3D texture mapping Tutorial

This is my first tutorial so don't expect much.

The texture map I used in this tutorial belongs to ~Thunorrad and can be found here: [link]

I hope this is clear enough. If you don't understand something, don't hesitate to ask.


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Edit: Explained a little the cylindrical projection concept to understand better the purpose of this tut, and to make things more clear.

Here are some sites with some cylindrical projection textures that you can practice on:

[link] <- Good high res textures of planets and cloud maps (uncheck DXT Support)
[link] <- Some good textures of all planets, cloud maps, city lights map, bump maps
[link] <- Very high res textures provided for Celestia, a freeware space simulator.

PS: There's a free photoshop plugin that helps creating cylindrical projections from your textures: [link]
It's called 'Spherical Mapping Corrector'
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Edit 12.06.2009: This can be easily done now only with the 3D functions of the new Photoshop CS4 Extended.