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
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: AfterEffects, TopPosts
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, 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
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, 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
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, 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
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, 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
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, 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, at Saturday, November 11, 2006
I've just relinked the textures, NASA had stopped direct access to them...
By
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Sunday, November 12, 2006
NASA links are down again.
By
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
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, 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
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Tuesday, February 06, 2007
thanks
juan
By
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, 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
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, 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
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, 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
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, at Monday, June 11, 2007
Pete,
Please post a link to the finished animation if you put it online somewhere!
By
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, 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
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, 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
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, 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, 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
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, May 12, 2008
This is very helpful. Thanks so much for posting it.
By
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, 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, 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, at Monday, October 20, 2008
Good idea, I'll see what I can do.
By
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Hi, is there a way of creating a sphere that works with AE cameras? Thanks
By
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
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
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
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
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Wednesday, March 24, 2010
This file converter can transfer tiff file other formats;
Simple File Converter
By
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
Mohsin Mumtaz, at Sunday, April 26, 2020
Post a Comment
<< Home