TUTORIALS FOR VFX & MOTION GRAPHICS
Free After Effects Tutorials & More Hosted By: Andrew Kramer
Jul 02, 2007 | 23mins. 5 secs.
• Create a cosmic Earth zoom in AE
• Use masking and parenting to link imagery
 
 
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825 Responses to "Earth Zoom"
Xorok
01/29/2012
How you can overlap of exposures in the new Version Cs5.5 ?
Paul
01/29/2012
It s so interesting guy I ma so happy for that. I ll try to do it soon
Wilson Dlc
01/20/2012
I think I saw this effect in big bang theory.
Claudio
01/19/2012
I have always wanted to thank you for your tutorials, but I have never dared enroll me and to do it... THANKS!

FermataFilms
01/17/2012
Great Tut

If anyone is interested, you can see my try at this. Please feel free to leave comments.

http://vimeo.com/35240205
Sean Vikingsson
01/13/2012
How did you get such a high resolution photo resolution of my country (Ireland).?
valerio
01/05/2012
FLY.WAV

where i can find it ?

Jhabril Harris
12/21/2011
At first with the weather balloon thing I was like "forget get it" then 15 seconds realized you were joking and was like "oh"
Tonc91
12/16/2011
my earthStill.png has a white /grey box around it why is this so?
i did open it in photoshop and removed the background and it still has a grey box around it? can anyone help?
thnx
Gregory Tipton
12/28/2011
I added a elliptical mask, feathered and expanded the edges a bit and voila... an atmosphere!
sally
12/14/2011
that is bnot coo, i
Doo
12/11/2011
-To every person having problems with all the layer disappearing when parenting-

Parent all the layers to the second layer, instead of the first. after effects seems to be bugged and doesn't like how small and insignificant the first layer becomes after all the scaling down. So parent 3-8 to 2 and your problem should be solved. If not, try 4-8 to 3 and so on and so forth. Hope this helps
FM
12/08/2011
Hi Andrew,

Thank you for spending your time to offer those awesome tutorials up to the community. Really appreciate listening to you and your detailed instructions – its helping me learn super-fast and I have a giggle along the way listening to you.

Here are some further tips to help folks who have experienced a few problems with scaling and alignment issues. SCALE and PARENTING being the key words here…

I have read almost every post here and find some people experience the same problems I ran into… If you follow the tutorial exactly using Andrews files you won’t experience any difficulties however if you try to use your own high resolution satellite images you may run into alignment and spacing problems if you are not accurate or centrally aligned all the way… so this is what I have done to keep everything in time and as accurate as possible…

1/ Sample your satellite images keeping the target centre aligned in every image – your point of focus eg building, tree, car, house etc (MAKE SURE AS MOVING THE CENTRE 1mm CAN EFFECT THE SCALING DRASTICALLY WHEN YOU SCALE UP LATER ON) – this is crucial otherwise when you sale up your assets will be all over


2/ I sampled images from Google earth using the following guides – You can use Google Earths Earth ALT (Altitude) feature in the lower right hand of the screen:

Photo 1: 200m
Photo 2: 1, 52 km
Photo 3: 7, 47km
Photo 4: 30, 93km
Photo 5: 117, 63km
Photo 6: 856, 81km
Photo 7: 4700,00km
Photo 8: Large earth photo

I made my composition 1920 * 1080 and took several images at the ‘above’ Earth Altitudes in Google Earth to create 7 images 5000 * 3000 pixels as I wanted the best resolution possible and room to move the still images around a little. This was most time consuming as Google Earth uses a mapping system that distorts the images to try to render the altitudes however once you move from one point to another most of the time it is distorted… so lots of tweaking. Once you have these images in the bag following Andrews instructions is very simple… in fact to save time you can swap the images over and make the comp size larger and then just manually adjust the rotation and other layers – keep in mind that you may have to un parent layers while adjusting them.

Hope this helps.


