Earth with Hi-Res textures

[MMZ_TimeLord]

This was done in V13 Alpha 4...

 

There was a boo-boo when I attempted a 2048x1536 render last night... I'll post both let you figure out which is which.

 

But before you see the finished works, take a look at my project window... note the texture sizes involved here.

 

(And, no, I don't think I can reproduce what happened... I'm clueless. It occured both render to file and in the chor window until I restarted A:M)

 

I will attempt to re-render at 2048x1536 or higher tonight and post the results.

[KenH]

This could be the difinitive earth model on an extra cd. Good work.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Thanks for the comment Ken... I'll be happy to donate the project. A little tweaking left to do, but I'll post again when I'm finished and I'll put the project up on Hash's FTP (incoming directory) if they want.

[Gene]

Very odd as to what happened, but the final render is great!

 

Thanks for offering it up.

 

Eugene

[MattWBradbury]

You could put your earth in the star field from Julian. I don't know if it works in these newer versions.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Here's the rub to putting this on ANYTHING that hash will be providing WITH it's product or to promote it's product.

 

The site where I got my initial images is:

 

http://www.space-graphics.com

 

This run by a graphics hobby artist in Italy.

 

The 'Rub' comes here.

 

So, Hash Inc. would have to work out the legalities of putting his older and lower resolution bitmaps in the provided project for general consumption.

 

I have used them to date with no problems because it's for personal use. Putting them into even a 'Bonus CD' that anyone can download but also comes as part of the product would be a 'Business' use.

 

I am now saddened...

[Julian]

Most of the image maps can be obtained from NASA. As works of the U.S. government, they're all in the public domain.

 

Color map, 20K resolution, at various months of the year.

Clouds, 8K resolution.

City lights, up to 30K resolution.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Thanks for the search on that Julian, I was at work (oops four letter word there! ) and didn't have time to dig into it any further.

 

I'll see about getting the NASA ones to work for the project too... Thanks for the links!

 

EDIT: Funny, after looking over this catalog again, I realized that I have the city lights at 30k and the clouds at 8192 already and that is what was used (although I sized down the city lights some).

 

I'll grab one of the color JPGs (or maybe all of them!) and include those in my project along with a readme to give credit to NASA!

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Quick update...

 

I got all the images I need to create the set for the project. I've given up on trying to find totally free images that are ready for putting on a globe at the resolutions I want (up to 4096x1536).

 

So, I'm going to make royalty, license free ones (with the appropriate Terms of Use agreements from NASA and the National Geophysical Data Center, yes I checked they just want credit for the original data) just for all the Hasher's out there... okay everyone else too... but just this once.

 

I've already gotten the displacement/bump map converted from a colored topographical map. Now I've got to color the oceans properly from another image from the Visible Earth site and last, create the specular image.

 

Then, I'll re-render this thing, make multiple projects with different times of the year, and resolution targets and zip it all up and send it to Hash (if they still want it for the next extras CD).

[Rodney]

Then, I'll re-render this thing, make multiple projects with different times of the year, and resolution targets and zip it all up and send it to Hash (if they still want it for the next extras CD).

 

That will indeed be perfect for the Extra CD.

[Julian]

I've already gotten the displacement/bump map converted from a colored topographical map. Now I've got to color the oceans properly from another image from the Visible Earth site and last, create the specular image.

I didn't realize there were two Earth Observatory pages with the monthly global images. This page has the complete global maps in 5K and 21K resolution, and if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there's also a readymade grayscale topographic map. You can also get the bathymetric map and use the black regions as a specularity map for the oceans.

 

Are you getting the ocean colors from the original 2002 Blue Marble map that includes sea ice? The disadvantage of the 2002 Blue Marble map is that it doesn't show any snow on land, but the Blue Marble Next Generation maps don't show sea ice and deep ocean colors. I prefer to take only the June Blue Marble Next Generation maps (because there's still a moderate amount of snow left in the Northern Hemisphere), use the black parts of the bathymetric map to mask out the land, combine it with the Blue Marble 2002 for sea ice and ocean color, and increase the brightness of the land in the Next Generation map to match the 2002 map.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Julian,

 

You must have the search gift, I was looking for those images most of the evening last night on visible earth... GEEZ...

 

I'll compile those with the land, ice and sea color original images... for all 12 months of the year in different target resolutions.

 

Thanks again for the links Julian!

[Julian]

Now, if you wanted to get really adventurous, you could make the monthly maps into an image sequence and use a smartskin to relate the frame number of the sequence to the tilt of the axis, but maybe that would be taking realism a little too far.

 

BTW, I personally don't think there's any point in applying a displacement map to the Earth. The Earth is smoother than a billiard ball, after all....

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Yeah, but you know some nut (like me) is gonna get close to Mt. Everest or something with the camera and complain that it doesn't have any height.

[balistic]

Hate to tell you this, but I'm not sure you've mapped it correctly. Greenland looks particularly distorted, and everything seems too wide east to west.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Yeah, check the Project Earth thread for further developments... back in 2003 when I originally built this model, I made the mistake of cylindrically mapping the decals... DOH!

 

The fix will be posted in the next release of the models.

[DanCBradbury]

are you updating those zip files with the images in them?