3D Globes

[Crooked Eye]

Thanks for looking.

I'm 46 years old and have discovered I really love photography and graphic arts, I am hoping to learn enough to start a second career. Anyhow, my question is can you tell me if the globe in tis picture is computer generated or not?

Second, how would one generate globe images from scratch?

Maybe a tall order but thanks for the help.

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/photo/view/44651

There are other globes in similar pictures there too, if you would like to use them as example........

Thanks again.

[iamtheblues]

Hi there. I'd say that the globe has been made using a computer graphics programe, and it would be easy enough
to create something similar using any decent 2D graphics software like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Illustrator, CorelDraw,
Photoimpact or Xara. Here's a link to a tutorial on Gary Priester's ExcellentXaraXone. There are gazillions of others...
try a Google search for Sphere or Orb Tutorials. I've no experience of 3D applications, but it's probably even easier to do than 2D.
The keyboard is probably a modified photo, though. I've not seen one like that before (I've had a sheltered existence )
It's odd to see the "Z" next to the "T" on what otherwise looks like a QWERTY keyboard.
Saludos,
Bob.

[Crooked Eye]

Thank you Bob. That is VERY helpful.

[iamtheblues]

My pleasure.
I just found out that the QWERTZ or QWERTZU keyboard is used in Germany and Austria.
Saludos,
Bob.

[Mike Bailey]

how would one generate globe images from scratch?

Using your favorite 3D software apply a glass mat to a 3D sphere, Create a UV texture map of the land mass with longitude and latitude grid lines. Apply the texture map to the sphere in a manner that alters the glass material and simulates frosted glass. A small amount of bump and noise should do the trick. Illuminate the scene and render.

[Mike Bailey]

Just for fun I created a quick example of a globe using 3D software. I would have to solve a few problems in order to match the quality of the reference image. Rather than using bump and noise I combined 2 transparent materials that were slightly different. The atmosphere is part of the scene and is reflected by the globe.

[kwhardy]

Greetings! I am new to the discussion board, so today was my first chance to respond. I hope this info is helpful to you.

Is it computer generated? Yes.

How would I create the globe myself?

I am going to assume that by "from scratch", you will at least let me start with a flat map, right? I am horrible at drawing. I would take the map into Adobe Photoshop, and make anything I want to be visible a solid white color, and the parts I want to be transparent black. This image would be saved in a format that doesn't add compression artifacts, such as a .TGA file. It doesn't need to be 32-bit since I won't need the alpha channel directly.

Next, I would go into Autodesk 3ds max and create a sphere primitive. In the materials editor, I would load the image I saved from Photoshop onto the opacity channel, and leave it at 100%. This will tell the renderer to "throw away" anything that is black, and leave visible all the white parts of the object. When this material is applied to the sphere, it wraps the image around the object to give the illusion of it being a globe.

You can certainly tweak much further in 3ds max, by changing the diffuse color so you can make the land masses a different color. You could also create a second sphere directly inside of the first one, and perhaps add a 95% opacity to the object, add a specular highlight and change the diffuse color to blue to create the effect of the bodies of water with the light reflecting off of them in a hotspot.

I understand this is completely foreign to you right now, since your relatively new to the field. But, to answer your questions more simply: (1) yes, and (2) in 3D.

I recreated the attached globe in around 4 minutes, from the time it took to find an appropriate image to use as the base to the completed render. If it were for a client project, of course there would have been a lot more attention to detail, but this exercise was to demonstrate that it is quite possible to accomplish the globe with minimal steps.