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3D Solar System

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This subject is as old as the Earth itself. How to create 3D planets? Simple. Just apply CC Sphere onto a texture, right? Wrong! If you want to make it cool you need to do a couple other things as well, which I’m going to show you in this upcoming tutorial.

[Watch the tutorial]

By the way - speaking of planets and the universe… I’ve been having this idea for a long time and I’m closer to realizing it than ever before. I want to create a in-scale solar system in 3D, that you could fly through with the camera, maybe even set up a date and see the alignment of all planets. This upcoming 3D Earth tutorial is just a small piece of a bigger project. I know I’m crazy, but I just want to see if I’m capable of doing something like this, and is AE capable of doing it as well.

If I’m going to do this, than it’s going to use my upcoming product to achieve the effect. The product is a CustomEffect designed to easily set things in motion. Stay tuned. It’s coming. Soon.

9 Responses to “3D Solar System”

  1. I remember, wow, 20 years ago I had a programme on the ZX Spectrum that you could input a future or past date and it would plot the alignment of the planets. Took about a week, though… Good lord, I feel old!

  2. Well… I honestly don’t know how much time it’s going to take to calculate the position of the planets, but I’ll surely give it a try. Sounds like an interesting experiment, don’t you think?

  3. here’s a link to the site with the Earth texture maps, hopefully it’s the same place where you got yours. http://planetpixelemporium.com/earth.html

    Anywho, awesome tutorial once again!!

  4. Yes. I already found it in my bookmarks :) How stupid of me not to check them before. Thanks anyway. There are more sites with great high-def textures. Anyway I’ll post a project file to that tutorial soon, and it will include all the used textures. Glad you like it. Cheers!

  5. Will you be making a mac version installer for custom effect?

  6. Yes. It’s already developed. Just need to run some test on a mac. If you’re up for it use the contact form in the Contact section and drop me an email. Also make sure to have Skype installed, so we could test it out. That would really help me a lot.

  7. I want to know that how my Genius-M thinks on a project,

    Its just amazing, just amazing

    thnx mark

  8. Hi Maltaannon,

    another great video tutorial you share with us.

    http://www.strongmocha.com/2008/05/22/advanced-3d-solar-system-after-effects-tutorial/

    Cheers,

    Thorsten Meyer
    http://www.StrongMocha.com

    DFX (Digital Effects) VFX (Visual Effects) Photo Food Travel

  9. Great work there Maltaannon!Thanks for being so helpfull to the AE community outthere!Keep on rocking!
    I always wondered how sun could be made inside AE (it’s surface, explosions and all) so i hope that adds an idea for a future tutorial.
    Thanks again for your amazing effort!

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