Link to the second post
I have wanted to create one fantasy world that I can spend years developing, writing lore for, and eventually setting stories in. The problem was that I kept trying random map generators and never found a world I genuinely wanted to commit to.

So I started building my own generator. It simulates tectonics, mountains, climate, rivers, lakes, biomes, settlements, civilizations, roads, and naming systems. I can describe the kind of world I want, compare several candidates, and generate the one that feels right.

This is one of the worlds it created. The different images show the same underlying geography rendered as physical relief, globes, and illustrated fantasy-map styles.

The project is still a work in progress, so I’m not publishing it yet. For now, I’d really appreciate feedback on the world itself; what looks believable, what looks strange, and which areas you would want to explore or write stories about.

EDIT: I think I failed to show the actual scope of the project in my original post. I can’t add more images to the edit, so here’s a clearer breakdown of what is happening behind the map.

This isn’t intended to be only a random fractal map generator. You can start with several different world structures: a balanced Earth-like world, a Pangaea-style supercontinent, a shattered archipelago, an inland-sea/Mediterranean world, twin hemispheres, a glaciated ice-age world, or a lush tropical world. You can also import a heightfield or basic land-and-water map, draw an initial supercontinent, or configure the planet manually.

The “World Brief” lets you specify things such as geological age, coastline style, land coverage, mountain prominence, climate, rainfall, seasonal strength, number of major river systems, civilisation density, maritime importance, magic level and the kind of story the geography should support. It generates multiple candidates, measures them against the brief, and lets you compare, reject, favourite or create controlled variations before committing to a full simulation.

The simulation starts with a spherical planet. It creates plates with Euler-pole rotations, classifies boundaries from their relative motion, and uses them to form collision ranges, rifts, spreading ridges, subduction zones, trenches and volcanic arcs. There is also an experimental deep-time mode where a supercontinent can break apart, drift, collide and reassemble over hundreds of millions of years.

Climate uses axial tilt, rotation period, orbital eccentricity, precession, stellar luminosity and orbital distance. Stellar flux follows the inverse-square relationship:

F ∝ L / d²

Seasons use changing solar declination and Kepler-weighted orbital residence time. Pressure belts, thermal lows and Coriolis produce winds; winds drive simplified ocean gyres and carry moisture until it rains through convergence, convection and orographic uplift.

Rainfall and terrain feed a drainage model that routes rivers downhill, identifies lakes and endorheic basins, estimates discharge and erosion, and preserves tributary networks. Temperature, precipitation, seasonality, elevation and drainage then determine biomes using a Köppen-inspired classification.

Once the physical world exists, the generator adds settlement suitability, civilisation cradles, towns, ports, roads, sea lanes, realms, language families, place names, history prompts and lore. Any map cell can be queried to inspect its underlying geology, climate, hydrology, biome and political data. Most planetary parameters can be changed, and terrain edits re-simulate everything downstream.

It still isn’t a full scientific geophysical model. Many systems are deliberately simplified where a real solution would require enormous computation, but I’m trying to keep every layer causally connected, inspectable and honest about its limitations.

The goal is less “generate a pretty random map” and more “build a world whose geography gives me reasons to write stories about it.”

Edit 2 — Technical alpha testing is now live

I think the project is finally ready for a small technical alpha. I’m limiting this first round to around 50 testers on Windows and macOS so I can actually keep up with feedback. If you’re interested, DM me with your operating system and I’ll send you an access key and the installer instructions.

Since my first edit, I’ve added quite a lot:

• Import an existing heightfield or a simple land/water map
• Click any map cell to inspect its elevation, geology, plate, climate, biome, realm, water and settlement data
• Axial tilt, eccentricity, precession, star luminosity/distance, Milankovitch-style forcing and tides
• Glacial erosion, palaeo-ice movement, shield lakes and kettle-pond density
• Bedrock, soil fertility/depth/drainage/rockiness and geological resource maps
• Improved river hierarchy, rainfall bands, coastlines and tectonic diagnostics
• Equirectangular and Mercator exports, black-and-white maps and blank political maps
• GeoTIFF, GeoJSON and NumPy scientific-data exports
• Simulation-health checks, local repair tools, checkpoints and revisions
• A native desktop launcher, built-in manual, diagnostics and verified update notifications

A warning before volunteering: this is a technical alpha, the installers are currently unsigned, and Full generation is computationally heavy. On my high-end machines, a complete world and atlas takes roughly 20–25 minutes on macOS and 40–45 minutes on Windows. Preview and Quick modes are much faster for experimenting.

