Hi again,

So last time I showed the different types of macrostructured mountains I built in the last year, or some of them atleast. Now actually building it is something different and in this guide I am going to use the second macrostructure "In-Depth".

To make it actually seem nice like with "Flow" it is important to use the environment clever, or to build it clever to be precise. Different secondary structures should affect each other on a larger scale.


As an explanation, the red and blue wool indicate secondary "flow" lines, dark wool when a line stops because of others and green ones indicate the moment 2 lines fuse, and yes, the 2 red ones fuse there to the spike, so you could also consider the spike the green wool maybe.

To know what there is and to know why I did this are 2 different things though, for the explanation you need one more thing, the direction. You need some direction while building. For me it is from the top to the bottom most of the time when i start and i complete it with either way later.

With the direction comes an order of importance. Lines that go from the top to the bottom are higher than other ones. So I am going to use another wool colour for 'unimportant' flow lines in this picture. (and added another one, sry xD)


Now why are those lines not as important? Because for one you can see they start on the bottom and I decided for this build to place more importance for lines thar start on the top of the mountain. Furthermore I also decided to higher the importance of inward lines (the blue ones), thats why the red line stops on the left side. When you build a mountain you should stick to your own little ruleset in an area.

Usually my "ruleset" involves:
-starting point of the secondary structure
-intensity
-continuity (for example a little river that spans over the whole map)
-type of structure (river over everything for example)

But it can involve other things too or have something as history of the place or manmade structures dominate it.

Now this was some very theoretical talk and sry for that xD

The next part is about actually building those on a larger scale. One way I often like to end lines are spikes. But there is gonna be another guide later on spikes and pillars so thats for later.
In general no matter how you build the most striking features are gonna be the edges. Those are sometimes even more important than your primary structures, especially if the area behind it is darker.


Now not only the frontview matters. Side views are important too, so you have to keep your mountains in shape :P
I know this is not perfect because the inside is still in works but it is just an example, green wool for new points you need to look after.


So now that this is clear there are other things you have to take a look at. You should not only vary the steepness of the primary structures as I said in one of the first guides but need to look at bigger areas too.



In this picture I marked very steep areas in yellow and rather flat areas in gray. For variation of features these areas could even be said to be an important structure. Just as with every other structure you need to take a look at how spread out these are.

The difference between this and other structures is that you can use points where for example many flat areas are as a special point in your mountain.



For example here I used this to make an area with many small flat areas so that it is able to make a small path along it. Usually you should try to use these areas at different heights as to not make it too repetitive again.

I know this is not the best representation so if you have questions just ask. The most important thing here is that these lines are not striaght. Atleast that is what I expecienced. You can kinda count these outlines as another line in in the earlier pictures you have to involve. And just like secondary structures you need to pay attention to their shape.

Link to the next part!

I hope this was a help to you and as always if you have any questions or maybe want me to make a guide on something else in terraforming then just ask :P

Im also part of the DurinsBuilders Building Team and as expected focusing on smoothing all the terra there xD We are also looking for new members (and I am looking for terraformer to help me xD) who want to join us. Go over to their side to see how to apply.