Lat-long render export

[aorikasa]

Hello.
I'm trying to export spherical (lat-long) maps of a planet created in Terragen to a game engine.
In order to export albedo map, my current approach is to place a spherical camera at the core of the planet and light it from all directions without shadowing to get flat shading.
Then put negative number on the planet radius to invert the entire planet so it becomes visible to the spherical camera.
Now... This is really not an ideal way and it's rather crazy.
I'm wondering if there a better way to export spherical maps from Terragen.
Any advices will be appreciated. Thank you!

[WAS]

This is in fact how we export spherical maps. Except we don't play with tons of light sources. You can just pipe all your shaders through a surface layers luminosity set to 1. Turn off all suns, environment light, GISD, and render like you did before.

You can also do the same thing with a Displacement to Scalar shader into the Luminosity and export a 32bit EXR of the planet as a heightmap.

[aorikasa]

Thanks WAS! That confirms that I wasn't totally crazy. I'll try fully luminous render as well

[D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)]

This is in fact how we export spherical maps. Except we don't play with tons of light sources. You can just pipe all your shaders through a surface layers luminosity set to 1. Turn off all suns, environment light, GISD, and render like you did before.

You can also do the same thing with a Displacement to Scalar shader into the Luminosity and export a 32bit EXR of the planet as a heightmap.

Thanks WAS, this is great info I will be using too!

Derek