Planet 02

[TheBadger]

Hi

I need to know what kind of sphere the planet02 object in terragen is exactly.

I am inclined to use a quadSphere  or a hexaSphere for mapping purposes.

I am making another planet object with severe distortions in shape, but I want to have the TG planet 02 info to guide me, since the look of that with a high quality map is already know.

The reason I must make mine with perfect quads vs. triangles (for example) is because I will sculpt on the finished mapped sphere and quads are best for that, also, its the only way I have found to map a sphere and not have distortions at the poles.

[j meyer]

Your best bet should be a spherized cube,a squad sphere.
As far as I know you can't have the same mapping as TG.
Remember the uv stuff from your mudbox displ thread?

[TheBadger]

Hi J,

that was a plane though, but its the same no matter what?

I guess my question may be strange, but I thought it may be worth asking because its a planet were talking about. And since TG does planets, its not usual to import a planet. And I would not, but for the Strange shapes Im going to use.

Also wanted to do a cube planet if i can.
Mapping a cube is no problem though. But getting an atmo, will be interesting.

[jo]

Hi Michael,

The planet in TG is a procedural sphere. It's not polygonal.

I'm not sure I fancy your chances getting an atmosphere on a square planet in the same fashion as you do on a normal one. The atmosphere is inherently spherical.

Regards,

Jo

[TheBadger]

lol Will be damn funny if I can though

Jo, now Im sure Im going to embarrass my self with this, but can you please link or explain the notion of a procedural sphere? I really thought that the procedural effects we do here were being done to a traditional object. It never occurred to me that the object its self was special.

I would have sworn I read in these forums, people talking about the planet in the same way people talk about a sphere in modeling, Iv clearly missed a big concept here.

Sorry if thats stupid of me.

[jo]

Hi Michael,

A procedural sphere is one which is calculated mathematically as opposed to being based on predefined polygonal geometry. You can generate a perfect sphere mathematically but one based on predefined polygonal geometry is always going to be faceted at some level. It's the same concept as using a procedural texture as opposed to an image map. The data in question is generated mathematically on-the-fly. There's more information here:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Procedural_Data

Regards,

Jo

[TheBadger]

Thank you.

[j meyer]

Just for the record I was refering to this post,last pic
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16110.msg161983.html#msg161983
clearly not a plane.

[TheBadger]

Ah, yes. Tricky too.