One of the key challenges for Turbulent Skies (Vliegende Hollanders) was the animation of the planes. Since this was a tv-series that included loads of planes we calculated that we simply didn’t have the man hours to animate each plane separately by hand (including all of the details). This resulted in an extensive R&D period where we were looking for the fastest ways of animating the planes. Automated rigs was the answer.
Instead of having to change all of the animation curves when for example needing to make a slight adjustment to the flightpath, we now would only have to adjust the flightpath itself and everything else (banking, tilting, ailerons, elevator, rudders, etc.) would automatically follow, including the planes’ suspension.
more aviation-related work
