Hello fellow modders, I'm in need of a 3d model of a sphere, preferably a UVsphere, that's perfectly UVmapped to a cylindical based map, like the ones used on http://www.oera.net/How2/PlanetTexs/EarthMap_2500x1250.jpg. Very simalar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UVMapping.png, done to a UVsphere, so that there won't be any seams on the top or bottom.

I need this to make the new night sky in my next installment of skies, so if you guys could help me out it would quicken the progress on the mod a ton. I can't start on the night skies without this. I'd make one myself, but for some reason, blender always shifts all the vertices on the top row slightly to the right, and it doesn't proportion the UVmap to the image, so whatever I can come up with is useless for my purposes.

Thanks in advance,
Markelius/SWG

I have a sphere that I made earlier, not uv'd exactly like in that image but it works perfectly for a globe or a world map, think that might be any good?

I'll take a look. It's just that the more perfect the UV the better, as it will be noticeable ingame if it isn't. My plan for it is to flip the normals inward facing and then make the stars via a cylindrical map, like http://www.solarviews.com/cap/ds/tychocyl1.htm.

Anyways, send it over to me, hopefully I'll be able to use it.

You guys have to think a bit outside the box to get this done. Don't try to unwrap a sphere, but unwrap a planar mesh and warp that into a sphere, preserving it's UVs. Here's how to do it in Blender. Some general understanding of Blender basics is required though. Hope that helps!

Make sure your cursor is centered (shift+c)

Add->Mesh->Grid (Choose whatever res you like, for such a huge mesh like a skydome you can keep default or even res up!!!)

Move the grid up the z-axis for one unit, either in the transform properties (N-key) or manually g,z,1

Next go into edit mode, select all verts and unwrap with default unwrap method, should provide you some simple square UVs.

From front view!!! Press shift+w,180 (tansform->warp). You’ll end up with an open cylinder. Switch into side view!!! and press shift+w, 360, this will warp the cylinder into a sphere, but your UVs will still remain square.

At last, remove double verts and apply some texture to your sphere, center pivot point, done!!!

@Dragon*Born, method works perfectly for me, thanks, only one problem, I can't seem to map the UV's properly, simply using unwrap causes the UVmap to be distorted, and projecting it to bounds or cube-mapping causes http://oi51.tinypic.com/iw3hxt.jpg to happen.

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: I tried mapping it again, in theory, I should've had a perfect UVmap, but even with unwrap to smart projections, set to bounds, I still get http://oi55.tinypic.com/33280mv.jpg.

'nother edit: I got it done! After a lot of persistency, determination, and stubbornness I managed to make the UVmap seamless, I'll put it up for download in a sec, so others don't have to go through what I did.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1170439-relz-seamless-uv-sphere-resource/, the problem has been solved, this thread can be closed now.

as you wish