Jarred
12/02/2011
Now I parented all of my footage. But now everything up to the Earth isn't there. What happened?
Josiah Joned
12/01/2011
How do I get the High res pictures of, say, San Antonio, Texas?
nicklas
11/30/2011
please let me know where i can got those high-res pictures?! wanna try it out, but i dont know where to get pictures like that :( another thing , if i dont have the proffesional after effekts, is there any other ways to get the " Exponential look" on the zoom?
Faris Hallaq
11/28/2011
Hey dude how do you get your own images that high res
Usman
11/16/2011
ohh thank GOd he is joking :D
Joel
11/03/2011
I have done everything perfectly up the point where you unparent all the layers, then when I reparent them back to layer 1 and set layer 1 scale to 100%, layer 1 shows up zoomed in, but when I adjust the scale down from 100% the other layers are gone and it's just black? Help! Does this work with .png files? That's the only thing I can think of?
Karre
10/16/2011
Thought that he was serius with the bloon this at first.
Phirana
11/10/2011
LOL ! , thats exactly what I also thought heh
komp master
10/13/2011
Hi Andrew I am your fan and I follow every video that comes out this tutorial on the site we particularly liked and then I decided to do that it looks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmykSH0dPLg I hope that you will like and that you leave a comment ....
Drew Palko
10/11/2011
or you could just do it like this: http://vimeo.com/30067977
blesson joy
10/07/2011
very interest in after effcts
alexandru
10/05/2011
Awsome work Andrew, thanks for teaching me AE!!

Does anyone know where I can find HD satelite images as the one in google maps, couse I need to do something like this for a tv station, but need to do it in HD, the thing is that goggle has a quite bad quality. I just took snapshots of the page and edited in photoshop, cause I don't know if you can download from google maps... But if anyone knows other website where I could download HD satelite images to do a shot like this I would most appreciated.

