EyeonTips:Manual/Fusion 6/Shape 3D

From VFXPedia

Sphere Map vs. Connecting the texture to a Sphere directly

You can connect a latlong (equirectangular) texture map (see http://wiki.panotools.org/Equirectangular) directly to a sphere instead of piping it through the Sphere Map tool first. This results in a different rendering if you set the start/end angle and latitude to less than 360°/180°. In the first case, the texture will be squashed. When using the Sphere Map tool, the texture will be cropped. Compare:

(Note: If you pipe the texture directly into the sphere, it will also be mirrored horizontally. You can "fix" this by using a Transform tool first.)