UV Sphere Mapping Problem

PolycountCounter

I'm using Maya 2018. I'm trying to apply a displacement map to this sphere so it's seamless from all angles. The material I'm using is aiStandardSurface, if that's any help. 

Displacement map:

My UV layout:

To do the UV layout I just did 'UV > Spherical'

If anyone can give me a hand I'd greatly appreciate it! 

EarthQuake

You could try apling a procedural noise texture and then baking that to your uvs.

The problem with what you're doing here is that spherical projection means that the closer you get to the poles, the more distorted it will be. Also, while your texture tiles in both directions, you can't get that sort of tiling on a sphere because of the poles.

RN

The following only works in some cases (like the random noise texture that you have). You can use "triplanar mapping" to map that displacement to your sphere, it maps XYZ to UVW.

On this page, search for "triplanar" to get to the relevant part: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Maya/files/Shading-Nodes-Projection-htm.html

This video goes through the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mdB8SecO60
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The cases where this doesn't work well is when you have patterned textures that need to tile seamlessly, or with tilted geometry that's not aligned to the world axes:
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2562070/#Comment_2562070

PolycountCounter

EDIT:
@EarthQuake So then, if I'm understanding you right then that'd mean it's near impossible to be rid of the ripple effect cause at the poles under common circumstances? 

@RN Also thanks alot for the video, that's an ingenious method. I never even knew projection was an option until now. I applied it, this was the result:

I'm very pleased with it!  
EDIT:
Okay, now I've rendered it without the area light in the background, and now the light can't seem to escape the orb.

Like I explained in the first post, there's two orbs. Small one inside big one.
Big = Glassy one,
Small = Glowing one.
I got it to glow by setting it's emission to 1, didn't do anything else to it aside from changing it's color. 

RN

I don't use Maya so I can't help much. I know it depends on the renderer that you're using, if it supports this feature that you're looking for -- it's usually a parameter called "transmission" or "translucency".

If you're using Mental Ray, Arnold etc. you should search how to make the big glass orb material be translucent.

PolycountCounter

I found a way around it; though I appreciate the response greatly. I'm looking into translucency now. It seems like quite an interesting material to mess around with in the future. As for the problem, it turns out by simply setting an aiStandardSurface's emission to 1 (max), the object can emit light, but not much more. It's better to just convert the object into a light instead. That fixed the problem with the light bouncing around the orb. 

kwyjibo

If you don't want distortion at the poles, you could make cube, normalize its UVs, then smooth it a few times and transfer vertex position from a regular sphere to get a sphere with cube-like topology. That way you can easily apply tiling textures.