fazool said:Ummm actually no.One of the premises of this thread (and the referncec page on gameworld design you linked) is that river islands are only small.
I grew up in a huge famous river with seven islands.
The St. Lawrence is known as Thousand Islands. There are so many large river islands you can't even Google an answer
No where in the quote block you included in your post was there anything about "river islands are only small". Regardless, you're claim that the OP is wrong on all points is simply... wrong.
Trasak said:Btw I do not read "No river loops" as saying no river islands but rather that a river cannot flow into itself in a loop which is true as the water will settle to an even water level and will cease to flow and therefor is no longer a river but rather a lake. We will ignore inflow and out flow stream that only maintain water level and do not contribute to bed depth fluid flow.
That is how I interpreted the whole "no river loops" thing as well.
As I said my response is to the wiki page the OP referenced as his source material. Go read that.
More importantly, of course I agree water should flow downhill for realism. My other point is that you don't know it isn't flowing downhill because you can't see the elevation an dtopography from the map.
Perhaps there is a canyon descending northwards through the mountain range the ascends northward.
BTW, I am arguing this point but I do appreciate the strive for realism. In fact when I was in LM beta, I argued vociferously against aspect raiots and scaling of the Z-axis in topographical features for just this reason.
So I do appreciate the debate.
fazool said:Tylee said:...Rivers usually start at mountains and end in the ocean. They always move along the easiest available path from high elevation to low. They should never flow parralel to mountains and hills.
Rivers rarely completely cross a continent or other landmass; they NEVER start in the same body of water they empty into.
Rivers never form loops. If they appear to, these are actually ring-shaped lakes.
Rivers always join together as they flow toward the sea; they never branch out.
I'm pretty sure you are completely wrong on every point.
And you are making assumptions about elevation changes without knowing anything about those.
Your statements declare absolute "rules" and there are exceptions to everyone of those.
Well there are no exceptions to these laws because everything in them is simply a consequence of gravity . I don't see where you found exceptions .
- Rivers always start at a high elevation (e.g hills , mountains) and end in the sea unless they dry out along their course .
- Rivers never cross from one ocean to another (consequence of the above) . A thin water body seeming to cross a land mass is simply the sea itself or a man made channel (f.ex Panama)
- Rivers never form closed loops . They may form river islands but this is not a loop because the flow goes in the same direction on both sides of the island .
- Rivers never branch out and lakes have always a single outlet . Here the exception are deltas .
It seems to me that the OP rather correctly described the laws that govern water flows , erosion and their consequences on cartography . There are more of such laws but these are absolutely correct .
There may be some oddball exceptions but in general (and perhaps totally) Tylee got it right.
Deadshade said:...- Rivers always start at a high elevation (e.g hills , mountains) and end in the sea unless they dry out along their course .
- Rivers never cross from one ocean to another (consequence of the above) . A thin water body seeming to cross a land mass is simply the sea itself or a man made channel (f.ex Panama)
- Rivers never form closed loops . They may form river islands but this is not a loop because the flow goes in the same direction on both sides of the island .
- Rivers never branch out and lakes have always a single outlet . Here the exception are deltas .
It seems to me that the OP rather correctly described the laws that govern water flows , erosion and their consequences on cartography . There are more of such laws but these are absolutely correct .
Your summary was well stated
In general the op is right however their are plenty of examples which do not follow the norm.
4 lakes in Finland the Vesijako, Lummene, Isojarvi and Inhottu drain in two different directions.
Also nearer to my home Isa lake in yellowstone national park drains into two seperate oceans Gulf of Mexico part of the atlantic via firehole river and the pacific ocean via the lewis river.
Looking out my window the upperpack river is flowing parallel to the mountain range.
There is a river in antartica that flows uphill as well under the ice.