How to Animate in Google Earth (like Jon Bois!)

This is a comprehensive tutorial on how to animate in the style of Jon Bois, using Google Earth. It's meant to be watched front-to-back, but I have timestamps below if you want to skip to a specific section.

Some of Jon's videos:

0:00 Intro & Software List
1:03 Google Earth Pro or Google Earth Studio?
3:23 Setup and Keyboard Shortcuts
4:38 Adding Images, Text, 3D Models, etc.
8:34 Choosing Camera Angles & Animating
11:18 Storyboarding & Organization
12:41 Rendering your Movie & Cropping the Watermark
16:14 Tips on Planning & Miscellaneous Advice

My Twitter: @bobbybroccole

[BobbyBroccoli]

It was pointed out to me that the best way to animate scrolling (without zoom outs and zoom ins) is not actually to use a path! Paths have some weird camera restrictions. The easier and more versatile method is to just record yourself manually pressing the arrow keys to scroll.

[HabladorDesignado]

When Jon said that he used Google Earth for his videos, I thought he was joking. But man, this is amazing. Excellent video man, thank you ❤️

[TheXeeman]

As an animator by trade, i had no idea you could do motion graphic stuff with google earth. Mind blown

[trumanhanks]

Holy smokes I feel like I hit the jackpot. I remember a few years ago searching for something like this and there was nothing. Then I searched today and here you are, having uploaded this just 5 days ago?! You rock, man. Thank you.

[acaciaenator]

i didn't know that jon bois animated *everything* in google maps, that's crazy :O

[cashnelson]

So funny to see this! When I watched your Schon videos I thought "damn, this guy must use the same system Jon Bois does"

[ChillFuel]

Just went down the rabbit hole of all your videos and was wondering this the entire time. Really appreciate this video and Im gonna give it a go with my next video! I think you implement this editing style amazingly.

[anpeck]

Thank you for continuing Johns style, no one else made a style quite as beautiful as his.

[BananaButtPower]

I cannot even begin to describe how shocked this video has me. I can't believe you made the Jan Hendrik video on google earth. I am just o_o
Honestly, it's impressive

[captaindoctor]

this is one of the best tutorials for an incredibly specific thing that i have ever seen. i just have one question though: how do you think jon made the sea level rise in 17776? there's nothing in google earth to do that. if it wasn't for the curvature of the earth, you can kinda use polygons to do that, but for now i'm lost.

[stagyetivods]

Really, genuinely excellent work here. I recently watched your Schon series and I was curious how you and Jon Bois created animation like this. I *love* the use of something like Google Earth to create fantastic projects like this that the developers never intended it to do. Just great stuff, and thank you very much for sharing.

[DIFB]

Wow! Just wow! I have been wondering for so long how Jon has been doing this and now thanks to you I know. Thank you sir!

[CollinKeegan]

I know I'll probably be waiting a while if not forever, but oh how I wish for a Blender edition of this tutorial - love your style of animation and would love a blender tutorial that focuses on the tools needed for your animation style.

[SethLovestoTalk]

This is so cool! I have been looking for a tutorial like this for a while and this is incredibly well done and informative. I've used Google Earth but this perfectly lays out how to use it in the ways I wanted. My next video is on 20020 and I'll definitely be using this to make an intro <3

[skimmilkm]

Just watched the Bogdanoff documentary of yours, I could feel the Jon Bois inspiration! Incredible work.

[celticguyph]

Thank you!! I've waited years for a proper tutorial making videos Jon Bois Style.

[dd]

If you gave me 500 tries to guess the software for those videos, I still wouldn't say Google Earth

[bowlofcereal]

I was so impressed by the google earth part of the jan hendrik videos and despite having google earth on desktop for so many years it had never occured to me its possible to do so much there omg? I'll definitely give it a try for fun now

[LambHoot]

yes! Been playing this week with the browser app to make simulated drone shots this week. Psyched to try the desktop app sometime

[joelsmith]

Your image scaling tip at 7:00 is your leg up over Bois. Many times his graphs and self-made graphics suffer from being terribly low-res when there isn't a good reason for them to be. If only Google Earth supported svg overlays. However, a compromise is to use one level of quality for wide shots and a high level of quality in areas you are going to zoom on. Using gif and png images for this will preserve those hard edges where needed and facilitate blending of the two quality grades. Running the video through an anti-aliasing filter can really help here, too.

Another thing Bois' videos suffer from that I did not notice in yours is the delay in terrain/building rendering. This might be down to how Bois renders his videos, perhaps doing it live rather than through Earth's internal rendering.

You got a new sub and I look forward to your continued growth!