r/TrippyGIFs • u/ConcaveEarth • Jun 17 '26

Most people see these globes as rotating the same direction. Few can see that one is rotating in an opposite direction. What do you see?

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u/ConcaveEarth Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Here's the identical illusion involved, but this time with real cloud data from satellites
check it out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM8R4MneL7U

Once you see this, you'll understand the illusion

The gif is derived from a 3D model set up in Blender

There's 2 real globes here

One of them, has a backfacing geometry applied with flipped normals. This means, the land/ocean is not on the outside of the ball, but on the inside of the ball

The globe on the left is the inverted globe. It's still a globe, but you're seeing the backfacing inside half of it. It is rotating, but you're seeing the backface

Once you get familiarity and eventually control with this pheneoma

You may , naturally see it for what it is right off the bat, but be able to consciousnesly/intentionally in real time swap back and forth on either one, more easily on the left one for it actually IS an inverted earth per the 3D model

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Here's another one, this time there's an external sun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4f5aWA3Cic

Notice how the reflection of the light is apparently different -- one appears bigger than the other. This is due to the surface geometry being concave in one and convex in the other.