The planets (and pluto) a quick tour of the solar system

Made with Shotcut
#1

Some very old music of mine finally found a home as the accompaniment for my new video.

EDIT: This is how I used Shotcut:

  • the ring of fire, is an short video or a flaming ring that rotates in place. I used 2 masks. One on the background outside the ring and another the new background inside the ring and used key framing to allow the masks to change size as I use size position and rotate on the ring to fly through it. I then copied those filters and the clip of the ring and used them as needed throughout the video.
  • the motion of all the planets and pluto is Size Position and Rotate with keyframes.
  • the sun is a video of a flaming ball with a black background so I used Shotcut to remove the background and saved it as a new video with a transparent background. I then used Size Position and Rotate to zoom in.
  • the reveal of the lines of text was done using Text Simple with a gray background and another mask with key frames.
  • the stars in the long wormhole near the end, is another video simply masked by Shotcut to fit inside the flaming ring.

I wanted to use video of the planets rotating but couldn’t find the quality I wanted so I went with static images instead. Besides, given the amount of time spent at each planet in my video, in reality you wouldn’t actually see much rotation anyway.

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#2

That was fun :slight_smile: I love the music. Particularly the opening.

I’d like to mention though that I’m among the few people that still have a problem accepting Pluto’s demotion to the rank of “minor planet” or “dwarf planet”. If Pluto was significant enough in 1930 to stand out from the rest of the objects in the Kuiper belt, that’s a good enough reason to let it keep it’s Ninth Planet nickname in my opinion. The “formal definition of planet” adopted in 2006 is cruelly unfair to poor little Pluto.

3 Likes
#3

…was propounded by persons who do not meet my “formal definition of an astronomer”.

So there.

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#4

But these persons are the International Astronomical Union. And that gives them the power to have the last word regarding these kind of things.

#5

Are these the same ones who were calling for “One big union, and one big strike”? Or was that a different union? :rofl:

#6

Don’t start me on the union subject. Reason one: my views about Unions are not popular. As good and necessary they were in the late 19th and early 20th, Unions are, in my opinion, ridiculously too powerful today. Reason two: That will dangerously steer us out of the context of this thread :wink:

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#7

Thanks!

Yea, Pluto was considred a planet for most of my life so I still think of it that way, but I figured I’d acknowledge it’s current downgraded status to keep the video as accurate as I could even if Pluto isn’t entirely happy about it. :wink:

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#8

Fine with me. Feel free to discuss anything you like. :slight_smile: I actually found it funny how quickly this thread derailed into something completely unrelated. It gave me a good laugh.

#9

About 12 years ago I wrote a simple HTML program to simulate the inner planets of the solar system - as practice for some code I was about to work on. I thought you might like to see the
very simple result. The actual code comprised 9 lines of HTML, 30 lines of CSS and 80 lines of Javascript.

2 Likes
#10

I read the description to see if you had used other software for some of the animation. It appears you used mainly Shotcut outside of some stock/canned animations like the ring of fire (don’t think this is what Johnny Cash had in mind :wink: ). Is that correct?

#11

Thanks for sharing that. Impressive what can be accomplished when things are used in unexpected ways. I like that you were able to include the moon orbiting the earth as it orbits the sun.

#12

I’ve updated my original post to describe how I used Shotcut. No other animation software was used by me. I used Gimp to manipulate some of the images like cutting up and manipulating the console image, and removing the background from some of the planets, and I did mix some video in with the Shotcut animated planet images, but most of the real work was done with Shotcut.

2 Likes
#13

Of course, I totally understand. You you don’t want the goons from the IAU to come knocking at your door :slight_smile:

#14

200dalek

No, you certainly wouldn’t!

#15

Oh my God! :scream:
I haven’t watched many episodes of Dr. Who, so I never imagined that Daleks could climb stairs. Are there any places left in this world where we can be safe?

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#16

I have reason to believe that we are safe here in Pine Prairie.

96db21c43c181d3a-remington-s-new-pump-action-shotgun-is-awesome-rare

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#17

The HTML/CSS/Javascript code can be seen at: http://jsfiddle.net/elusien/tGY4B/

If I were doing it today I’d write it completely differently and much more concisely.

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#18

How did I miss this? That looks very nice. :slightly_smiling_face:

#19

Hi @pbattersby, I enjoyed your video - fantastic work. I love the music too - great bit of sequencing! Bravo!! :+1: :+1:

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#20

Hi: I am amazed at how much great content Shotcut helps create.
I noticed something in the video but I don’t know if it’s YT’s problem. I mean the sawteeth on the edge of some planets (Jupiter, Saturn).
Pluto doesn’t seem to have this problem (it won’t be a planet for some but it still keeps some dignity, hahaha).
Great job. Thanks for sharing.

1 Like