Apollo 11 Saturn V lift-off fulldome animation available for live planetarium presentation use.

The Buhl Planetarium has kindly allowed Home Run Pictures to make available to planetarium the use of the Apollo 11 Saturn V lift-off sequence we created for their own anniversary celebration.

The imagery required creating the landscape around Pad39A at the NASA Cape Kennedy facility, the Apollo era launch pad, an accurate Saturn V rocket, all in an immersive 360-degree, 4Kx4K format is used by the planetarium’s fulldome projection system.

Since no existing film footage from that time would be usable for an entirely immersive experience, all elements had to be created with CGI techniques. Google Earth imagery was captured in a patchwork style in hi-resolution of the area around Pad39A which is still in use by NASA… some modifications to match pictures from the 1969 timeframe were required. The sequence also required the use of complex Fluid Effects software to create a low cloud layer, exhaust, smoke and heat plumes.

For planetariums and digital dome theatres.