Your creating planets? If so your welcome to join a mod project Im working on. The mod Hopfully will have 100+ planet types so I could use some help. The trick is to create the image in the shape of a cross, you dont make the corners.

anyway if you want to join my mod just say so

soasertsus

If Im correct the top and bottom squares go around the bottom and every square stretches a little to cover the whole sphere. But yes, it is some serious guess work!

That is an odd way to uv map a sphere IMO. The game should be able to handle a "normally" Spherical mapped UV object. I have seen earth, and moon models imported in game that are mapped this way with no issues. I do not know how mapping spherically will effect the shaders (swirling clouds).

The terrestrial planets use the cross shape so that the textures don't end up distorted at the poles (without having to do a polar distortion on the texture image itself). The middle part wraps around the center of the planet, and a circle is cut from the top and bottom parts and goes on the poles. IIRC the gas giants use the more typical mapping since you wouldn't notice the polar pinching.

You should be free to use whichever mapping method you prefer if you're making your own planet models.

Thanks! This forum is awesome. Easily the most knowledgable mod community I have ever met with.

So just to make sure I have this correctly. If I want to make a ubiquitous (uniform) texture for a planet i can use the "Sun" method and when I need to make a texture for a planet that has unique features in them (like a continent shaped like chuck norris) I should use the "Planet" method. Right?

Also, does anyone know the dimensions(specs) of the polar distortion on the poles or is it kind of: Cut the midsection, apply polar distortion to a new layer, place......and repeat?