This is so simple, yet it eludes me on how to get it right. I start with a blank, new Chor. Go to library and import the 32 patch sphere. I imported, because I thought the sphere I made was at fault (it wasn't.) Anyways - import the Galileo HDR probe image and use it to create a new projection map material. Set the projection method to spherical and drag it onto the sphere model. Now I drag the sphere into the chor, center it, scale it really big, delete all lights except one to illuminate it from the outside (just for this test, not for normal scene render) and I should get a nice sphere with the Galileo image wrapped around it, right? Not so, I get a very distorted image on the sphere. See attached. Any thoughts?

Here is a link to the simple project file. Would someone please try this out and see if you can find out what's going on? Just load the project file and do a quick render of the Chor from the top view. You will see that the projection map does not close properly around the sphere.

Link: http://home.comcast.net/~pyglesias03/Galileo_Sphere.prj

My thought was that the problem might be attributable to the splines at the top and bottom of every AM sphere. With that in mind, I turned the model 90 degrees. Checking the sphere in modeling mode in the chor, it indeed turned on it's side with no difference in the projection map orientation and no difference in the nasty seam down it's back side. So, since the problem obviously has nothing to do with the model it is projected on, it can only be a problem with the projection map settings or the map itself.

This is very confusing to me that no one has ever brought this up before since it is so obvious and easily repeated???

You used a probe instead of a latitude longitude map.

Probe maps look like this:
Click to view attachment

Latitude Longitude maps look like this:
Click to view attachment

Try that and see if it works.

Instead of using a light to brighten the sphere, just set the Ambaince Intensity on the sphere to 100%.

Thanks Matt. I'll give that a try. When is a probe map used?

Probe maps are used with Ambiance Occlusion.