Spherical environment map

Spherical Environment Map

Spherical Environment Mapping (SEM) is one of the simplest reflection mapping techniques.

When the camera moves around the object, the reflection is not very realistic since the same image is always reflected. The reflection is usually view-aligned, though Mudbox aligns its SEMs to the light.

Lit Sphere is another name for SEM.

• ZBrush MatCap materials use SEM.
• Mudbox Lit Sphere material uses SEM.
• Spherical Environment Mapping in Unreal 3 - by Norman Schaar
• The Art of Texturing Using The OpenGL Shading Language - Spherical Environment Mapping - by Jerome Guinot
• LitSpheres in Max viewport Polycount thread has Max & Maya FX shaders and many example Lit Spheres.
• Toon/Comic Shader for 3ds Max by Till "Rollin" Maginot supports LitSpheres. More info in the Polycount thread TF2 and TOON realtime viewport shader (3ds max).
• Mudbox Litspheres creation - by Pior "pior" Oberson, timelapse video of him creating Lit Spheres.

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