I would be incredibly greatful if someone could help me with this. I am searching for a globe object similar to the one I have posted here. Simply it is a globe which consists of only the land masses, without the seas. The image is part of a logo for the company i work for, which they would now like to see in a 3d format (and I am definatly not a modeller :) )

Thank you

If you can't find exactly what you are looking for you may want to try finding a suitable world texture and using it to make a Tranparency Map on a Sphere.

One thing that could be done is you could map a world or globe image to a sphere and have a transparancy texture that transes out the oceans. So the transparancy map would be the same image as the world texture with the continents white and the oceans (or all the blue) black.

I have been looking for a 3D globe map for a while, but since it's for a low-priority project, I haven't spent much time on it. I do have a few observations, though: - You might look at the Great Globe Gallery, at http://main.amu.edu.pl/~zbzw/glob/glob1.htm Most of their links (all I've found so far) are of 2D representations of globes, but they have about a zillion links, so there might be in there somewhere. - The globe you need may be in VRML, rather than a more mainstream format, because I've seen VRML-based globe applications before. There are several conversion programs that can convert VRML to OBJ or 3DS or whatever. - If you do a search in Google for "3D globe earth", you will find a ton of applications that do things with globes: display weather on them, display time zones on them, display nuclear test sites on them, all sorts of stuff. If all these people are making globe-based applications, somebody must have globe maps. You might try sending off some emails to these companies, asking them if they made their own maps, and if not, where they got them. (They might be more helpful if you emphasize that you are using the map to make a 3D logo, not to build an application that competes with theirs.) If you find a good source for globe maps, whether free or paid, please post the link info here, for the rest of us who are looking for globes. Thanks, and good luck! Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

You can download a hires earth map off of one of the many NASA web sites. Make a trans map to go with it in photoshop and slap it on a sphere in Bryce or the render software of your choice.

I'm gonna try this... I'll post pics of what I come up with... If you like it, send me an email, and I can email you a zip with the files... -Lee

Okay, Rawnrr ... here's what I have so far.... This is a prop, not a figure. I have created a High Res, and a Low Res version. Let me know if this is what you needed... -Lee

Very nice. dude...

Thank you all for your responces. :) That is a beautiful job Lee..thank you so much, it should be perfect (I assume I can change the texture to a similar gold metalic easy enough). I will email you regarding this. Ron

This is what I can see so far... It's difficult for to get the reflection right.. But I have Bryce 4 and it works great in that... If you don't have Bryce, I think someone else may be able to assist you with the relfection part... The above was what I was able to come up with, without the "earth texture" -Lee

That is PERFECT!!! I do in fact have Bryce so that is Great. Thank you so much. (if my email did not make it through...you can email me at ronr@telemaxcanada.com) Ron

Got the email.. and replied.... :) Let me know if the zip works for you... -Lee