Rotating Earth animation needed

[Anonymous]

Hi. I’m new to the VideoMaker forum, although I’ve been subscribing to the magazine for a good number of years.

I’ve got a question about how to make a simple 3D animation. What I’m looking for is something that is similar to what you can get from Google Earth.

Animation:

Start with a spinning earth as seen from space with stars in the background. After a few rotations, zoom in towards a town (Kerrville) in Texas. Slow the zoom and smoothly stop when Kerrville is in the center of the screen with the northern part of the US at the top and central Mexico at the bottom. Hold at this point for several seconds. The length of the clip is around 10 to 15 seconds.

I downloaded and played with the trial version of Google Earth Pro which allows you to make “movies” of your tour, but the results where not encouraging. Making a high quality, fully rendered movie did not work at all (it could be I was doing something wrong). But worse is that I didn’t see any way to control the path, the camera angle, and speed as needed from my description above.

From the above, I have a few questions:

1. Can the animation I??ve described above be made using Google Earth Pro at or close to broadcast quality?

2. Is there another application or program available that I can use to make such an animation at a cost similar to Google Earth Pro ($400.00)?

3. Is there someone out there in video land who is willing to make such an animation at my specifications for a reasonable fee?

I hope this post isn’t too long. Thankyou for any and all help

Dave

[Anonymous]

What you need is 3D animation software. What you don’t need is massively expensive or elaborate software. So I’d recommend checking out the very economical http://www.DAZ3D.com web site. They have 3D software ranging from free to as much as you’d like to pay.

I purchased the program Carrara 3D Express (less than $100) and it could easily do what you’re asking for. Although I am assuming the same collection of 3D objects are included, it comes with a very nice Earth, with separate cloud cover and the star background. For your animation, you will most likely want to use Google’s static images for the steps in zooming down to Texas after you pierce the cloud cover. This could also be done in their free 3D program, DazStudio, using the Animation Plug-in ($30).

Or you can go into the on-site community and locate someone nearby to do the actual animation.

Good luck, hope this helped. Feel free to contact me to clarify any questions you might have.

[Anonymous]

if anyone else is looking for just generic rotating earth completely free, i just found this (finally):

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/flyby_movie.html

there are so many clips that come up on google that are royalty-FREE when you search FREE video clips. lol, finally found the above.

[D0n]

Create a Rotatable Globe in Adobe Illustrator

[Author]

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