Spherical worlds

[jgwinner]

I've seen a number of people mention this, or features to give us this, so I wanted to make it a formal request 

Would love to be able to tile generated terrain around a sphere.

Yes, poles would be tough, but that's why we let Stephen write the software we use 

Another, similar feature would be to be able to map a given input device to a spherical terrain instead of rectangular - this would be necessary to take in DEM's for example, and get them to fit properly. This feature would work with the world feature to be able to break down the world into wedge shaped pieces but still export properly.

Mojo and I think Terragen do it ... so I think this is a much needed feature to stay competitive.

== John ==

P.S.  Then of course, we need a Continental Drift erosion node 

[smoth]

ugh, I'd rather stephen get wm2 more stable.

[jgwinner]

Um ... then go create your own feature request. 

== John ==

[Hepcat]

Not exactly the same thing as you are asking, but related.  If you google earth maps you'll get rectangular projection maps ( I think that's what they are called.)  Basically they are ready to be UV mapped onto UV sphere's.  It would be awesome if WM could generate hieght maps and images in that form.  Then you could just use the hieght map to displace a shpere and UV map the image.  The trick would be having each side of the mesh and image match so they fit together smoothly.  That sound right?

[jgwinner]

Sort of, yes.

It would depend on how the world (sphere) was UV mapped, but that's the essential idea.

It's not quite that simple because at high lattitudes the 'squares' aren't; they are trapezoids.  In the extreme case of one rectangle for an entire world, the line of pixes at the poles is of course just one actual pixel; it has to match on 3 sides. The next row of pixes has to match the previous row and the next, which is hard as the scale is changing as you go 'down'.

For a rectangular projection, that's why everyone things Greenland is the size of the US which is why no one uses rectangular projections in map making, but you get the idea.

== John ==