Welcome to my world

[Carm3D]

Hi.. Here's a world map I just finished modeling. I am going to wrap it into a sphere to make it a globe.

It's all sub-D and took me about 3 days to model. I added a displacement texture for this render to make it a little more interesting looking.

[richwave]

I think it looks great - but where's Ireland ? :D

[Carm3D]

Woopsie!!

Well that's why they call it a work in progress, right? I also gotta cut through the UK with one of those slits.

Thanks for pointing that out.

[Carm3D]

Here's the globe wrapped into a sphere... Wee!

[Carm3D]

Here's a partial turntable animation (1 MB)

Spinning globe (http://www.carm3d.net/Globe_Viewer.htm)

[renatolazzaroni]

It looks great !
The dark bronze metal texture of the plates is what looks best.
I have one comment, though, about the sides of the plates. They look different than the tops. It seems there is texture stretching there.

Renato

[starbase1]

I have to agree - the metal texture is brilliant. A spinning globe for a logo was in great danger of being a cliche, but this is very good indeed.

Nick

[dwburman]

yeah, I like the texture... over all it looks pretty cool. I'd be happy with it either as a client or an artist.

I have to ask... How did you wrap it into a sphere?

[Carm3D]

> I have to ask... How did you wrap it into a sphere?

Well, I started with this.

PDF Map (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world_maps/world_ref802632_1999.pdf)

It's scalable, so I took many screenshots and pieced together one huge image. But hey! There's a problem. The longitude lines are all warped! So I modeled a grid that followed the flow of the longitude lines, mapped the image on the grid and made a morph map that straightens out the vertical lines. render and same as image for tracing.

then I modeled it.. blah blah blah... 3 long days of modeling.. blah blah..

After modeling, I added geometry at the very top of the world and the very bottom.. Two segmented strips that will eventually be curled up to form the north and south poles. (These actually are just a bit outside of the existing map... I found this out later via trial and error)

So I took the object, and made a morph map called Sphere. This way I can still keep the flat version for image mapping possibilities.

I used the bend tool, dragging it upwards in the top view. This bent the object along the equator (laditude lines). I bent it a perfect 180 degrees. Handy tip: set your grid snap to 1m or higher to avoid accidentally moving left or right during the bend.. You'll want only a perfect upwards motion. When the north and south pole geometry were parallel and the bend factor was 180 degrees, I knew it was perfect.

then I got my perfect half-cyllinder shape and bent it again in another view. This part was trickier. Theoretically, the north and south pole geometry would curl to a perfectly straight line. But getting there took some futzing about. I moved the map around, trying different starting points.. eventually I ended up bending it 360 degrees, undo-ing, adding slight offsets for the center points and doing it again. all the while watching those pole strips. eventually I got them to shape into tiny cyllinders.. Close enough! I think I wrapped it the second time around seven times.

Don't forget you'll need to set subdivision order to last once you morph it in Layout.

Later.

[dwburman]

thanks for the info.
Again, it looks good.
Dana

[Carm3D]

Thank you Dana.. There is more to see in the Finished Work (http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9278) thread.

[sammael]

looks good, nice texturing. :)