PSEUDO 3D ROTATING GLOBE

This tutorial will show you an easy way to create a pseudo 3D rotating globe.

Getting Started
The first thing you will need is a tiled image. There is one provided in the .zip. These are easily found on the web and any image suitable for a web page background will work.

1. Import your image.

2. Create a circle and place over your image to the left.

3. Send your circle to the back. This will be used as the mask.

4. Select the image, Copy and Paste a second instance of it and place just to the right of the first image, so that there is no gap between the two. Make sure that the Y position is the same for both images.

5. Select the first image and add the Move effect at frame 0. Change the X Position property for this effect to Move Left by, and enter the same value as the image’s width. If you have an image that is 200X75, you would enter 200 as the value. Try 30 for the duration.

6. Check to see that the image moves at the desired speed and adjust the effect’s duration as needed.

7. Copy the effect (make sure that you are not in Preview Frame mode) and paste this effect at frame 0 for the second image.

8. Check that the images move together, and that there isn’t a gap between the two while playing. Realign if necessary.

9. Select all objects and Group as a Sprite. Set the Sprite to Loop and Masked in the Sprite Panel.

10. Return to the main timeline and check to see that the mask is working and that the images are scrolling properly

To give the illusion of a sphere, you need to place a highlight and a shadow above the tiled images.

11. Return to the Sprite's timeline. Select the circle, then Copy and Paste a second instance of that circle for the highlight. Select a Radial gradient fill, and choose white as the starting color and black for the ending color. Try setting the Alpha value for the white to 40% and the Alpha value for the black to 0%. Decide where your light source will be coming from and transform the fill accordingly.

12. For the shadow, Copy and paste a second instance of the circle you created for the highlight. Change the starting color from white to black and change the Alpha value from 40% to 0%. Change the Alpha value for the ending color from 0% to 20%. It might be easier to check and adjust your gradients if you hide your tiled images temporarily; click on the eye icons in the Outline Panel to toggle between hide and view.

Rotating on an Axis

13. If you would like this to rotate on an axis, it may be best to group both images as a Sprite within this Sprite set the Sprite containing the tiled images to Loop. You may need to reposition the Sprite containing the images after rotating so that it is over your circle mask.

Images with Transparent Areas

14. Images with transparent areas (e.g., the globe in the demo) can appear to wrap around the front and back by copying and pasting the Sprite with the images, and dragging the copy so that it is facing in the opposite direction.

The copied sprite is orange in the images below.

15. Resize the Sprite’s width back to 100% (if you have dragged the Sprite in the correct direction the height should remain at 100%). Send it behind the original Sprite and change the color if desired. You may need to adjust the position of this Sprite for a bit to get a realistic effect, and may find it helpful to reduce the movie’s frames per second during testing.

View this .swi to create the bouncing and text circling around the globe effects.