What type of mapping do planet textures use?

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I was thinking of dabbling in Blender a bit and making a planet could be a fun project, but the question is: how are textures mapped? Is there a guide anywhere? There are many common types, cylindrical, spherical, etc. Also is there a guide to supported texture types, color, bump, diffuse, etc. ? Thanks!

 

*perhaps I should specify, I'd like to use Blender's texture paint tools to make the textures so I need to emulate how KSP handles it.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Waxing_Kibbous

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Hi seems to me like you're aiming to make a planet the hard way, all the tools and info you need can be found in the thread below