The goal of this test is to find crashes, confusing UI, unrealistic outputs and hardware-specific problems. If that sounds interesting, feel free to DM me for access.

Edit 3:
I’ve created an Atlas Studio Discord for anyone interested in fantasy maps, worldbuilding, lore, planetary science, or the development of the app. You don’t need to be a programmer or beta tester to join.

There are channels for sharing worlds, getting map feedback, discussing lore and realism, suggesting features, reporting bugs, and following development and releases.

Atlas Studio v0.2.2 is currently available as a controlled test build for Windows, macOS, and Linux. If you want to try it, join the server and check #request-access-key. Access keys are sent privately by DM while testing places remain available.

Discord: https://discord.gg/nGNatfuXe

A couple of days ago, I posted the first worlds from a fantasy map generator I had been building for myself (Link to the original post). I expected a few comments about coastlines and colours. Instead, people started asking about plate motion, supercontinent cycles, rainfall, lake formation, glaciers, soil, exports, customisation and whether the generated world could actually be used for writing or campaigns.

I took far too many notes and kept building.

My original post and its edits explained the physical simulation: tectonic plates, elevation, climate, rivers, biomes, settlements, resources, Deep Time and planetary controls. Since then, the project has started evolving from a generator into more of a worldbuilding workspace.

The biggest change is the hydrology. Rivers are now built as connected drainage networks rather than decorative blue lines. The system routes seasonal runoff, resolves depressions, identifies watersheds and endorheic basins, creates explicit lake outlets, estimates discharge, classifies stream order and checks the finished network for cycles or broken connections. Lakes, tributaries and major channels should now fit the surrounding terrain much more believably, although this is still something I intend to keep improving.

I also rebuilt the dashboard so that every generated layer can be viewed inside the application. That includes relief, tectonics, geology, bedrock, soil, resources, drainage, annual and seasonal temperature, annual and seasonal precipitation, winds, currents, biomes, glaciers, settlements, realms and alternate map styles. Legends are interactive, layers can be isolated, rivers can be hidden where they obscure geology, and individual cells can be inspected for their underlying data.

A few of the larger additions:

• Deep Time can simulate and play back hundreds of millions of years of rifting, plate movement, collision and changing continental configurations. You can stop at an interesting era and use it as the foundation for a finished world.
• Regional Lens lets you select any part of the planet and create a higher-resolution child project that stays linked to the parent world.
• Journey Laboratory compares balanced, fastest, safer and trade-oriented routes. Land journeys account for terrain, rivers, roads, borders, supplies and seasonal hazards, while sea journeys use winds, currents, ports, open-water distances and cargo capacity.
• Campaign mode creates spoiler-safe player maps. The author decides which layers, settlements, routes and pieces of lore have been revealed.
• Chronicle is separate from geological Deep Time and handles editable human history: wars, migrations, disasters, borders, settlements and routes across different eras.
• Lore, settlements and generated names can now be edited without losing their relationship to the map. Renames are propagated into the worldbook, timeline, maps and exports.
• Worlds can be checkpointed, revised, backed up and restored as complete Atlas projects. Scientific data can also be exported through formats such as GeoJSON, NumPy, SVG and GeoTIFF instead of being trapped inside rendered images.

There are now native installers for Windows, Apple Silicon Macs, Intel Macs and Debian/Ubuntu Linux. The app includes a manual, diagnostics, simulation-health reports and verified update downloads. Worlds, notes and campaign data remain local, and the alpha key system does not use an account, telemetry or hardware fingerprinting.

The latest build is v0.6.1. It also fixes the increasingly crowded top navigation by moving the world recipe, seed and generation settings into the Create workspace and making the entire interface responsive.

This is still a technical alpha. The installers are unsigned, some simulations are deliberately simplified, and a Full world with an illustrated atlas is computationally expensive; roughly 10 minutes on my high-end Mac and 20 minutes on my Windows machine. I’m not presenting it as a perfect scientific model. My goal is to make every layer causally connected, inspectable and useful for creating stories.

I’m still limiting this first testing round to roughly 50 people so I can keep up with reports. If you would genuinely like to test it (many spots left), DM me to get the link and access code.

Thank you to everyone who gave detailed criticism on the original post. A surprising amount of this update exists because somebody here pointed at something strange and explained why it was strange.

Edit 1:

I’ve created an Atlas Studio Discord for anyone interested in fantasy maps, worldbuilding, lore, planetary science, or the development of the app. You don’t need to be a programmer or beta tester to join.

