General Specialist

2006-10-11

Free Download: Beautiful Earth Animation Project

Here's a fully animatable Earth project complete with water reflections and moving clouds. If you move the Sun to the back of the planet, you'll even see the night lights of the major cities!

Requires Adobe After Effects 7.0 Professional.



Download the project file first and then download NASA's free textures:
Night texture (land_ocean_ice_lights_2048.tif)
Day texture (land_ocean_ice_2048.tif)
Cloud texture (cloud_combined_2048.tif)

Post a comment if you have any questions or just to let me know what you've used it for (I'm curious.)

Update: I've relinked the NASA textures since they had been changed.
- Jonas

Labels: ,

 Wednesday, October 11, 2006

43 Comments:

  • This is very cool, Jonas! Thanks for posting. Nice use of expressions, too. I like how you've got the lights linked to show night or day.

    - Nathan Shipley, Indianapolis

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Friday, October 13, 2006  

  • It demonstrates how useful it would be to have basic 3D primitives inside After Effects, just like in Fusion and Nuke.

    One problem with the "CC Sphere" plugin is that it is 8-bit only, something that can easily be fixed by getting the Cycore FX HD package, but unfortunately that still doesn't get you a sphere that uses AE's cameras and lights.

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Saturday, October 14, 2006  

  • Super useful. Thanks!

    My only critique is that the 'dark side' clouds look a little bright. I may play with the luma map for those. We also need a starfield map for the background... might play with that one.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, October 17, 2006  

  • Feel free to improve on the project, I'll gladly post new versions!
    As for the starfield, if you come up with a good way to link the CC Sphere controls with expressions to simulate a "real" camera move, let me know!

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Tuesday, October 17, 2006  

  • Hello´,
    is it also possible to do this also with
    AE 6.5 Pro ?

    The project can´t be opened. Or can it be converted ?

    Greetings to all contributors

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Friday, October 27, 2006  

  • Yes, but unfortunately I've built the project in 7.0. The same thing could be built in 6.5 Pro, as well.

    If you're on Windows, I have a shrink-wrapped AE Pro 7.0 box in my bookshelf, that I'll gladly sell you!
    Give me an offer via email:
    jonas at hummelstrand dot com

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Friday, October 27, 2006  

  • Hmm...
    Is CC Sphere a buildin plugin for AE7?
    Or I can get it in differ place?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, October 30, 2006  

  • The 8-bit versions of the CC filters are included in After Effects 6.5 Pro and 7.0 Pro, but they are not installed automatically, you have to launch a separate installer, just as with Keylight.

    I can recommend the Cycore FX HD pack which are 16-bit versions of the same pack, plus a couple of extra plugins.

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, October 30, 2006  

  • Hey, I just used this as an open for a conference I designed mogfx for - it was great and got a lot of airtime. A few notes:

    - I set up a 3d scene with a starfield (from NASA) in the background plane.
    - I created a matte with a lens flare on it, to be the sun. Actually, two...
    - ... one behind the earth (you see the night side). When it crosses the disc of the earth, the second appears
    - A camera zooms in slowly as on a dolly. Slows motion, then logo!

    The theme of the spot was "go [unto all the earth]" - this was for a ministry conference. Worked great, thanks for your help! I'll post a clip sometime when I'm done traveling.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, October 31, 2006  

  • Is there any other place where I can find the image maps for this project?.
    It seems that the links you provided are down.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Saturday, November 11, 2006  

  • I've just relinked the textures, NASA had stopped direct access to them...

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Sunday, November 12, 2006  

  • NASA links are down again.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, November 13, 2006  

  • The textures reside on NASA's servers, over which I have no control, even though it may seem like I would, considering I make the Earth spin... :-)

    It's "the tubes" that's causing the problem, you'll just have to wait for NASA to fix their stuff...

    PS. I just tried the links and they work, even on the nine year old Linux laptop I'm writing this on.

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, November 13, 2006  

  • Jonas, thank u for share this great project.
    sorry for my basic knowledge about expresions, but i couldnt find the way to change the layers from nasa for another textures ive downloaded from the server.
    Ive seen the flowchart but i couldn manage the way to edit it.
    thank u again.
    Juan
    decarne@gmail.com

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, February 06, 2007  

  • If you want to replace the textures, just replace the footage in the Project window. Right-click each texture in the Project window and choose "Replace."

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Tuesday, February 06, 2007  

  • thanks
    juan

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Wednesday, February 07, 2007  

  • Hello

    Hey you are fantastic man,
    but where is the tutorial,
    can you mail me the tutorial in pdf or word format, I like to try it, if you can mail me at...

    bhaskarsj@yahoo.com.

    I will be waiting for your reply

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Wednesday, March 21, 2007  

  • Dear "anonymous,"

    Download the After Effects project and the NASA images and place them in the same folder. Just open the project and start using it, that's all there is to it...

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Wednesday, March 21, 2007  

  • Hello Jonas

    I know your instructions are as easy to understand as it is to read. Im having a lot of trouble opening this though. I have downloaded your images, and updated it in aftereffects.

