Cinematic Sol zoom-out: staged Blender flyby beats

[ThomasAFink]

Summary

Design and implement short Blender flyby “beats” that flow with the existing Sol→α Cen cinematic zoom-out — not random cutaways, but staged close-ups that land as the camera reaches each scale.

Depends on

• Replace Earth/Moon cinematic dots with Blender body graphics #42 blender-bodies open (Earth/Moon) — done / PR feat(SOLSYS-42): Blender Earth/Moon billboards in Sol→Centauri cinematic #45
• Planet / moon / asteroid packs + cinematic billboards issues
• Sun close-up issue (for the near-Sun beat)

Concept (storyboard)

Keep one continuous camera tour; at each scale, either (A) billboard in-place or (B) a brief held framing that feels like a flyby, then resume the pullback.

Suggested beats that already match today’s timeline:

1. Earth day–night → Moon reveal — already shipping
2. Near-Sun — brief Sol disk as half-width reaches ~2 AU (Sun pack)
3. Venus / Mercury — inner-system pass (small billboards, no long hold)
4. Mars — last terrestrial beat before the belt
5. Main belt / Ceres — during belt linger (SOL_BELT_*); Ceres or Vesta hero for a few seconds
6. Jupiter system — belt→Jupiter: Jupiter spin + Io/Europa as small companions
7. Saturn rings — start of outer linger; rings are the hero, not just a gold dot
8. Ice giants — Uranus/Neptune as we push toward Kuiper framing
9. Pluto / Kuiper — outer linger beat, then resume Oort pullback (dots/populations)

Scope

• Timeline hooks in sol_centauri_cinematic.py (dwell / ease) so each beat has a clear in/out
• Prefer in-animation billboards + camera half-width holds over GIF splicing
• Captions per beat (title + one line), same HUD style as today
• Light/dark parity
• Document the beat list in README / blender README

Acceptance

• Zoom-out hits at least: Earth/Moon, one inner planet, belt/Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn(+rings), one ice giant or Pluto
• Beats ease in/out — no hard cuts or GIF prepends
• Classic dotted mode (--blender-bodies off) unchanged
• Re-rendered blender cinematic GIFs show the new staging
• Storyboard / beat table documented

Out of scope

• Interstellar / α Cen flybys (separate later)
• Replacing matplotlib camera with a full Blender timeline

Related

This is the “direction” issue; pack + billboard issues are the assets underneath.