I am trying to create a rendered animation which will include the earth (the planet earth that is). I need to map a world map onto a sphere. Unfortunately, I am having trouble getting this to work out accurately. I am seeing the following problems:
a) Seams where the image wraps around the sphere. I cannot find the correct combination of variables to get the image to map without a noticeable seam. It looks as though the image is correctly stretching around the sphere, except for the seam where the image looks "squished". It doesn't matter if you type in explicit values for the image size or use the stretch to fit option, the seam is still there. This is not acceptable as I was planning to have the model rotate in the animation so I can't just hide the seam at the far side of the model. Is there a specific ratio of decal length to width that will result in a correctly mapped decal with no seam? I suspect that it may be necessary to use a mask to accomplish this but would prefer not to have to do endless experiments to get the correct shape.
B) Blurring of the decal when rendered. The decal looks good in the preview window and when the part is not rendered. The file size is sufficient to show a good level of detail. However, when the model is rendered the decal suddenly becomes very pixellated and blurry, almost like the resolution has been cut in half. I have never seen this before in PWX.
I am using SWX2006 SP0.