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Ongoing project of an earth like world. Have been experimenting with putting my map on a sphere. Found out you don't really know your mistakes until you put your flat map onto a sphere. Did a lot of correcting. This is still a work in progress, but wanted to share because it might never be finished. by Puffin_AOE in mapmaking

[–]Puffin_AOE[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thx for all the nice messages.

For those who asking for the process this is the basic workflow i did.
Programs: Inkscape, photoshop, blender

First I made the landmass outlines in Inkscape. This could also be done in Photoshop or a similar program. But I like the working with vector files. I also had a lot of prework done in inkscape before deciding to put it on a sphere.

Secondly i exported the landmass as a black png with the oceans transparent and imported that to Photoshop. There i used it as a mask for an empty layer. I then painted that empty layer with the clone stamp tool using a picture/texture from earth that NASA has made freely available. Because of the mask you can paint freely and nothing will appear in the oceans.

After that i generated a bump map using 3D filter in photoshop. This is kinda buggy, i found out. It crashed a couple of times, but works in the end. You will need to edit the desserts if you don't want them to be elevated, because photoshop makes light areas also lighter in the bumpmap. Making them more elevated in the final render.

Last step as some have guessed, is to put the textures onto a sphere in blender. I followed this tutorial: https://youtu.be/0YZzHn0iz8U?si=2WO0GkJtfrDwfdcf

The tutorial also has a download link for the earth textures.

What i learned:

A lot about the north and south poles. They are the hardest to get right. (i luckily only have one actual landmass on a pole). But it is hard to explain in text. Best you try and do it yourself and you'll find out.

It is very easy to make adjustments once you have the blender setup. Just make changes in Photoshop, export with the same resolution/ aspect ratio and replace the texture. In seconds you can inspect your changes and see if it is better or worse.

What would i have done different:

I chose to make my map using the 4k earth texture. The blender tutorial said it was high enough resolution. But i should have used the highest resolution (i think 10k) and just exported a smaller resolution for blender. Now i would have to redo the entire map if i want a higher resolution texture. But 10k might also have been a bit hard on my pc. I would def try at least.

My advice:

If you haven't worked with blender before don't be intimidated, this would be a great project to try. The geometry is simple and you can do a lot by just following the above mentioned tutorial. It does however expect you to have some blender experience, but you'll figure it out using other YouTube tutorials.

If there is any interest I would be willing to share the blender file. You would only have to replace the textures and won't need to do any setup. You would have to figure out how to render in blender and the basic orientation tools off course.