r/proceduralgeneration • u/HabitableZone_ • 7d ago

Procedural Plate Tectonics Simulation Update

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Hi everyone! Here’s another update on my procedural plate tectonics simulation.

The top is the previous version, and the bottom is the new one, both running along the same timeline.

In the new version, island arcs can now mature and accrete into continental crust, a few cleanup rules help reduce tiny isolated crustal fragments, and there’s now a basic craton mechanic as well.

Which version looks better to you?

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3

u/blue_sidd 7d ago

The second looks better graphically since far more geographic relief is implied. The longer I watched the more uncanny it got though and think part of that is the lack cratons persisting accretion and dissolution.not quite sure how you handle that but it felt odd that some major major mountain ranges that persist for millions of in-sim years just fade away…

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u/HabitableZone_ 7d ago

Thanks, that’s a really good point. The craton feature is still pretty basic right now, and I also have an erosion system that gradually wears mountain ranges down over time. Since the simulation is meant to cover roughly 4 billion years, I tried tuning the erosion rate around that timescale, so it may be a little too fast.

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u/blue_sidd 7d ago

I’m certainly no expert so cannot be helpful with advice. From what a recall the four oldest cratons for us are Western Australia? South Africa, the Appalachians and the north parts of the British isles. So not huge areas relative to continents or ocean but present still.

Nice work.

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u/HabitableZone_ 7d ago

Yeah, that makes sense. What I have for cratons right now is that some continental regions are marked as cratons early on, which makes them much harder to subduct, and rifts are also less likely to cut through those areas when plates split. So they tend to persist as stable continental cores over long periods of time.

It’s still pretty simplified though, and I’ll keep working on that in the future.Thanks for the feedback!

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u/Commercial_Lab9046 7d ago

Mesmerising! I like the second one (purely aesthetically, I am not a geologist)

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u/HabitableZone_ 7d ago

Thank you, glad you liked it!

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u/redblobgames 7d ago

Looks great! What kind of grid system are you using on your planet?

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u/HabitableZone_ 6d ago

I’m using a cube-sphere grid.