Texture problem

[Brian Jones]

are you using an image texture (not procedural noises)? Can you post the image file?

[Joe Rodgers]

Thanks Brian, yes, it is an image. I’ve been playing with a whole bunch of settings and I have made a little progress but there are bizarre distortions and misalignments. Here is the texture:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dit066lf7jhbm0f/shutterstock_1423634645-%5BConverted%5D.png?dl=0

[Brian Jones]

using a Polar to Rectangular filter (in PS or some such) on the image gives pretty good results with just UVW mapping – not perfect but better.

[Joe Rodgers]

I really appreciate your help, but I don’t even know where to begin with that.

This is a “seamless” texture and it makes no sense to me at all why this shouldn’t be a very simple task in Cinema. Baffling.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

If you use Brian’s version of the texture, mapped with spherical mapping on a hemisphere, you get the result on the right, with the original texture you get the result to the left. Note 2 tiles along the V coordinate. Works the same with the original UV mapping of the procedural hemisphere.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Joe Rodgers]

I will try this, thank you!

I’m still confused though, why is this not achievable with the base texture?

[Joe Rodgers]

Okay, this worked but the pits are huge. In spherical mapping, how do I reduce the size of all of the pits to the right proportions?

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Wrapping a square around a sphere, something’s gonna get stretched, something squished. With spherical mapping the top edge of the map squeezes into a point, while the bottom (or middle) stretches to double around the equator.
Polar-to-rectangular gives you a reasonably good reverse distortion to counter-act this — for one hemisphere, that is.
If you need a smaller texture, you need to shrink and tile the texture first (to 1/2, 1/3, 1/4… so as to retain seamlessness) before applying the polar-to-rectangular distortion. You can’t adjust the size after the distortion.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

(Please see previous answer)

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Joe Rodgers]

Any of you guys on Upwork or Guru? I will pay someone to get these domes right for me. I have tried scaling things and I end up with strange distortions still.