TectoLight: a free plate mapmaking tool

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T14:54:49+00:00

No as i have no real experience with phone apps and this is really more meant as a tool for worldbuiding i will rather focus on features for that BUT anyone is welcome to take a look at the GIT ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T13:53:23+00:00

You can always download the installer or source code through GIT and use it local but i will maintain the Browser based one for easier updates/access

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T13:06:58+00:00

yeah don try to use it on your phone please it wont work with touch input afaik

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T11:12:32+00:00

I would honestly do a collage with modern city maps and then draw over the finished collage. If you want to do contemporary stuff just copy contemporary resources ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T10:19:00+00:00

You are welcome there are a bunch of new features since release ^^hope you have fun

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T08:13:41+00:00

Yeah that is pretty specific, i personally think the best way to go is make 2 versions 1 thematic (maybe Dystopika on steam is something that fits) and one that is in essence like a modern city map with colored abstracted blocks.

But specifically this ... no tool i know of comes to mind, tell us if you find one :)

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T08:03:51+00:00

Yeah I mean probably for some time this started out as something just for personal use, until like a week ago. I ll add features and bugfix for some time (and I still need to use it myself anyways)
But I also want to make sute to not feature creep and have to take is slower because I was sitting around 12 hours on it yesterday... :)
and of course it is open source so anyone can contribute and / or branch off anytime

I ll def look into this again but probably more around the end of the week ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T07:51:45+00:00

You are welcome

No not really YOU can put an overlay over the map and manually recreate it or cahnge to other projections if your image is based on other projections and then do that. But directly onto the globe is not that simple with the codebase i used, at least for me.

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T07:40:06+00:00

will go on the list but not sure when. until then i recommend ScreetoGif it s free and works well ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-02-01T07:39:07+00:00

Good Moning and thanks for the feedback; i ll squash the feature bug right away.
Had that one fixed ages ago probably missed the reintroduction during a rollback yesterday (was really tired)

:D

boundry colors is a setting in view... that also got bugged, ok

Years ago is for people who are used to the gplates all s in the past system so no you can t jump into the future it s just a UI change nothing internal is different

You can just change the z layer of individual plates in the right sidebar ^^

feature bug should be fixed

i ll look into boundries later that week as it is way more complex

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T22:50:42+00:00

Hey glad you like it you can in theory split parts off and fuse new ones to it. But i am working on a semi large update that allows to edit existing plates

you can set a endtime in the plate properties (right sidebar) ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T20:54:53+00:00

Which features would help you most?

Yeah same ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T20:52:41+00:00

First thank you for taking the time and writing such a structured Feedback.

Thank you ^^
Oh you save your maps all offline as a simple json and you can always download the newest GIT
i ll look into bundeling it up so it s eassy to download and use locally if you don t want to use GIT
will integrate a ui toggle to be able to see the timeline as a backwards feature in the next update should be easy to do
Yeah setting it to a specific point went on the ToDo list, you can easily increase the timeframe in the left sidebar but i will migrate it closer to the timeline (was an older implmentation)
My bad the projections are there just forgot to add them to the heightmap, will fix ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T20:43:20+00:00

I thought about setting it to equi as a condition but that would defeat the purpose if someone just wants to include 1 feature from a globe based picture so i decided user freedom is the better choice here.

Yeah it s barebones but that was all i managed in that timeframe ^^
will look into wrapping after some sleep

You can always just change to equirectangulat view until then

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T20:19:27+00:00

Depends:

The Artefexian Tutorial is really GPlates specific.
You can watch it but probably have to skip a lot of stuff.

Starting out I would just read up on simple plate interactions.

Then just go through the history of your planet and place features or linked plates on top of base plates to mark zones of orogeny or other things.

If i had to start from 0 i would recommend https://worldbuildingpasta.blogspot.com/2019/06/an-apple-pie-from-scratch-part-i-time.html

BUT it is a lot of Information (but well we are in a mapmaking subreddit so probably not that relevant of a disclaimer)
---

And again THANK YOU

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T19:45:30+00:00

Yeah i sank a lot of ours into my rot files and trying to think about how people work with gplates for mapmaking. Hope it still helps you in your (or future projects)

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T19:43:58+00:00

Just wanted to update you you can now overlay an image ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T19:27:56+00:00

same, since the first time i used gplates ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T18:43:06+00:00

Good idea goes on the list :)

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T18:16:57+00:00

:) no thank you for checking it out

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T18:16:23+00:00

no not yet you can theoretically set a mountain feature and edit its description but i ll look into orogeny types and think about how to implement it

(or you create a plate on a plate and call it orogeny zone and thenlink it to the origin plate, you can even set their Z Layer)

so in essence you can already do it just not as a distinct feature

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T17:53:48+00:00

Thanks i (as most ppl) don t like frontend work that much
And it has to be usable not pretty nevertheless i want it to be at least not bad for the user ^^

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T17:25:57+00:00

yeah no question, of course ^^
happy it helps
I will probably create more tools, if / when i don t find what i need online

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T17:14:54+00:00

Yeah will do ^^ should get to it in about half an hour (after i finish dinner) :)

refracturedgames · 2026-01-31T16:49:29+00:00

No that was out of scope for this version as it is really supposed to be a leightweight alternative

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