Hello... I am new to this thread and I have not read through it. Instead I just went to your atlas home page to see if it had what I was looking for. I have been interested in coming up my own terrain generator myself because I want one that is really realistic. You, like myself are a map nut. There may be one difference: I have an extensive background in geology and a significant background in climate (I am an earth/space science teacher and this was one of my majors in college).
My whole point in coming up with a map generator were to make these aspects of the map more realistic.
Before I make a comment, I am going to inform you that I am not here to criticize, I am here to join the team or have you join mine or at least put my two cents worth in so that I can be pointed in the right direction for what I want to do. With that said here goes:
I really like what I have seen of your generator so far, but I have to say that from your screenshots and your map legend, they do not accomplish the goal I want to accomplish.
First of all, mountains don't occur at random as they seem to on your map. They do not occur alone either except in rare occasions. Mountains occur in groups (ranges) and most often they occur between 100 and 800 miles of coast line. There is a good geologic reason for this. The only time mountain ranges occur in the middle of continents is when you get continent-continent plate collisions (which has happened in asia at least twice but that seems to be the only place).
Second: desert locations on ALL map generators I have seen so far are NOT positioned correctly. Here are the guidelines of placing deserts that I will use (and you should if you want them correctly done and I do not "join the team" so to speak):
Keep in mind that much of this has to do with planetary spin. If the earth revolved the other way, the opposite would be true:
1. Deserts almost NEVER happen on east coasts, because coastal moisture tends to come in from the (equator-ward) east except at northern latitudes where they come in from the (equator-ward) west. The ONLY exception to has to do with mountains: see below.
2. The EQUATOR: deserts ONLY happen along the equator if something causes dry conditions or prevents moisture from reaching the land. I noticed that on most of your balanced maps (water and land) that your deserts are occuring along the equator. Most of the time, unless water cannot get to the area, tropical rain forests appear in this region.
3. THE MOST COMMON LATITUDES FOR DESERTS are between 20 and 30 degrees both north and south latitudes. The reason for this is that a global high pressure zone exists here (except in oceans... but even there it is higher than usual).
4. Mountains: Mountains can cause deserts INLAND from an ocean (called the leewards side). A desert will NEVER occur between an ocean and a mountain range as long as that mountain range is within a couple hundred miles of coast. Mountains are the ONLY thing that will prevent far-spread moisture along east coasts. Moutains (and that lack of a large equator-ward east coast) are the primary cause of the huge desert in the middle of Australia.
Third, there are a few other climate discrepancies but these are not as significant as the Desert issue.
Basically... my ideal map generator would include a geology generator and a climate generator (based on a ocean current generator) AND a drainage system generator to make a realistic map. If this is something you are interested in, let me know. It would also place mineral resources based on the geologic and drainage generators. I was originally intending to place my map generator in the SDK but I can see the advantage of writing it in Java. Good Idea... but could you use my help, or is this a little more than you want? (If not, I will simply do it my own way... no worries).