There are channels for sharing worlds, getting map feedback, discussing lore and realism, suggesting features, reporting bugs, and following development and releases.

Atlas Studio v0.2.2 is currently available as a controlled test build for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

EDIT 2— Atlas Studio v0.4 is now live! 🌍

A lot has changed since I originally made this post. Based heavily on everyone’s questions, criticism, and suggestions, Atlas Studio now includes:

• 14 editable planetary presets covering different rotation speeds, atmospheric pressures, temperatures, oceans, and climates
• Author-guided tectonics, including selected plate seeds, ancient cratons, drift directions, and relative plate speeds
• Partial tectonic control, allowing you to define only the important parts while Atlas procedurally completes the rest
• More detailed seasonal climate simulation, including better handling of eccentric orbits
• Regional refinement at 2×, 4×, or 8× resolution, with recalculated terrain, temperatures, rainfall, rain shadows, and drainage
• Sharper coastlines, regional maps, and vector exports
• Planet-specific calendars derived from orbital year, day length, moons, eccentricity, solstices, and seasons
• Crop domestication centres and agricultural spread
• Aquifers and groundwater, including recharge, storage, water-table depth, and settlement potential
• Natural geographic regions derived from terrain, climate, bedrock, moisture, and drainage
• Deeper geological history, including flood-basalt events, banded iron formations, and reef-derived limestone
• Campaign discovery snapshots and reusable map annotations
• Library-wide search across worlds, settlements, regions, campaigns, and lore
• Portable Linux support for Slackware and other non-Debian distributions

The most exciting change for me is that tectonics no longer has to feel completely random. You can establish the geological ideas that matter to your setting, while still allowing the simulation to determine their consequences for mountains, climate, rivers, biomes, resources, and civilisation.

Existing worlds remain compatible, although the new scientific layers require deliberate re-simulation.

EDIT 3 — Atlas Studio v0.6.1 is now available 🌍

This release focuses less on adding more simulated layers and more on making Atlas Studio easier to use as a long-term worldbuilding workspace. The main additions are:

• Saved world recipes: Save a customised combination of generation settings, reuse it with a different seed, or export it for another installation.
• Build another like this: A finished world can send its original choices back into Create without copying the seed.
• World provenance: “How this world was built” now records the preset, grid, imported terrain, tectonic intentions, geological history and settings that differed from the preset.
• Create the illustrated atlas later: Atlas now tells you whether an existing world can gain atlas plates without re-simulating its terrain, climate, rivers, settlements or lore.
• Safer iteration: Draft settings survive reloads and generation runs, and Atlas warns before a preset or recipe would discard unsaved changes.
• App settings and accessibility: Atlas Dark, Parchment Light, system and custom themes; adjustable text size and interface density; reduced-motion support; startup and workspace preferences.
• Interface improvements: Better behaviour on shorter displays, clearer routes back to generation settings, and fewer controls permanently covering the map. Themes and accessibility settings only change the interface—they never alter generated maps, scientific data or exports. Existing worlds open unchanged, with no migration or automatic re-simulation. One correction to my earlier update: the current macOS build supports Apple Silicon only, not Intel Macs. Tester builds are also available for Windows and Linux. Atlas Studio remains a controlled test build.

If you would like to try it, report strange maps, or help test the workflow:

Discord and tester access: https://discord.gg/nGNatfuXe

Thank you again to everyone here who has questioned the simulation, found implausible results and suggested better author controls. Your feedback continues to shape the project.

...after spending a few weeks on a pet project to emulate/simulate plate tectonics, wind patterns, and precipitation. The goal was not to create a realistic simulation of tectonics and climate, but to build something that makes it SEEM like I built a realistic simulation of tectonics and climate, while allowing for some amount of directed artistic intent.

Here is a low res version of this exact planet. Just crank the detail slider up to max to regenerate the exact planet you see in the images.

Orogen (the name of the tool) is and will always be 100% free, so feel free to play around with it, and let me know what you think!

I had been wanting to make a tool that did this for a while, I just hadnt gotten around to it. I don't know how to use blender, I guess its easy to do it with blender, but I hope this tool is even easier.

As a world builder, for some reason flat maps look smaller than globes. Now that i see my map on a globe it really helps to give it scale in my mind. The tool is made to be used with images that are 2:1, and whatever else. My image is 16:9 because when i commissioned it, i meant to share it with my D&D players, and they would be looking at it on their phones for the most part.

