# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Regional/World Mapping >  Satellite Tests

## morne

I've been messing around with texturing in Gaea to try and get a somewhat convincing rendering of satellite imagery.





I'm finally happy enough with the results to share my progress so far. I'm struggling with getting large, distinct "forests", and I think the desert and higher elevations need a little more detail---the mountains are too green, and I need to add visible lakes, but I think it looks decent at first glance. I'll hopefully be posting updates more, especially once the heightmap for the next continent is done and I can do some larger-scale renders.  Vertical scale is exaggerated quite a bit for effect.

Clouds are taken from here: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images...-marble-clouds

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## MrBragg

This looks really good!  Without zooming in to look at the details I'd easily mistake this for a satellite image.  Hope how you did this ends up on your tutorial page  :Wink:

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## Charerg

I second the hope that you make this into a tutorial eventually. This looks great!

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## Michi il Disperso

WOW.. just.. wow

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## Redrobes

What parameters are you using to generate the texture ? Is it just the height map ?

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## Harrg

How did u do this? I many years try to do something like this. Looks very good!

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## Eowyn Cwper

It looks absolutely fabulous!  :Surprised:

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## morne

Thanks everyone! 

I've made a little bit more progress detailing the mountainous desert regions:



Here's a screenshot of the node graph from Gaea:


I blend the different "biomes" together in photoshop with layer masks.

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## Harrg

Clouds can make shadows on land and have own shadows. (clouds on the south have bad mask)
I make 6 years ago animation with clouds like example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KLvFN_Gmfc
In deserts region u can imitate dunes and sand motion like simple texture.
Better make underwater relief too and than added water.
River streams ofthen make dirty water on the delta.
I see mountain lakes places, but did`t see lakes
Looks cool. I realy envy your results and it inspires me.

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## Chashio

That looks really cool!

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