Full planet displacement using Heightmap

[spooky_paul]

Hello,

I am trying to make a zoom from orbit to a particular place on the earth, kinda like the reverse of the mars clip.
I would like to create this using a height map for the entire planet, and then to procedurally generate my area of interest, blending them together.

How will i load a displacement map and apply it to the whole planet?

Thank you

[rcallicotte]

You can do a search, since this question has been addressed elsewhere.  If I remember right, this can't be done.

[Tangled-Universe]

Why using a heigthmap for the entire planet if your area of interest is procedurally generated? If it was the other way around I'd say...'ok, I see what you mean'...
Why not make the entire planet procedural? Much easier.

A way to apply a heigthfield to the entire planet is to generate a b/w image from the heigthfield, load that into an imagemap shader, set image projection to spherical and use the imagemap shader as blendshader for a surfacelayer.
Under the displacement-tab of the surfacelayer you can increase the displacement to about 5000 for example. The white parts of the b/w heigthfield will then be displaced 5000 meters 'upwards' (along the normal of course, but since the planet is a smooth sphere it will be 'upwards').

Using the same technique you can mask a specific spot on the planet to add procedural details to. You could also use the heigthfield and apply procedural detail to the entire planet, which I think would give the best results.
I think 'they' did the same with the mars animation.

Martin

[rcallicotte]

Martin, I'm pretty sure Planetside said something about not being able to apply a heightmap to an entire planet. [edit - oh, I see that's what you said...repeating the same thing here...]

Here's something to utilize an image map shader to do this - http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1114.0

[spooky_paul]

Thank you for the answers.

I would generate the entire planet, but in this case it's The Earth. Therefor generation of random height data won't work.

I have tried using a sphere mapped image shader but it stretches the image file in an unusable way.

[cyphyr]

Take a look here, its not the earth and its not a displacement but the principle is the same. As long as your not looking at the poles then you will be able to avoid any distortion. Download the file and re-construct to your taste. Take a look at Celestial motherload for some decent high res earth images. and also realize that you can see VERY little height variation from even a few hundred km above the surface of the planet so do you really need a displacement map at all?
Richard

[bigben]

It's difficult for an entire hemisphere, but you can cover a significant area with real data...

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=2502.msg24609;topicseen#msg24609

[gregsandor]

Hello,

I am trying to make a zoom from orbit to a particular place on the earth, kinda like the reverse of the mars clip.
I would like to create this using a height map for the entire planet, and then to procedurally generate my area of interest, blending them together.

How will i load a displacement map and apply it to the whole planet?

Thank you

You can cover a planet with real data; it is simple.  Here:  http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3648.0