Thank you very much!!
jude
09/29/2011
actually very nice
thanks!!
Fabian
09/24/2011
Hey canyou tell me where you get the sound effects from pls?
Akram
09/28/2011
There's a button above where you can watch the video, and there is another button called: PROJECT FILES. Click on that and it will download everything what Andrew used in his tutorial.
Sam
09/27/2011
You need to buy the designer sound fx from Video Pilot
Andy G
09/21/2011
Wow... thanks for the tutorial. This will work great for a segment of my logo. You are definitely the king of of explaining stuff with this stuff.
Good work!
solomno cletus
09/13/2011
pls, i'm findin it difficult to buy stuff in videocopilot.i don't wats going on.....code isn't working.
ridampowar
09/03/2011
to good
Simsima
09/01/2011
That's exactly what I want !! Thnx Tooo Much ^.^
Space Ace
08/31/2011
Just wanted to say HUGE THANK YOU to you Andrew! You are a After Effects god and the reason I've learned (and continue to learn) to use this wonderful program. Please keep doing what you do and all the success for you man, you deserve it!! Thanks again for all the great work!
chandu
08/21/2011
hi.,its too very advance tutorial, this video for freshers & experts use for create new project
Rapha Taylor
08/20/2011
wow. That was incredible to watch, Andrew is VERY talented.
charlie
08/18/2011
i did this ages ago and worked fine but im now onto another video with the same effect, but this time when i use the elipse tool and feather them all to 250 and expansion to -250 the whole thing just gets completly blured during the zoom out effect
anyone know why this could be?
Jahim jean-noel
08/17/2011
i can't seem to find a place where i can download some high res picture....this effect is just to cool there are so many things that could be done with it....please help
Tyson
10/04/2011
I'm tryin to find the same thing. Anyone know?
Kati Anguelov
08/16/2011
Andrew, you are the God of After Effects!!! Thank you so much!
Kati
Sphere911
08/16/2011
When i parent alle layers to the first one and go to scale 1% it wont go back to the last one.... why not?
waledsharqawi
08/15/2011
You are crazy and I want to not know you
Password
08/05/2011
who owns a wheather ballon and who would send it to space.
Pirhana
08/01/2011
If we didn't have AE pro version it's over . . .
mabrad
07/12/2011
thanx
dood AL KHAL
chaitanya
07/04/2011
Your tutorial was awesome it was like a treasure for noobies like me...one problem with me is that that images u placed how to get them
SedComet(GdsProductions,sub if you like)
07/02/2011
Haha...I love the tottaly stupid ways to do the effect alternate in almost every tutorial start...very creative :P
Riley
06/30/2011
Can anyone help me? I have followed this tutorial exactly, and when I add new layers to the closest one, they get blurry. Do I have to use Photoshop files or can I use JPGs?
Brock
07/04/2011
Would tht be Mask Layers?
TURGUT
06/29/2011
wow. very good tutorial. Thanks
ZioBilly
06/28/2011
where can i find high quality satellite images?
Gustavo
07/01/2011
try bing maps!!! they are awesome!!!
paquiton96
06/25/2011
when i try to buffer it, ae shows me an error and then it says me to save changes the program closes.
vockica
06/23/2011
i am sure that is After Effects 7.0 i recognised it by icon in tab
macfreez
06/21/2011
I tried the weather ballon merhod 2, if NASA would be so kind to bring my camera back... pleas... n.n
Ed
06/20/2011
way too complicated for me. can you just make the video open source? lol
NOOB_TO_PRO
06/20/2011
I tried the weather ballon method and....
it failed :(
McKenzie Warren
06/23/2011
HAHA!!! :) That's awesome.
Esther
06/20/2011
I don't know why, but I can't seee
Austin
06/18/2011
at 4:50
There isn't "Layer 7" D:.
chun
06/18/2011
i am also experiencing the same issue. I'm no stranger to After Effects, but I'm completely stuck here. When I get to the step around 6:25 when all of the layers are parented to Layer 1, everything disappears.
Jason
09/01/2011
damn!it is not working,
I've been working on it for almost two hours,
but the problem's still here!!
fiesta
08/17/2011
I got it,
instead of parent everything to the first layer, leave them as they are one to next. turn of visibility of all layers then scale up last one (use numbers or the square) and fix center manually,
is not as fast an confortable as andrews way,... but it works
Joe
07/20/2011
This is happening to me too. I ran through this tutorial before and it worked fine but I wasn't running CS5. I really think something may have changed in CS5. Any thoughts?
Morgan
06/21/2011
Probably the size of your images is to low. So if you set your highest zoomlevel in relation to your lowest it ends up that the highest zoomlevel is <1px which can't be operated by After Effects
Tom
06/13/2011
Can you please tell me what version of After Effects is this?
Johan
06/22/2011
I think it's version cs3 on Windows XP (with window header color set to silver)
Devin
06/17/2011
actually its cs5, i'm pretty sure, dont let it fool you though, it only looks like that because he is using windows 2000/some older version of windows
Alex
06/16/2011
I believe he is using after effects cs3 or cs4
Brad
06/10/2011
Works like a charm! Thanks for the walkthrough.
Rob Cartwright
06/01/2011
Hi Andrew!

First of all, fantastic work! I've seen this comment a few times on this thread and I am also experiencing the same issue. I'm no stranger to After Effects, but I'm completely stuck here. When I get to the step around 6:25 when all of the layers are parented to Layer 1, everything disappears.

I can scale Layer 1 to 100% to see it; but when I zoom out, all the other layers are missing.

I would really appreciate your insight if you can think of what's going on. I'm working on something for a company and broadly using this tutorial.

