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Worldbuilding
Jun. 15th, 2025 11:32 pmHow to Color Your Map Using SCIENCE!
Sketching out a map for a setting can be a lot of fun. Drawing a map gives you a bird’s-eye view of the world, a way to spatially organize plot arcs, and can be a great piece of artwork in its own right. But like most works of fiction, the creator should remember to keep it as believable as possible. This might be less important or less possible for unrecognizably alien worlds. Maps of Earth-like settings, however, can benefit from following some basic rules. Forests, tundras, deserts and plains don’t appear arbitrarily. These biomes are located where they are on Earth due to the way air and water circulate in the atmosphere – and any Earth-like world should follow the same basic rules for its atmosphere that Earth does.
But who wants to spend time researching atmospheric science just to know which parts of their map to color green, brown, or beige? Well, I do, so let me save you some trouble by relaying what I’ve learned.
( Read more... )
Sketching out a map for a setting can be a lot of fun. Drawing a map gives you a bird’s-eye view of the world, a way to spatially organize plot arcs, and can be a great piece of artwork in its own right. But like most works of fiction, the creator should remember to keep it as believable as possible. This might be less important or less possible for unrecognizably alien worlds. Maps of Earth-like settings, however, can benefit from following some basic rules. Forests, tundras, deserts and plains don’t appear arbitrarily. These biomes are located where they are on Earth due to the way air and water circulate in the atmosphere – and any Earth-like world should follow the same basic rules for its atmosphere that Earth does.
But who wants to spend time researching atmospheric science just to know which parts of their map to color green, brown, or beige? Well, I do, so let me save you some trouble by relaying what I’ve learned.
( Read more... )
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