Kerbin

[WAS]

Couldn't find any heightmaps or ways to export heightmaps from Kerbal Space Program so I used an albedo map that I upscaled to 16k to approximate displacement. I then created water masks, ice masks, shore masks, and upscaled a 8k cloud map to 32k (with quality improvements, actually, which is a serious bonus considering size).

Albedo is recoloured with TG shaders, all maps warped to get rid of the smooth cartoony-ness as much as possible from game textures.

Looks decent up to 4k, after that the cartoony-ness of base texture/displacement is too obvious (at least to me).

[DocCharly65]

That's cool and looks good. One of the harder things to create: Planets - looking adaequat and realistic!

[Dune]

Echo Nils, looks good.

[Jo Kariboo]

Very nice !

[WAS]

Thanks guys. I noticed though that maps perfectly at 2:1 ratio needed the dimensions set to 1 and 0.9 to actually wrap the planet correctly like it does in the game. Planet was at 0,0,0. Not sure what that's about. Otherwise the poles were black out from no texture.

[Stormlord]

A very nice kerbal planet so to say.
If you have problems to get some good earth maps, please let me help you out WAS.

Some old but very good 16K maps from Earth can be downloaded with the wayback machine under these links. The site is gone, but the links work.
I have the original CD with all these maps in 43K resolution and based upon this work, I have created a very accurate mask collection from earth.
North and south poles, water, land, ice-sheet, rivers, lakes, outlines... ect...

The reason why I recommend these old maps is, that the masks are the best you can find anywhere!
Inclusive a flat earth map to create your own elevation maps! Download them all, they're worth to download them!
Also click on sitemap, there's more for you to discover!


Screenshot Space-Graphics e43 from 2007

All 16K map links are listed here
http://web.archive.org/web/20060219172902/http://www.space-graphics.com/earth_intro.htm

Earth Shaded
http://web.archive.org/web/20060219172546/http://www.space-graphics.com/e43_shaded.htm

Earth flat
http://web.archive.org/web/20060219172328/http://www.space-graphics.com/e43_flat.htm

Bump
http://web.archive.org/web/20060219172301/http://www.space-graphics.com/e43_elevation1.htm

Masks / Style 1+2!
http://web.archive.org/web/20060315101522/http://www.space-graphics.com/e43_mask.htm

Clouds
http://web.archive.org/web/20060315102611/http://www.space-graphics.com/e43_cloud.htm

STORMLORD

[WAS]

Thanks. I'll have to download those (slowly; 4g net). I haven't done to many Earths as I try to be more scifi but definitely could be handy for some scene. A new cloud map is definitely worthwhile as the one I use is common on the net, even variations people have made from it. So I hate seeing my same global clouds in others works literally almost every time. xD

If this is already 16k native I should be able to use my AI to go to 32 - 64k without much loss. Topaz Labs new upscale with AI is very very handy. And you can help them improve results by flagging bad ones.

There is a river system on this planet (you probably know) but it was just painted in regardless of terrain and is huge so I didn't want to show it. Lol

[WAS]

PS I remember this website. Sad it's gone now.

[Stormlord]

That's why I use the wayback machine and burned them all on CD also! But I have the original maps from Mario Rossi, because I was one of his betatesters in 2007.
He has created another Mars map m46, which is the best I've seen so far. He computer generated these maps from real satellite data. That's why they are so detailed.

However...
The masks of the earth e43 are coming in 2 versions in 16K at these links above.

Style 1 and Style 2

Style 1 is land/oceans
Style 2 is land with rivers and lakes/oceans

The original masks are terriffic!
I got them in 43200x21600 and produced more for own purposes... unfortunately, I miss computer power...

STORMLORD

[WAS]

Qued up the PC overnight and upscaled the maps up to 32k last night. Much cleaner then the fuzzy originals, which look upscaled from 8k with a simple scaling algorithm.

I'll test them out if TG lets me open the large files.