I'd like to try it so that you can model it closer to reality: that is,
letting your light source "sun" illuminate the globe so that on the night
side you see the lights, but on the day side you see the surface details and
coloration. I think this might be done by using a modified version of the
nighttime earth bitmap, making everything but the lights transparent. Then,
layer that with the earth photo bitmap (with the nighttime earth bitmap on
the "outside"). Set up the finish properties so that on the lit (day) side
the colored bitmap is overwhelmingly visible, but on the unlit side (night)
the nighttime city lights are overwhelmingly visible.

That may not be quite right, but I can't help thinking there must be a way
to do it.

Look here:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth/action?opt=-p

http://livingearth.com/LE/LivEarthImg.html

I know that picture is online somewhere...

"Kevin Wampler" <wam### [at] uarizonaedu> wrote in message
news:3A269050.114FC44D@u.arizona.edu...
> I was thinking about this too, and I think that using either a gradient
texture or a
> slope-dependent texture map to blend between the light and the dark image
maps would
> probably work fairly well.
>

Post a reply to this message