copper, etc. An example of this is Yellowstone in the USA. Glaciers, and the associated sea level changes associated with them, significantly alter the landscape. The Great Lakes, Great Plains and its prairie potholes and the Grand Canyon being but a few examples. Then we have meteor craters. They alter the landscape and are also sites of mineralization. Finally, we have weathering by water and wind. Landslides, rock falls and other mass movements are extreme forms of weathering. Biological organisms contribute significantly to weathering and to the prevention of erosion resulting in the formation of soil.

This is great, I look forward to the next part.

thank you Icarus, I've seen a couple of your videos now (as a fledgling DM) and im at the stage of developing my world topography, I had a look around and was uncertain on which software I should use - this demonstration and application of wonderdraft has helped a lot. This is a great resource. Just leaving a comment to give you encouragment, liked and subscribed.

Great video as always! Map making is a guilty pleasure for many DMs, and I feel like this video would be helpful for a lot of people. Very professional and informative! Keep up the good work :)

What a great video! I'm currently building a world for my fantasy novel and have really struggled to get an idea of where or how to start. This video has been incredible for getting me started and I can't wait to get on to the next two videos! Thank you so much!

Holy shit thank you so much for this series. I was stressing out *so much* over trying to make a map for my boyfriend and I's world that this guideline reduced my anxiety by at least 30%.

I'm just starting to draw a fantasy map and have found recreating realistic land mass levels difficult. This I great way of thinking of it, seems so obvious when you showed it! Thanks!!

A really good video! Many friends asked me how I make my Fantasy Maps and now I can send them to this video. Keep them up!

I am watching these again, and noticed the map detail tool (which I have never used, thanks for including it in the video...OI went there and figured it out. Can you comment on why you changed it from 4x to 5.3?). If I heard you right, you have an undetailed world map which you then import and make more detailed maps continent by continent. Is that right? I like the idea, because then you have a "World Map" to show the relationships between landmasses, but you don't have to do all the detailing on the "world Map', which also allows finer detail on the individual landmass maps. Your comments?

i dont really like to type long so i wont but i just wanna say thanks

Fantastically informative video-thank you! This may seem a silly question but how do you know where the plates are to begin with? I understand how you use their meeting points to inform mountain placement etc but not too sure about how to generate the plate placement itself; is it literally just a case of randomly drawing lines in a way that looks pleasing and going from there? Looking forward to watching the rest of the series :)

Thanks for the video!

this video is worth showing to other ppl !

This helped a lot, thanks!

thanks :D

nice

Loving this series. I just purchased WD based off of your videos. But I have a question. How are you making a height map? Is it on a different layer? I notice you switch back and forth from your regular colored version and the crazy bright colored one. I'd like to have mine for reference like you do in the video.

0:10 at first i thaught i was being rickrolled lol

I was curious on how you did your plate tectonics. Did you just randomly decide where plates will be or did you have a way to figure it out? Thanks!

Tell us about this cool program . Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator

Really helpful, I use to hand draw my maps and they looked fine but when I tried doing the Yolo whatever looks cool type maps on wonderdraft they just looked off. Doing a height map Really makes a difference because it can better help with the placement of rivers and environments and settlements and stuff

What would you charge to look at a map thats been made and place tectonic plates?

I love the video. I was wondering what is the size of your world map in wonderdraft? I'm not sure what size to make it so I can do closer maps. I was wanting to do a world map which I have, then one for each landmass then zoom in on those. It seems like you have the size that does that just right for your world map.

i have Wonderdraft but where do i get the Volcano?

The map at 2:43, what settings do you use to get that look for the water and the coastlines? Does look quite amazing!

hello! I would love to know your thoughts on how do wonderdraft and inkarnate compare now that inkarnate has some new features!

very nice method! I have been wanting to re-visit my initial world map for a while now and this may just be the nudge I needed to do it LOL. A question though, how do you handle scaling? (1 days journey up to 1 week) I find this is where I am having the most difficulty myself :(

What is the map behind your left (our right) shoulder?

What are the configs that you use for Height-Width when creating the map? Do you use any config? I bought wonderdraft because of your videos! XD

Where do you get your prints from?

Every map maker says "use plate tectonics". None explain anything about them... what do they do? How do they move? What happens when they meet?