So I was looking for ideas for my project, and then I saw this
So, how do I add a 2D abstract image to a sphere without distortion or how to make an image that fits a sphere like Moon, Earth,... texture?
Appreciate your help, guys
There will always be distortion when doing that, but you can utilize the fact that you can only see a part of the Planet, b<y cutting a UV Sphere in half and the Unwrapping it:
You can find planet Textures online (for instance here: https://www.solarsystemscope.com/textures/ ) and use the default UV Map of a UV Sphere, that does a decent job, but has some distortion towards the poles (those planet textures already 'compensate' somewhat for that distortion):
The first method is best for abstract patterns like in your example.
So in the end if you don't want to slice the planet in half because you have a camera shot animation of the whole planet, you are at the mercy of the texture already being set to compensate for the distortion? This is a tricky question, if I had a normal image that is flat and not taken into account the distortion of a sphere, then I'm in trouble. Unless there's a better method of unwrap? Or maybe there's software that would turn your normal texture to the sphere distorted version of the texture?