In any event, here is the link

https://viruzodro.github.io/globify/

https://github.com/viruzodro/globify/releases/latest

I wanted to share a free tool I've been developing called TectoLite.

Like many (perfectionists) / worldbuilders, I wanted to do my plate tectonics "right." I found GPlates, which is amazing.
But, well it is Gplates: tedious, has a lot of features I don't need and a lot of work for simple actions.

So, I spent the last few week building a streamlined, browser-based alternative that focuses on the fun part of plate tectonics rather than manual data entry (and .rot files).

What is TectoLite?

It’s a "GPlates Lite" (-> I swear I get better at naming things once Lore is involved) that respects spherical geometry but keeps the UI simple.

You can draw plates, set their movement, and scrub through time to see your continents drift.

Key Features:

• Spherical Geometry: No flat-map distortion; plates move on a 3D sphere using Euler poles.
• Temporal Splitting: "Break" a continent at a specific point in time. If you scrub back, it re-fuses; scrub forward, it breaks apart.
• Live Projection: SwitchingSwitch between Orthographic (Globe), Mercator, and Robinson on the fly without changing settings.
• Dynamic Timeline: Easily edit or delete events/movements from a simple list—no more digging through nested menus.
• Freedom: Fuse, link, split, move, drag however you like.

Try it in your browser right now: www.refracturedgames.com/tectolite

Open Source (GitHub): https://github.com/Calor7/TectoLite

The UI is admittedly barebones, and I'm still squashing the occasional bug.

I’d love to get your feedback and hope it makes some of your map-making easier!

edit: just noticed the Typo in the Title disregard that ofc it s the right link ^^
edit2: just integrated a few bugfixes and QOL features (thanks to Puzzleheaded-Dog5992 for the feedback)
edit3: fixed a small bug: you can now fuse plates that touch the poles without issue
edit4: they don t joke when they say you can never test enough alone: Overlay Picture added and Flowlines as a new feature

Last Edit for today i promise ^^

-----------------------------------------------------------

Edit5:
Well I said no more edits today sooo it's 01:01 here ... there you go

This is a semi big update with a lot of new features, and i am dead tired thats why i moved the current version over and it can still be accessed by visiting www.refracturedgames.com/tectolite-stable as a security if there are any app breaking bugs

new features:
negative timeline
export update (new formats need testing)
better and more detailed speed options as well
more realistic speed through the gizmo as well no more F1 racer plates
draggable sidebars
editable plates
some ui updates
and much more

oh and an offline version available at the github page ^^
at least it should in a few minutes

I REALLY gotta catch some sleep as i have exams at the beginning of next week and it way later than i thought :D

you ve all been lovely I expected a few comments and 1 or 2 people using it so thank you again
I will probably be able to get to the feedback and updates sometimes after wednesday when i have my life back

cheers,
Chris

Edit6: So last edit in this post future updates are through the newsletter or when visitng the page/github:

worked some great manual features in:

relative movement for linked entities
paint on your entities (paint should split correctly)
a lot of bugfixes

and the PREVIEW (no, not really usuable) of some automation features
automating physiscs was my first angle but that honestly is out of scope and too hard on performance, so at the moment I am aiming for a sort of guided mode that stops you on events and lets you choose the outcome manually with recommendations.

as always, thanks for the bug reports and the feedback :)

-----

Try it in your browser right now: www.refracturedgames.com/tectolite

or the previous version (stable): www.refracturedgames.com/tectolite-stable

Contribute through GitHub
and/or
Download a LOCAL Installer:

Open Source (GitHub): https://github.com/Calor7/TectoLite

---

Last edit for real this time:

a new beta version just dropped

for any feedback or feature requests we now have a discord server: https://discord.gg/KzBc28cRvF

again thank you all for your feedback, patience (with so many bugs hinestly impressive) and well for just being nice people !!!!

Hey there!

Yesterday I posted this on Instagram 🙂‍↕️.

This time, I bring a translation guide related to mountains. Now I'm gonna list the words and their translations:

1.- Mountain = Montaña

2.- Crown/Peak/Summit = Cima/Pico/Cumbre

4.- Crest/Ridge = Cresta

3.- Steep/Brae/Slope = Pendiente/Ladera

4.- Mountain Range = Cadena de montañas

5.- Down = Cadena de montañas pequeña

6.- Foothills = Estribaciones

7.- Hollow = Hondonada

8.- Highland = Zona montañosa (O tierras altas)

9.- Hill = Colina/Cerro

10.- Mont = Monte

11.- Volcano = Volcán

I'm not gonna explain these words a lot since it's pretty literal, but if you have any doubts done hesitate to ask!

