Can I "map" splines on a sphere? To use the flash plugin I need a globe which continent-outlines are made of splines. A bitmap texture does not help me because I need the outlines to be flash objects. The 2D-outlines are made with illustrator. I was only able to make them cylindrical by using the carrara modifier "Biegen und Verdrehen" (sorry, i am german)but I cannot get a real sphere. Could you please help me?

Hi, Carrara requires bitmaps on objects for shading. The plug-in VectorStyle will not export a bitmap shader as a vector shape either. One option might be to use the "Toon" render function and export a .gif. And import it into Flash. Because of the 'flat' colors, the files are small. Above is a .gif created with Toon that could be imported into Flash. Another option, but not as desirable, is to do a frame by frame conversion with Adobe Illustrators' Auto-Trace function or another older product of theirs, Streamline. Good luck! Mark Mark

Hi Mark, thank you for your answer. Unfortunately I have to animate the continent-outlines in Flash (morphing to text). Therefore the .gif-animation wont help me. Tracing frame by frame is too much work, so I must do it with Cinema 4D and its wrapping function. I just had the hope that it was only my fault and Carrara could do it. Thanks again Knut

For your information (FYI) -- biegen und verdrehen is bend and twist in English. (And your English writing is VASTLY better than my German writing.)

Tschu

Attached Link: http://www.hcstudios.com/carrara/continents.zip

I found this freeware globe a while back.

This is easier that it looks. Carrara can build the animation and Vectorstyle will export it as a flash ".swf". Take your illustrator paths into the spline modeler then select "convert to another modeler" to send them into the vertex modeler. In the VM window select the front faces and delete all of them so you end up with a flat 2d version of your map. Back in the assembly room: Send the hotpoint to center of your map object. Add the Bend modifier (Y-axis) & type in 360 (you have to use the window, the slider will not go that high). Add the spherical morph deformer (under complex deformations) after the bend set it to 100% The world should be round now. Add the spin behavior to make your world spin. If your map is wobbling while spinning re-center the object hotpoint - deformers can shift it off center. If you have Vector Style you can save the animation out as a .swf file (cartoon- single color shading looks like it will give nice solid shapes) Note: You might need to pad your illustrator map with some really small shapes at the 2 poles to get it to deform into a sphere with the continents in the right place. Here is the gif , I have he exported swf and/or the Carrara file if you want to take a look at them (I don't think Renderosity will allow them to upload). mdc

Opps I forgot to say that you can add a sphere that is just a bit smaller than the deformed map object to fill in the open spaces with a second color. mdc

At all: Thank you very much, link and help solved the whole problem. Great forum. Knut