Welcome to the World Machine experience
This is probably not the core issue, but it can hamper the natural transition from flatland to mountains, so I suggest loosening this constraint a bit.
But now onto the generation of mountains. This is not something that can be one with one device. The Advanced Perlin
can do a lot, but it can’t create mountain ranges. What I suggest you do instead, is to think “how are mountain ranges actually created in real life”, and emulate that.
IRL, mountain ranges are the result of hydraulic erosion, so water/rivers carving their way into the rock, and then often thermal erosion creates the nice valleys and foothills we all love, as it gets rid of steep cliffs. In WM, we can achieve this using two/three devices. We start of course with a base terrain, for which an Advance Perlin
is well suited.
Image 1: Base terrain
The first method is the low resolution Erosion
+ old version Thermal Weathering
combo. In this combination we won’t really use the output of the Erosion
device, but instead use the Flow mask
to carve out the water channels. Then, using the old version of the Thermal Weathering
device, we can carve out the valleys. This is essentially the core of my Valley Cut
macro.
Image 2: Using the low resolution
Erosion
+ old version of the
Thermal Weathering
method.
The second method is creating a proper water system, using the Flow Restructure
and Create Water
devices, then carve the rivers out, and again, use the old versions of the Thermal Weathering
device to create the valleys.
Image 3: Carving out rivers, then using the old version of the
Thermal Weathering
device.
As you can see, both methods create valleys, just looking a bit differently. The first method, is quick and easy to implement, but in the end, the second method leaves a lot more room for customisation and can lead to procedurally generated mountain ranges of high quality.
I hope this helps you a bit, and if you have anymore questions, please let me know!
The basic-mountain-ranges-with-valleys.tmd (138.1 KB) file in case you (or others) are interested!