What texture is used for a spinning globe?

[gandalf117]

If you are using Xara3D6 it's fairly easy to rotate anything but when you try to put some texture to make some sense of your work it seems impossible.

I have been trying a lot to do a rotating world globe like the one of simsmj only a lot simpler. When I put the texture on the sphere it always mirrors and repeats the image resulting in this:

image of the problem with the rotating globe

It looks ridiculous doesn't it?
Is it possible to make a successful spinning globe with Xara3D6?
How? (link to a good tutorial will be highly appreciated)

[simsmj]

The problem is that the texture runs all the way through the sphere, so the back shows the reverse of the image applied to the front.

The way I would tackle this is to have two globes occupying the same volume, but use a Ripple animation to make them separate very slightly. You then apply one texture to one globe, and a second texture to the other.

It looks like one globe, but the small separation means that you are actually seeing the front of one sphere, and the back of the other sphere. The downside is that use of Ripple prevents use of Rotate, so you then need to build up the spinning animation manually by taking screenshots and building them up in XaraXtreme to export as an animated gif. This isn't as akward as it sounds.

The tricky bit is to get two images of the earth with the right views so that they seamlessly and correctly overlap at the sides, where the two globes join. The image used for the rear globe should be reversed before applying it, as you will only ever see the back of it.

See the attached x3d file for a first stab, the two textures don't match properly , but it is quite clear that the problem you were having is not present. Have a play with it.

Mike

[simsmj]

The avatar Earth is a 3D model of the continents of the earth, with a flat blue disc in the background. In Xara3D terms it is just a set of 150 vertical ring-arcs, spread around the equator with a swing animation. Doddle.

Making the arcs themselves was the hard part. I made them in XaraXtreme. The arcs were trimmed from full rings, overlaying a map of the earth. Any portion crossing water was cut out, leaving just those parts that crossed land. It was not a trivial undertaking, and mistakes were easy to make.

Mike

[Karateed]

Almost sounds like a tutorial there Mike....yes?

[Psaumure]

Yes, I would enjoy seeing a tutorial also. To be honest, I have not used my Xara 3-D in years. This would be a wonderful excuse to bring it out of moth balls and put it back into good use.

You did a fantastic job on the globe mike. I give you a round of applause on this one. It sounds like it took a lot of hours to accomplish. I had created a globe in flash years ago but it does not compare to what you've accomplished. Great work!

[gandalf117]

Thank you for the reaply and the file.

I played around with this for quite a bit and the way you have done it is very different than mine. What I did is to use design picker to select the ball. Then I work only with the border and deleted all the text so that one consistent ball remains.

What you do is you work only with text imported from Xara Xtreme. I bet your way is the correct one but I can't understand it.

I have no idea how you make text look like a sphere.
Even if I did that I still don't understand how putting two globes in the same volume will make things work. Do you put different textures to each one? how?

I tried to build from scratch the file you made above and I couldn't. Here is what I got:
unsuccessful rotating globe.x3d

By the way can you upload files or images directly to the forum. Because otherwise I have to upload them to my site and then give the links here and I hope this doesn't count as spam.

[ss-kalm]

...By the way can you upload files or images directly to the forum. Because otherwise I have to upload them to my site and then give the links here and I hope this doesn't count as spam.

Yes, you can. Use the "Go Advanced" button and click the paper clip on the toolbar. OR "Go Advanced" scroll down, and click on the "Manage Attachments" button under Attach files.

[simsmj]

OK, I'll do up a tutorial for the double globe idea, and I'll point a link to the thread that introduced the hollow earth globe, which was here.
I'm not keen to do a proper tutorial for that globe because it was so involved, but that thread shows roughly how it was acheived. There was a later thread which showed an improved version that used more rings.

I didn't import text from XaraXtreme, I imported drawn vector shapes from it. The shapes don't have to be text. They can be any shape you can draw in a vector application like XaraXtreme, CorelDraw, Illustrator, and so on.

The basic shape used for a globe is just a very small dot. It is then blown up with a large round bevel to create a globe. The roundness depends on the smallness of the object at its centre, but even the largest round bevel doesn't result in a good sphere.

The original object needs to be made even smaller. Do this by selecting it, then in the fontsize field on the toolbar, type in 5% and hit Return. Deselect everything by clicking on the cursor button (a|b). The not-quite globe becomes much rounder as a result. 5% is the smallest you can reduce an object, but it is enough, I think, to make it work for an animation.

Yes, the two globes are given different textures. The front of the frontmost globe shows one texture, but the back of that globe is hidden by the second globe which is slightly displaced behind it. That second globe has its own different texture, and you only see the back of that globe, because its front is hidden inside the first globe. Because they are so closely overlapped they still look like one globe but you are actually seeing the front of one and the rear of the other as you spin them around. When I draw out the tutorial, it will be clearer.

Mike

[gandalf117]

Mike,

I will really appreciate it if you can put a step by step tutorial. I read your tutorial on how you made your avatar several times and honestly I couldn't understand it. I have no idea how you make the rings in Xara Xtreme and then how you apply them so that they create the illusion of rotation, but the final effect is obviously stunning.

I will be satisfied with something less complicated though.
All I need is a rotating globe with a texture that makes sense. So far I understood how to make the globe, how to add another one within its volume and how to add different texture to the different globes. Thanks a lot for that! I don't think I would have learnt it so quickly simply from reading guides and experimenting. What I am left with is kind of what I started with - can't adjust the texture. The texture is totally out of control and whatever I do seems useless.

Here is my latest try:
unsuccessful_try48.x3d

Here is an example of a rotating globe that I did in photoshop:


I really want to learn to do something like this with Xara.