Another method for creating reflection maps, that don't have pinching at the poles, uses Photoshop' stock filter distort>polar coordinates.
You start with your seamless texture and select rectangular to polar. Paint out the pinching. and then reverse the distortion using polar to rectangular. Then flip the image vertically, repeat the polar distortion and painting, reverse the distortion, again, and un-vertically flip the resulting image. here is a more in depth description, of a similar technique, if my poor description does not suffice: http://www.lizardlounge.com/html/tutorials/c4d/sphericalMap/ On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 6:46 PM, Nancy Jacobs <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings, > > I'm using the old-style environment spheres with an HDR image wrapped to > light the scene, but invisible to rendering, and a beauty image visible to > the render. The problem is the very visible distortion near the poles of > the sphere. I need 360 degree visual acceptability. I am using a background > which I've made seamless in both directions, a 2:1 rectangle. It seems this > worked in renders at one point years ago in another software. Perhaps even > XSI....I don't recall. > > I'm also trying to substitute this arrangement by using both an > environment (using the HDRI), and 'Spherical Mapping' (using the beauty > image), in the Pass Shaders. But I'm getting very strange results, so not > sure if this is the way to go. Also, it's difficult to line them up > properly so that the light in the HDRI is coming from the same place as the > equivalent visible areas in the beauty image -- which of course one can do > easily in the wrapped spheres. But in the pass shaders, they don't seem to > use the same rotation systems... > > Any advice on getting an undistorted, seamless image going here? With > proper orientations? > > Thanks, > Nancy > -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson** **(954) 552-7956 * [email protected] *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke <http://www.3danimationmagic.com>