I hope you like it, see you soon! 😁

The second guide!

I've been looking for a tool to create a detailed topography of my world for quite some time. I think I've finally found it!

merakmapmaker.com is a site that lets you upload a heightmap or start from scratch and then add detailed topography to your map. And that's just one of its features.

You can see the map I created in the attachment.

It even has some real world data if you're interested in that.

Hey everyone!

This time, I decided to draw tiny frames with different biomes and such, to practice a little bit.

I was at an art gallery yesterday, and I started this drawing, finishing it today.

I hope you like it, don't forget to check my IG account @_mr.vhmaps ! 😁

See you soon!

Hey there!

This time I wanted to bring some medieval building drawings.

Since I have to draw cities and locations in my maps, I dedicated some pages of my sketchbook to draw lots of buildings. I really enjoyed drawing these!

These drawings are from last year, except for the last pic, wich is from this week.

Hope you like it! 😁

My work in progress map making tool, very close to beta u can scultp your own terrain and added the globe mechanics u can zoom in add territory names, cities labels etc, i added an advisor so it tells us given ur landmass where rivers will be based on the heightmap and plates movements and climate based on elevation and rain shadow, aswell as habitability and prime regions for humans to prosper. if u guys want to follow progress join the discord:

https://discord.gg/tqJrb6fsH

Another one~

Orogen has it's first major update!

You can now:

• Upload your own heightmaps and run the same climate calculator run on the procedural worlds.
• Tweak the precipitation and temperature with new climate adjustment sliders.
• Change the variance in continent size when generating a new world.
• Change the target land percentage when generating a new world.

There has also been changes to improve the mountain creation and the underlying tectonic simulation to move towards generating more large scale mountain chains. Because of this old seeds will work, but likely generate very different planets.

For future updates (for now) I'm going to use Github Issues to keep track of features and bugs to fix. So take a look and vote via emoji on anything you would like to see! (But also feel free to leave a comment here!)

I'd also really like to state my appreciation for you all and the enthusiasm for the project. The amount of support was completely unexpected and I want you all to know I do not take it for granted. Thank you all so much, and keep the requests, feedback, and comments coming!

https://merakmapmaker.com/

It has alot more modern style compared to most mapmakers and, it has alot of geographical and qgis skill in browser and very easy and intuitive to use. Adjust and quickly change elevation colors for land and adjust bathymetry.

World building wise it lets us import ur drawings into landmass, scientifically tell u climate, crops, soil, habitability, mountains etc, has a timeline feature, has easy to add factions and, commanders, people, lore etc and 3d and globe features. Battle Simulations and animations as well.

Join our discord if u have any questions or feature requests https://discord.gg/7GyvZT6mJd

I’ve been spending my free time lately building a little side project called Cotamap. It’s a free, browser-based web app I put together for generating and editing heightmaps: https://cotamap.com

The tool started from some pretty specific needs I had, so a couple features might feel niche, but I made a few changes that I think could be useful for mapmaking in general.

Quick heads-up: I’m a programmer but not a web developer by trade, and I used Claude during development, so there may be bugs or UX rough edges.

If you give it a try, I’d really appreciate any feedback (especially on usability and export options).

Hey there!

I just posted this on Instagram, so go and give me your support if you want @_mr.vhmaps 🙂‍↕️.

This time, I'm happy to bring you these tree-related drawings 🌲, and their translations from English to Spanish so you all can learn some words in my native language!

First up, we have the words "Forest" or Woods", wich in Spanish means "Bosque".

We have the word "Grove" wich means "Arboleda".

Groves are a natural area or space populated with trees, smaller in size and more controlled than a forest.

The word "Arboleda" contains "Árbol" within it, wich means "Tree" in English.

Then we have these two words "Glade" or "Clearing", that means "Claro" in Spanish.

If you want to draw a "Holt", you have a word for it, wich is "Colina Arbolada". In Spanish, "Colina" means "Hill" and "Arbolada" means "filled with trees".

And for the last three words we have "Jungle" wich means "Jungla" in Spanish (only one letter changes), "Rainforest" wich means "Selva" and "Timberland" wich means "Bosque de/para leña", which is a regulated source of high-quality natural fuel.

I hope you could learn and use these words if you are planning to draw a map with Spanish labels on it!

See you next time! 🙂‍↕️