Earth Moon Sun Animation Test

Testing an animation of Earth, Moon, and Sun.
MPEG4, 320x240, 30 fps

I did this just for fun to see how it would turn out, and to test the limits of YouTube.
I created the animation with Blender 2.43 (blender.org)

Source for some of the textures:
Surface color and topography
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble/BlueMarble_monthlies.php
Clouds
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2432

Lessons learned:

Movie compression prior to upload:
* H264 gives much smaller files than MPEG4, so uploads are faster, but YouTube processing is often longer than the upload anyway.
* Compressing movies can produce small color shifts due to color quantization. For this movie, H264 compression produces a faint purple cast on the oceans (prior to upload to YouTube). MPEG4 compression just makes the oceans a slightly darker blue, so it was used here.

YouTube:
* YouTube compression is pretty severe. It handles vlogging (talking head, little motion) but doesn't handle full frame motion very well.
* Don't spend a lot of time working on fine detail--it probably won't show up on YouTube. What you see here pales in comparison to the original. :-(
* Uploading movies smaller than 320x240 produces noticeable image degradation. Movies larger than 320x240 don't look any better. (YouTube recommends 320x240.) - see update below
* Uploading movies at 30 frames per second will result in smoother motion than 15 frames per second, but if there is a lot of motion in the frame, the image quality is a little worse at the higher frame rate. Even at 30 fps the playback isn't always smooth. On a Mac the Flash player can still randomly hiccup on playback, on a PC it will tear frames. Sometimes playback will be smooth, so the file does have all the frames.

2008-03-30 Update: due to changes at YouTube, the recommended size is 640x480 (or higher for HD) and this will allow the video to be viewed at "higher quality," e.g. by adding &fmt=6 or &fmt=18 to the URL.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• CGI
• animation
• test
• Earth
• Moon
• Sun
• stars
• Blender

[LordKhensu]

my olny problem with this animation is, that the earth looks like a steel ball, because it has a very shiny spot, but other than that its great :)

[BGenerous]

You are right. In photos of the Earth from space there really is a shiny spot from reflection off of the water, but it isn't as bright as what I had in this early animation.

Thanks for watching!

[Nkatsikanis]

awsome, where did you get the textures from?

[BGenerous]

I've added a couple links in the video description.

[openEYEstudios]

This reminds me of "Heroes"

[BGenerous]

I think they used the same cloud image file as I used here. It looks like the same pattern to me.

[lilim98]

YOU SHOULD ADD MUSIC!!!

[Nilmabostonrio]

Wow! Superb. Good job.

[movieshop1000]

great! now just add some 21st century fox music!

[JDardudwy]

Can i use this please? :) 

[Evin062008]

@LordKhensu mainly because it needs an atmoshpere, but he did waaaaaaaaaaay better than I did.

[madridfc5]

nicee

[victorray1]

the stars are also outta alinement in background but good....

[VanniS83]

nive video ;-) take a look on my animation too

[flashfith]

cool , i guess it's pointless critiquing after 3 years. you are probably better than me now.

[tritonmole]

isn`t anyone using same cloud map?? :D:D

me too :))

check my animation too, i would like to listen some suggestions