If someone needs bigger maps:
Down to 250m pp for free!
http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/global_data/true_marble/download
These are huge images!
here’s something i created with lego animator’s tutorial. it was really fun and easy to make. i used a couple of other tutorials as well to create the universal studio like spinning text but the bulk of the work is thanks to mr. lego. thanks man! excellent tutorial.
check it out.
Dang, i just tried putting together the ultra sized versions of all the maps. The colour map, which is the biggest, comes in 8 sections. In total its 86400 x 43200! It crashes my computer trying to open even one of the 21600 sqaure sections.
WOW! Very well done. And thank you very much for crediting me as well. It’s great that all that information is now all in one, well done, package and in one place. You have done it all justice.
–
Kevin
Its a shame the blend file doesnt come with the pictures… =(
DO AN ANIMATION!!!
Hope no one minds me resurrecting this thread. I’ve worked my way through this great tutorial with very good results and now I’m having a go building my own from scratch so that I understand it all better.
But in both cases I’m getting the ripple effect that’s mentioned in the tutorial. It happens when I animate flying towards the Earth. It’s subtle but it is annoying and rather kills the realism.
Does anyone have any idea why it occurs and whether there’s any way to avoid it?
Presumably it’s down to how blender handles the textures. Is there a different way of applying the texture that fixes it?
Something I’ve noticed is that the larger the render size of this project, the less the ripple effect shows. For example, rendering at 1920x1440 produces only very small ripple effects. I think I’ll add a line about this in the tutorial.
The BLEND files no longer work in 2.48a.
I wonder why?
The reason is that my web server is having serious troubles. The .blend files cannot be completely downloaded, and hence will not function properly (this was recently brought to my attention). I am preparing to transfer my entire site to a paid professional server, which will hopefully resolve these issues.
Thanks, I’ll try that. Though it’ll increase my render times somewhat! 
One thing I’ve noticed is that it seems to disappear when I turn off the normal mapping. Am I right that this is linked to the bump mapped texture?
This seems like something we should track down and get fixed. I’ll run some more tests but it would be great to get other people’s experiences too.
I am not sure which map(s) cause the rippling effect. If you discover that it is the normal map, please let me know! I have too many other projects going right now to delve into that myself. . .
Hi, i downloaded your tutorial about 2 months ago and made the most awesome earth i have ever seen, so thanks, i’ve learned a lot. The only bad thing about it is that it crashes my puny pc at anything higher than 1600x1200.
I’m actually trying to put together a large poster about the solar system, with every planet rendered, and your tutorial has helped me on that very much. Too bad i can’t find any large textures for some planets, especialy mercury, for which i only have a stitched 8k tex and 1k tex/bump maps, and that looks terrible.
I’d love to know more about this tree generating blender script “gen.3” I’m pretty green, but I want to do a forest enviroment for a mountain lion I made, and that script sounds like it would be helpfull. Any hints?
Wrong thread?!
I don’t think so, I found this in lego animators wall paper project. http://chamberlinproductions.110mb.com/90degrees.html Just curious where to start.
Well, to ask a question that is not specifically related to my Earth project, it would be more appropriate to send me an email or PM. However, I’ll go ahead and answer your question: first of all, I would only use the Gen3 script to render leafless trees like the ones in my wallpaper. For a real forest environment, I would use L-System (the one I’ve used with success can be found here). It takes a little practice to learn, but it’s worth it.
At last, I have my new website uploaded, and all the links in this thread now work properly!
Ok, I’ve done some tests and I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with normal mapping and oversampling.
I’ve done a very simple test blend with two earths - single mesh, single texture, no compositing. The two globes are the same but one maps to normal, one doesn’t. Only the one with normal mapping has the ripple.
I’ve uploaded the blend and the render to here (you’ll just need to add your own earth map texture - I used the blue marble one).
If you switch OSA off the effect seems to disappear. Scaling the scene makes no difference. It only seems to happen with image textures, not procedural.
Be good to check if other people are getting the same result.
I’ve been playing around and I’m pretty sure it’s a problem with the normal map.
I’ve done a test with a very simple earth (single sphere, single texture, no composite nodes).
I’ve duped it and the only difference is that one has normal mapping on, the other off.
You can clearly see the ripple on the normal mapped one.
It seems to be something to do with OSA, as turning that off seems to make it disappear - (ugly though!)
Firstly it would be great to see if you get the same results (in case I’m barking up the wrong tree).
If that is the case, could we flag it up as something to be looked at for the next version?
I’m surprised it isn’t a bigger issue?
I’ve uploaded my blend (just needs a texture linking - I’ve used a modified blue marble) and a test render to here:
Thanks again for the great Earth tutorial. Going through it taught me a lot.
Hi, sorry to be a pain,
but I was wondering if anybody had a copy of the 23-page PDF or a location where I can
download it from?
I lost a hard drive with all my files on, and the original link seems to be broken 
Many thanks