    However, its not working! it reads "missing - ccsphere. Also a warnging comes and it reads the following:

    This project contains 14 references to missing effects. Please install the following effects to restore these references. ("CC Sphere")

    Can you help me please.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, April 16, 2007  

  • Larry!

    On the install disc, there's several installers with additional plugins, such as Keylight, Color Finesse and the great Cycore FX plugins. Install those and you'll be alright!

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Tuesday, April 17, 2007  

  • This is fantastic! I'm making a video at the moment for a charity in the UK for Refugee week and we want to give the video a global feel. I wondered if it would be possible to use your project? Are there copyright restrictions on this piece of work? Many thanks, Pete Barden.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, June 11, 2007  

  • Pete,

    Feel free to use the project files. For the textures, please look at NASA's Terms of Use at:
    http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/useterms.php

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, June 11, 2007  

  • Jonas,

    Thank you so much. That is extraordinarily kind of you. I'm unsure as yet if we're going to be able to include any credits but if we do then we'll definitely credit you.

    Many thanks,

    Pete

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, June 11, 2007  

  • Pete,

    Please post a link to the finished animation if you put it online somewhere!

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, June 11, 2007  

  • Just wondering... Mine shows a green x in front of the globe.... do you know what that is and how to get rid of it?? Thanks (nb, excellent work - I'm still trying to work out exactly how you created it though so I can try to create it on my own)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sunday, July 08, 2007  

  • Sounds like you are using one or several unregistered plugins. The project doesn't use any non-standard plugins, so unless you have installed any demo plugins (probably Cycore FX HD since they show up in this project) just isolate which plugin is rendering the X by turning off effects for each layer (you will have to turn off the "Shy" button for the composition so you can see each layer.) Uninstalling the demo plugins should make everything render OK.

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, July 09, 2007  

  • Jonas,

    Latecomer that I am, I was wondering if you could say a few words for the newbies. How do we add the TIFF files to the project so that it is ready to render as is?

    Thanks!
    -eg

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sunday, April 13, 2008  

  • Download the TIFF files and place them in the same folder as the AEP file. Then open the project and After Effects should find the files.

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Sunday, April 13, 2008  

  • for www.earth-ward.com we need a photo realistic rotation earth, in the future earth-ward inform about renewable energy and sell air water purifiers

    contact talmond.delot@gmail.com

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, April 28, 2008  

  • Maybe im asking a strange question right now but, where do i download the CC Sphere effect? I can't find it ANYWHERE on the net... Please help me out. Thanks!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sunday, May 11, 2008  

  • The "CC Sphere" effect is included with After Effects 7.0 Professional and later versions.

    If you have an educational version of After Effects you may need to buy the Cycore FX plugin pack from http://cycorefx.com/

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, May 12, 2008  

  • This is very helpful. Thanks so much for posting it.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Friday, August 15, 2008  

  • I belive I'm about to use your great globe setup for the tenth time. Thank you!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, August 18, 2008  

  • Hey... just found your animation. Can someone describe to me in some steps, how i get the texture on the planet in AE?
    PLEASE.. THX from AUstria
    Stefan

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, September 23, 2008  

  • Would love to see a tutorial on the use of expressions on this. I've been using After Effects and have been a compositor for a long time but I am a complete newbie to expressions.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, October 20, 2008  

  • Good idea, I'll see what I can do.

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Tuesday, October 21, 2008  

  • Hi, is there a way of creating a sphere that works with AE cameras? Thanks

    By Blogger Steven, at Friday, November 14, 2008  

  • You could create an expression link between the AE camera and the CC Sphere effect, but you'd probably need an expression guru like Dan Ebberts to write it. You could ask him in the User-to-User AE forum at http://adobeforums.com/

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Saturday, November 15, 2008  

  • Great project! Thanks for sharing.
    Is there a place where higher resolution maps like the one used could be found?
    I'm trying this on a HD comp where closer zoom is needed.
    Thanks in advance,

    By Blogger drtc, at Friday, July 10, 2009  

  • Beautiful work - thank you! A quick question in CS4 if you have a sec. I would like to make the animation longer than 30 seconds, but when I extend the media inside a new, longer composition, the image disappears after 30 seconds. I'm totally at a loss... Any ideas?

    By Anonymous Adam, at Thursday, March 18, 2010  

  • Adam,

    It's because I've hidden a bunch of layers. Use the "Un-shy" button top-right in the Composition window to see all layers. Then extend the length of the comp and drag the duration of all layers to fill the comp length.

    By Blogger Jonas Hummelstrand, at Wednesday, March 24, 2010  

  • This file converter can transfer tiff file other formats;

    Simple File Converter

    By Anonymous Mohsin Mumtaz, at Sunday, April 26, 2020  

  • Because that simple file converter has supported these formats;

    Gif to Mov

    Wmv to Gif

    Mp4 to Mkv

    3gp to Mp3

    Tga to Jpg

    By Anonymous Mohsin Mumtaz, at Sunday, April 26, 2020  

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