Thanks.
John
06/18/2011
This exact thing is happening to me right now. I followed the steps exactly.
chunqin
06/18/2011
i have the same issue too
could you help me out?
chunqin
06/18/2011
i have the same issue too
could you help me out?
Felix
06/01/2011
Hi!
I'm just wondering what the the name of the sound from the designer sound FX that you are using?
Thanks for a great tutorial!
S.mahmood
05/31/2011
hi dear Andrew Kramer i always follow you're tutorials and i thank you for tutorials
i am very interested with your tutorials specially
for VFX thanks...................................!
carlos
05/23/2011
where do you get footage or images to practice on and eventually use for videos that you can show or use for school projects? I'm a new video student and have not used after effect before, what do you recomend?
Phaniraj
05/18/2011
HI, My name is Phaniraj, I've made my own pictures of the world, Starting from My place which was located in INDIA, I Did every step that you have told in your tutorial,but when i unlink them all from each other and then link them to the first picture all of them disappear except for the first one. What did I do wrong?
CamMcP
05/18/2011
If your wondering how to reverse the zoom out so that it zooms in all you have to do is select all the layers then go to Layer> Time> Time-Reverse Layer. Do this at the end.
Ant
05/05/2011
How can i do this in reverse (i.e zoom in). Also where can i get this kind of high res picture other than google earth?
Lights
05/11/2011
Invert the footage maybe?
Paul(castnod)
05/04/2011
As always,smashing tut! do kip up d good job..
Fawz
05/02/2011
Only the first picture, which should be the closest to earth, is clear. The others are really really blurry as if they have a bad quality, but I know they are not, cuz they are 1mb each. What's wrong?
Terence Roberts
05/01/2011
I know this is an old tutorial, but I was having some problems with this and thought I would help out those with the same issue.

I was experiencing issues with the project files provided, specifically the .png. I could not get the transparency to work in AE CS5. The problem is that the png is saved as indexed colour. Open the file in photoshop, go to image > mode > rgb and save it again as the png. Transparency should be working now.
Philip
05/10/2011
You beautiful man.
exist
04/22/2011
At first> Thanks a lot for the great tutorials.

Problem: after the step at 6:26 I can't see the layers anymore in my comp-preview-window, everything disappears, nothing to see but big blank spot on the map. What did I do wrong?
Zedx
05/04/2011
I have this same problem, I've made my own pictures of the world, Starting from the netherlands, Did every step that you have told me to do but when i unlink them all from eachother and then link them to the first picture all of them disappear except for the first one.
Patrick
04/14/2011
Great tutorial, done it with the weather balloon. Came out great. Thanks.
G.
05/18/2011
Hi Patrick, which brand your ballon? Mine sploded @ 2034ft.

thanks.
ps: Andrew, good work!
Josh Antonio
04/14/2011
Hi, I was wondering where you got the images from so i can get them for the location of my short film,
thanks.
josue
04/26/2011
man looking on google maps
akkaneko
04/13/2011
Hi, I was wondering. I saw that you can't use the pictures in the tutorial for commercial use, and was wondering where you got them. I want to make this kind of effect for a product commercial, but I don't know where to find that kind of picture. Thanks!
Lucy
06/01/2011
You can take them from google earth, but it won't be legal for commercial use. You can buy them officially from this company:
http://www.infoterra-global.com/contactform

I'e bought a few things from them now and the are always really helpful
josue
04/26/2011
man looking on google maps

Ithor
04/12/2011
Hey man,
You're Awesome :D
I really love you're work ;)
was my first look on this web site, I definitively love your tutorial ;)
Thank man, take care :)
Noah
04/09/2011
That Was GREAT! you should upload that to youtube. I'm looking foreward to more tutorials.
Jechem
04/06/2011
THeNK YA vary mach!
Abbey
04/06/2011
effective
Hemant kumar
04/05/2011
it's really nice
shilan
04/05/2011
i'm from nepal your tutorials are realy useful.
thanks
Saeed
03/19/2011
Dear Andrew Kramer,
My Name is Saeed Ahmad. First of all I am very thankful to you for your tutorials. Your tutorials are very helpful to me. I wanna say something that I am requesting you to make a tutorial on earth crack.

Thanks alot
John
03/15/2011
Hey Guys,

Awesome tutorial as always, but I was wondering how he created such good looking photos just from Google Earth when he got towards the ending of the zoom. The final picture of the Earth is awesome but when you just look at the Earth in Google Earth it looks like crap compared to this one...

