planet surface texture seam
khobar95_aca528e7cf
Posts: 0
I created a sphere and added a "Venus surface" texture. The results really impressed me (I'm just beginning), but I'm curious about the seam. Is there a way to get rid of it?
The map is a rectangle, and the sphere is, well, a sphere. I assume I need to convert the map in some way?
The map in question is: http://www.max3dnn.narod.ru/textures/venus_map.jpg
Thanks!
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Comments
Try setting the mapping mode to Cylindrical - should fix the seam problem but will distort the poles.
Nice - I had added a cloud layer and using your suggestion really makes it pop. Thank you.
Looking good!. Glad it worked...
If you have a rectangular map with aspect ratio 2:1, this is usually a spherical projection (like a world map). You would map it Spherical around a sphere to get it without distortions and seam. Unfortunately, sometimes you get a one pixel wide equator line, which is a known and reported bug. You can use Parametric in this case, the map is offset by 90 degrees, just rotate sphere by X -90° to adjust. Cylindrical is ok, there is no seam but it is vertically distorted.
And yes, it looks good. This is the false-colour radar map of Venus, if I'm not mistaken. Here, nobody notices the distortion.
Thanks very much. Horo - it started as Venus, but I composited Mars with it and then added a bit of water.
Since I'm not working with recognizable land masses, distortion isn't a problem. It was the seam that was the problem. I've now used the cylinder for both the surface and cloud layers and am quite pleased. ;)
I do seem to have another issue, this time with lighting. I used Sky Lab to place the "sun" and it seems I'm getting some extra light from somewhere (see attached).
I noticed it was there from the very beginning and I thought it was caused by the "default" light. But it seems to be more than that.
Make sure you have Ambient off for the material on the planet.
I have ambient set to "0".
Planet surface settings are all "0" except for "DIFFUSION" which is set to 100
Cloud settings are all "0" except "DIFFUSION" (100) and "TRANSPARENCY" which I've set to 50 and then 100.
In the original, setting TRANSPARENT to 100 resulted in the black areas of the cloud jpg becoming transparent.
In the second attempt, setting TRANSPARENT to 100 resulted in the entire cloud jpg becoming transparent.
In the attached pic, 1 and 2 are Planet attempt1 with the cloud layer set at 50 and 100 Transparency, resp. 3 and 4 are from my Planet attempt 2 once again with Transparency set to 50 and 100 resp. The sun is in a different position and the two planet projects are at different angles, etc. but the textures should be exactly the same in each.
So why the different results?
Maybe the sun is set to visible - at least picture 4 looks as if it were. How about haze?
Yes, sun is visible - when I switch off the sun I get only a black disk - I don't think that's the issue.
Okay, I started from scratch again - created a new document, deleted the ground plane, changed background to starfield (turned off the stars), added a sphere, added a "Mars" texture, moved sun to some location. Results looks as I'd expect.
Added a new sphere, larger than the first. Changed texture to cloud type "Pink Mist". The results are interesting - this should be a clue as to what's going on I hope.
I tried "Purple Haze" instead of "Pink Mist" and the clouds go away completely. Hmm, many of the included cloud patterns don't show - that's weird.
khobar95,
Good work!
A very nice atmosphere effect can be had by using the the settings below.
Duplicate the planet sphere and increase its size to about 101%.
Change the new sphere's material settings to the ones shown below.
By the way, the planet's material is mapped in parametric mode.
Bryce isn't too good at making very fine starfields, but that's ok. It's more fun to look online and find some high resolution scans of deep space skies. Then apply that texture to a giant sphere that encloses your planet (and camera) and light it creatively. Or use the sun and set it to cast no shadows so that it can shine through your "space sky" sphere.
What you are seeing is the curvature of the sphere the clouds are drawn upon. You have created a second sphere on top of the planetary surface that is being used for clouds. It allows light to pass easily from one side to the other because it is not solid like the planet surface sphere is. So in theory what you are seeing is correct. The answer is to make the larger sphere slightly smaller. This way the planet will occlude more of the clouds from sunlight.
The real cloud layers of Earth apparently hug the surface much tighter than we imagine when building our scenes.
Thank you all for the comments. I very much appreciate them.
After much experimenting I believe that at least part of the problem is with how Bryce handles transparency of the second sphere, or how I telling Bryce to handle it.
For the below picture I used Earth. The cloud layer is using transparency set to 100 (otherwise I don't see any of the planet layer beneath). Note that my cloud layer is just a NASA jpeg image downloaded from the net. There is no extra light - it's coming from the "sun".
I wish I was home right now, I have made planets several times and found solutions to these issues. Make sure shadow casting is enabled for the cloud sphere, and also make sure sure the clouds are not set to "additive" or "light." I will pop in later with more info. But rest assured, what you need is possible, very possible. You will get the shading you are looking for.
Thank you. I like the idea of the giant sphere for the space sky - interesting.
I'm getting completely different results from you using your settings. I get no visible cloud layer. ????
Are you using any material for the cloud layer?
Thank you. I just hope I'm not doing something really silly. ;)
I've reviewed some past scenes and found only one real solution. First, everything should cast shadows and receive shadows in the normal manner. This includes both the solid planetary surface and the blend transparent cloud sphere. The secret is that the second sphere really must fit the solid sphere tightly as a second skin almost.
Technically, Bryce is not doing it wrong in your first upload (not the last upload, which is showing some other problem). In the first upload there is a secondary ring of sorts on what should be the shaded side of the planet. I explained that the ring you are seeing is technically accurate, because if clouds were as high above the ground in real life as they are in our artistic renders they actually might receive light from the sun even on the shaded side of the planet. So it seems Bryce handles the issue with such purity, that we have to keep it simple and keep it tight.
It is tempting to want to see shadows from the cloud layer visible on the planet surface when viewed from space, but alas that is not usually the case except for closer shots.
Best of luck!
Rashad is sending you in the correct direction.
The cloud sphere must match the planet sphere as close as possible. If your planet is, say, 250.100 units in size, then your cloud sphere should be 250.105 units big (any closer and you may start to see weird material interactions).
At these remote distances from the planet, it is not essential for the cloud sphere to cast shadows - but it is essential for it to receive shadows and for the planet to cast shadows. The light sourse must have shadow casting enabled.
.
It's cloudy over Hull again.
I have started from scratch again. I will try to reproduce this project to be sure, but I *think* I've got it working - thanks!
From the Materials Lab drop-down I clicked on "Normal" and "Additive" and set the transparency to 100. Oddly, when I retest with my Mars I had to set this to 0 to make it come out right. ??? I must be overlooking something - so I will continue working on this.
The outer sphere is 0.05 units larger than the inner sphere.
This is what I got:
khobar95,
As you may have surmised, and to answer your question, yes...the cloud layer is a second sphere. So the first sphere is the planet texture and the second sphere is the atmosphere effect, and the third sphere is the cloud layer. As I stated before, and as the others have said, the cloud and atmosphere layers must hug the planet tightly, like a second skin in order to look realistic. This can be done by simply duplicating the planet sphere and changing its size to 101%, that way you have a new sphere that is 1% bigger than the planet and centered perfectly on it. Then all you have to do is change the texture or material.
The next step is to make a bump map (not technically needed actually) and a specularity map to make the oceans shiny and the land not shiny. But play around with what you've learned so far and we can get to those later.
My finished planet.
I played around with this, after grabbing an earth texture off google. I think I fiddled with shadows too much, but essentially its 3 nested spheres, the planet is 100 units, the cloud is 102 and the atmosphere is 105 (less and it wouldn't show)