Alien Planet Year Rotation/Tilt Simulation

I’d like to commission an animation of a rotating, tilting globe, that otherwise stays stationary. As in, it isn’t orbiting anything else. I figure it’s a pretty basic animation, that’s why I’m hoping this is in my budget and daring to ask for help. Alternatively, if the money isn’t as appealing, I’d be more than happy to model a creature or terrain or something in exchange/addition, or maybe all I need is some tutoring and guidance, but cash for commission work IS the option I’m leaving on the table if it’s in my budget. I can see myself paying between $40-70 depending on the quality of the end result, but if those numbers don’t seem fair, please give me another. I’m new to this.

I could probably do this animation myself, as I have Blender and do enjoy working with it to weight, rig, and topologize, but my grasp of the interface is still not good and I’m in a time crunch and just don’t want to fiddle around being lost while other things scream to get done. Trying to get immersed in only one thing at a time.

So, on to project details: this is an alien planet, with a year of 366 days, each broken into 24 “hours.” I want the animation to create a frame for every hour of a year long simulation. I need the planet to then rotate 366 times, and the video needs an exact total of 8784 frames. At the start of the video, the axial tilt needs to be 15 degrees East of the z axis. By frame 2196 it needs to be in equinox. Frame 4392 it needs to be 15 degrees West of the z axis, and by frame 6588 it needs to be in equinox again. Finally frame 8784 will bring the celestial pole back to 15 degrees East of the z axis.

Now there’s another aspect to this that likely doesn’t have to be included in the Blender animation.
I want to simulate space debris falling on the planet at set intervals. I can do that in Photoshop, but it might be quicker to do it in Blender. Here’s an image mockup of the overall idea behind the simulation:

Anyone who wants to offer to tackle this can ask me for more details via email/skype, etc. ([email protected] or Skype: Rhodalle / [email protected])

I actually have the globe ready and textured in Blender. It only needs the animation.

I welcome whomever ends up doing this to improve the scene or lighting or, leave it as they see fit. I don’t actually want anything realistic looking though. For the end result I’m aiming for an old map or drawn on leather kind of vibe from the render. Can probably handle most of that in Photoshop, as I’ll be converting the video into stills from every 72[SUP]nd[/SUP] frame and modifying those to make the final charts.
Happy to give credit to the animator when I host the finished product of course! J
Hope all this sounds feasible, and thanks for reading.

i do planet animations all the time , but not in blender
i use Celestia for the rendering

as for textures i make them
starting with a height map then a colorized texture

an example

and

I need the planet to then rotate 366 times, and the video needs an exact total of 8784 frames.

that might be a problem to get 8784 frames

Very nifty renders John! Thank you for your reply. I will probably eventually want an aesthetic clip of the planet simulated in space. Right now I need to make charts from a series of stills for an RPG’s reference, and I figured an animation would be the best way. The image I linked in the first post is an example of what I want to do.

May have to do multiple parts. It doesn’t need to be one continuous video, as long as the simulation’s timing stays precise.

I’ve already got a globe with a texture map in Blender ready. Just need the animations, mainly.

Right now I need to make charts from a series of stills for an RPG’s reference,

then the easiest tool is probably MMPS
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~arcus/mmps/

input a simplecylindrical map ( 90 n to 90 s lat. and -180 to +180 long. )

for examples
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~arcus/mmps/gallery.html

and this will run on MS windows

Maybe I can help you with the animations, I got some time on saturday so that we could talk about some details…

Hmm, I don’t really have time to learn any kind of software right now. I’m undertaking so many projects as it is.

What I need someone to handle is just getting a globe to rotate on it’s own x axis - celestial pole (not the global x axis) and also have it tilt back and forth 15 degrees on the global axis.

Nothing else is important about the simulation as far as space goes. It’s just an orb that spins and tilts at the same time with a texture on it.

I am working with an animator now on this, but I am still open to hearing feedback about whether or not Blender was the right pick for software. It just happens that I use Blender enough (and it’s free) that I can work with the file itself and make different versions of the render, since it’s the stills I’m working with but an animation would be nice too.


but I am still open to hearing feedback about whether or not Blender was the right pick for software

Blender is plenty good enough for your needs, it can easily do what you want. The modeling, the animation, and the simulation. With proper effort, Blender shouldn’t let down in the end.

…to expound…

You already mention having your planet modeled, even so, here is a BlenderGuru tutorial for making a photo-realistic Earth using NASA’s Blue Marble: next generation images and blender. At the very least this demonstrates that the modeling part can be done in a trivial amount of time very easily. Blender is great for this.

After that, you would animate. Note that blender allows for key-framing pretty much anything rather easily. One simply makes a first “at rest” frame by selecting all [A], bringing up the insert key frame menu [I], and selecting “LocRotScale” (which is basically everything). Then move on to other frames, [R] to rotate your planet object to the corresponding position (you can type in the degrees), insert another key frame using the [I] menu again, select “Rotation” …etc… rinse and repeat. Mundane and boring, yes. Difficult and unfruitful, not at all. If you want it time accurate you just got to get the basic math right.

As for simulating, you should know that I was easily able to adapt the above Earth tut into a real-time version (For BGE, and my own needs). Here is a video. (Feel free to ignore “Read the Description”, that is intended for the plebeians if/when I make the video public.)

Note that in the blend file for the above I have full control over light angle and the planet rotation, all in degrees-per frame, all in real time if need be. This is with the same precision as for the key-frame animation case too. I lose some fancy options, most notable is raytracing and fluids, but all aspects of the simulation can be run on demand. Doing this you could have a 10x-1000x speed simulation of your planet as a wallpaper, or an interactive demonstration, or something else. You can do many things with this.