Anim8or Community

General Category => General Anim8or Forum => Topic started by: TheBlackHole on June 19, 2010, 01:27:04 am

Title: You know what I think would be nice?
Post by: TheBlackHole on June 19, 2010, 01:27:04 am

I think it would be cool if there was a way to get detailed planet models that look good from both the surface and from orbit. My idea is to have a sphere displaced randomly in one spot (preferably not near the poles to reduce pole-pinching on long/lat models) and the bigger it's scaled or the closer it is to the camera it is the more detail it would have in that region. I've attached a quick demo made in Sculptris:

Title: Re: You know what I think would be nice?
Post by: Bugtrooper on June 19, 2010, 05:51:27 am

Terranim8or has the ability to make a surface from a height map. If you got a database that got the heightmap of the countries then we could make it.

Title: Re: You know what I think would be nice?
Post by: TheBlackHole on June 19, 2010, 01:44:32 pm

I've made a heightmap in Photoshop that has more detail in one spot than anywhere else. I used it to displace a very finely subdivided sphere in Terranim8or. I made a few adjustments in Anim8or and it should work for zoomouts like low orbit to high orbit. Planetside made a great example of this with Terragen 2:

I'm wanting to pull away from a heightfield and use a fade transition to get to the model. The camera will then zoom away from the planet, showing less and less detail the farther out it is.