Satellite Style Mapping for Ultra Realism

[ElighaN]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and I was wondering if there was a tutorial for making a realistic looking map that I could turn into a sphere and make a space animation via Photoshop? I've already made a map but I'm not quite sure if it looks like how it would appear from space if I was to animate it like this.



This is the map I am working with, I believe It is good, but as I've said it isn't the proper style for my needs at the moment.

Thank you to all who view this and especially to all who reply!

[waldronate]

I recommend learning about map projections if you're not familiar with the subject. Map Projections: Contents is an excellent resource.

What sort of animation are you trying to do? a flyby or more of a spinning-in-place thing?

[EricPoehlsen]

Hmm on first look I'd say it is a torus-world

So the map you made could be projected onto a torus but not really on a sphere ...

[ElighaN]

I'm sorry, as I've said, I'm new to this really. Most of the terminology I'm clueless by. I'm not sure if it would look good as a torus, I'm trying to make it a planet after all. I am however having trouble with the planet not aligning the image properly on the poles, so if anyone knows a work around for that I'd be grateful!

I am trying to make a spinning globe and have a moon spin around it as well. I'd like to maybe animate the stars too, but that is a after thought.

Another problem I have is if I'm making a fantasy world I need to make my own moon so that it looks more like a fantasy world instead of a fantasy planet with earths moon next to it. I know I don't need to make the moon in detail but I'd like to possibly for effect. Does anyone know how to make a fantasy map of a moon?

[EricPoehlsen]

The map you created does not fit onto a sphere. As waldronate pointed out, you should look into the matter of spherical projections.

The easiest way, to create a map that can be projected onto a sphere, is to not have landmasses extend to/over the edges.

[ElighaN]

Is there a way that I can turn it into a image capable of morphing into a spherical mesh that could save me all of my work? I originally assumed that because I had offset the image around the edges to make sure that the land masses wouldn't be cut off that it would be able to become a sphere.

I still would really like to do this, and I can edit it a bit, but I've been working on editing maps of this shaped world for about a year now. So I wouldn't want to change it too much! I'll stop doing things with the map until I've gotten all of your open ions just to be safe!

[waldronate]

A spherical map would generally be offset on the left and right edges; when it has the left/right and top/bottom pairs contiguous that it achieves toroidal topology. There isn't a good way to map from a torus to a sphere, unfortunately. That said, you only have the one polar continent. Accepting damage to that one (including splitting it into two continents) should allow you to get a workable sphere.

[EricPoehlsen]

A planet has a north and a south pole, while the map has to continue in east-west direction, it does not connect in north-south direction.

The easiest way to project a plane to a sphere is a cylindrical procection, so as a sphere changes its circumference with every degree you go north or south of the equator, the map gets squished. so the complete first and last line of pixels are collapsed into a single point ...

The following graphic illustrates the concept ...



There are two ways to salvage your map ...

A.) remove the northern and southern continents

B.) extend them, so that they span the full polar region

[ElighaN]

Thank you very much for your help! I suppose I will expand the land then! The people will have more room to roam anyway.

PS. In the second picture, the one of the oval map, would the mesh work if I used that shape as the image? If so can I morph my map like this easily?

[EricPoehlsen]

The lower picture shows, what happens to your rectangular image, when it is projected onto the globe.