Hi guys,

I'm very new to the whole 3d Studio thing so apologies for that and believe me I've searched the web a lot for how to approach this issue with no real luck having attempted any steps I've found.

I've produced a 32 panelled football that I would like to texture with a blue marble type Earth texture like those found here: [Link to visibleearth.nasa.gov]

The ball looks like this (for illustrative purposes): [Link to www.martinhawkins.co.uk]

The NASA images would map on to a sphere perfectly but that doesn't seem to be an option in my case unless I'm approaching the materials editor incorrectly? It only appears that I have the option of texturing each panel individually.

So I wondered if I'd need to produce a texture map that I can then apply the image to in some 2d software but this is where I've been stuck for a while - producing a usable texture map. I imagined being able to produce some kind of seamless template that I could warp the image into...

I'd really appreciate any guidance on how best to approach this. Thanks.

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