'Perfect Day'
Sooner or later, everybody using LightWave will get around to space scenes . A tolerable Earth model and a couple of Earth animation scene files are supplied with the package. They're OK, but won't stand looking in close-up. The reason is the Image Maps provided for 'wrapping' around the spherical mesh are pretty poor. A much better map was included on a coverdisk of an old CUAmiga magazine, which I used for this demo anim of the rotating Earth. Using a grey-scale 'bump' map, it's possible to raise the continental landmasses above sea level. This gives a nice feel to the image, even though it's not like this in reality. Anyway, mountains look great and even the deep oceanic trenches look great! Where are those? Better get out the Atlas!
Amiga LightWave3 was especially modified to provide realistic planets for the first series of Babylon5. The 'Sharp Terminator' function is now included in the package to allow amateurs to achieve professional quality planet renders. The best looking planets are made using seamless image maps created in a paint package like Photogenics. A grey-scale version should always be applied to the displacement channel. Another trick is NOT to employ 'Spherical Wrapping' of the image map. Oddly, 'Cylindrical Wrapping' produces better results. Check it out!
This animation contains 720 frames, each rotating the Earth by one half degree. So, it's a big file and the action is smooth and endless. I declined to add any cloud layers to the Scene, so in one revolution, everyone on the planet gets their 'Perfect Day'.
