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WebGL Realistic Earth with Carl Sagan quote

38 points| insider03 | 11 years ago |earth.plus360degrees.com | reply

17 comments

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[+] biot|11 years ago|reply
This quote is great, but the visual ruins the context of a pale blue dot. From [0], the reference was to the Voyager probe taking an image of the Earth from near the edge of the solar system and the Earth appears as a dot less than a pixel in size.

From that perspective, seeing majestic images of the Earth larger than life and in your face is contrary to what Sagan was saying. With the outstanding visuals in this demo, one might get the sense of a majestic world full of opportunity, worthy of building armies to conquer and spill blood for each chunk of land; the very antithesis of his point of how tiny and insignificant our world and the people on it are.

The real pale blue dot: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Pale_Blu...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

[+] mmastrac|11 years ago|reply
That was great. I would have loved to have watched with a virtual Sagan narrating -- I heard his voice in my head the whole time.

The lightning on the dark side of Earth was a neat effect. Might want to consider flickering it randomly rather than flashing it to make it feel a little more realistic.

Well done.

[+] seanalltogether|11 years ago|reply
Nice work, I've been putting together something like this as well in my spare time, been trying to nail down the right shaders to handle the atmospheric glow as well as morphing cloud layers as they move. Trying to see how possible it is to come close to this effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybh11kcDhfM
[+] Ciantic|11 years ago|reply
It's nice. However text is too small. They should try to mimick TV font sizes, that is huge so one can read them without focusing on the text.
[+] ElijahLynn|11 years ago|reply
Doesn't work on Ubuntu 14.04 in 64-bit Chrome 42.0.2311.90.

No JS errors in console either when clicking "begin".

[+] white-flame|11 years ago|reply
It'd be nice if it to panned out in an approximation of the original pale blue dot picture.
[+] cturhan|11 years ago|reply
Great Job. I liked it. How did you add lightning effects? Is it procedurally generated?
[+] malkia|11 years ago|reply
Lovely! Very touching...
[+] tgreenhaw|11 years ago|reply
You really should give attribution to Carl Sagan
[+] insider03|11 years ago|reply
In the title of this post? I will edit it right now. I saw the attribution of Carl Sagan in the credits of the project.
[+] jheriko|11 years ago|reply
those blue marble 2012 textures are still awesome.

webgl thing, okay for a mist shrouded sphere. technically worth approximately nothing though... :)