Thanks,
John
Lafftar
03/29/2011
Its from his earth tutorial, you should check that out!
insertnamehere
03/12/2011
Hello, I'm working on a project which involves a lot of zoom-ins. Actually it is nothing but a zoom into words and pictures for a whole minute. Whatever I try I eventually end up with position and scale values like 2345,43534 and it makes a lot of trouble.

This tutorial helped a lot with introducing me to the exponential scale. However still it doesn't solve my whole problems since it isn't a single strict zoom like in this tut.

I think it would be more than welcome if you guys make a tutorial about a project which makes a lot of zoom into objects that are all connected to each other.
Derek
03/17/2011
Maybe check out the Sure Target tutorial.
Dylan
03/10/2011
actually you would need about 12 km of fishing string!
caleb gray
03/07/2011
wouldn't be great without the corny jokes andrew :D
Pascal
03/03/2011
My clouds are soo sh**...
sam
03/02/2011
Sir it is perfect Ilike this please help how to create dvd menus
Abali Joshua
02/28/2011
Wow I love your work, I am your greatest fan from Nigeria, Africa. Your tutorials make me more creative. you are doing a good job there, keep it up.
Lafftar
03/29/2011
OMG im nigerian too! I want to actually make cool stuff not the way its made in the sh*&*** nigerian movies.
Siya Digitals
02/25/2011
i need high quality satellite image of indian places, where can i get those !! do u know about that !
D.Holden
03/02/2011
Download Google Earth and Print Screen.
Christina
02/24/2011
The project files are missing graphic #8, it only has jpegs 1 to 7, and the earth-still ... is this effect still achievable without the 8th graphic
Heavy Reign
02/25/2011
There are only There are only 7 jpegs including the earth-still. That's all that he used in the video. That adds up to 8 images or layers which you probably mistaken for the 8th jpeg.

In short, there IS no 8th jpeg.
PLIGASO
02/19/2011
como hacen los efectos de video en formato transparente
Alexander Cross
02/16/2011
Hey! I need help, I can not do, "wiggle (10, effect (" Slider Control ") (" Slider)), Adobe After Effects CS5
Pascal
03/03/2011
Try to erease the spaces. I work also with CS5 and it works.
Reed Sawyer
02/12/2011
You are a great teacher. I have really enjoyed your tutorials.
Daddy_C
02/12/2011
HA! i love it when it takes you 23 minutes! when I do it, it takes hours!!!!! stop....play that back again....stop......rewind!!!! ....hahahhaah LOVE ya work Andrew!!!
Machine
02/23/2011
same here but twice your time. :D haha
jaspreet
02/05/2011
software for big zoom on eart and photoes please..........
Brice
02/02/2011
I need to know which is the best way to buy Hd satelite photo's from pictures of The Netherlands, Africa and the whole world.

Many thanks
Greets Brice
Brice
02/02/2011
Hey Guys,

I need to know if there is another way instead of Google Earth (pro) to find high res pictures from The Netherlands, Afrika and the whole world.

Help would be appreciated.

Greets
Alex_92
01/30/2011
lol i did the same mistake.. forget to press record xD
manuprasad
01/30/2011
HI.....
NICE WORK YA
THANKZSSSSSS.......
ahsan
01/28/2011
sir i want to news tutorial
lina
01/26/2011
nice tutorials
Pablo
01/25/2011
very nice and useful tutorial (as usual here), but imho stars should not be parented. stars are so far far away that moving few thousands miles with "camera" should not make any difference in our seeing the distance to stars. ... or maybe Im wrong ;) heh

regards to Andraw and cheers to everyone in AE scene :)
Richard Forman
01/22/2011
I need to know where the best place is to find the pictures to do this tutorial from Terni Italy. Thanks for the help!
Nano Digital
01/28/2011
You can use google earth to take these pictures.
bob
01/22/2011
Great tutorial!
anand
01/22/2011
I Like This Tutorial Because It Is amazing & excellent video tutorial.
thank you for giving to this tutorial for viewers
thank you so match..........
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