Hi. I'm new to the VideoMaker forum, although I've been subscribing to the magazine for a good number of years.
I've got a question about how to make a simple 3D animation. What I'm looking for is something that is similar to what you can get from Google Earth.
Animation:
Start with a spinning earth as seen from space with stars in the background. After a few rotations, zoom in towards a town (Kerrville) in Texas. Slow the zoom and smoothly stop when Kerrville is in the center of the screen with the northern part of the US at the top and central Mexico at the bottom. Hold at this point for several seconds. The length of the clip is around 10 to 15 seconds.
I downloaded and played with the trial version of Google Earth Pro which allows you to make "movies" of your tour, but the results where not encouraging. Making a high quality, fully rendered movie did not work at all (it could be I was doing something wrong). But worse is that I didn't see any way to control the path, the camera angle, and speed as needed from my description above.
From the above, I have a few questions:
1. Can the animation Iâ??ve described above be made using Google Earth Pro at or close to broadcast quality?
2. Is there another application or program available that I can use to make such an animation at a cost similar to Google Earth Pro ($400.00)?
3. Is there someone out there in video land who is willing to make such an animation at my specifications for a reasonable fee?
I hope this post isn't too long. Thank you for any and all help
Dave
