One of the main challenges on Turbulent Skies (Vliegende Hollanders) was animating the wide range of aircraft featured across the series. With so many planes to depict, manually animating each one in full detail wasn’t feasible within the available production hours. This led to an extensive R&D phase focused on streamlining the animation process.
The solution was to develop automated rigs.
These rigs allowed us to animate flight paths independently, while secondary motions, such as banking, tilting, ailerons, elevators, rudders, and even suspension, responded procedurally to changes. A single adjustment to a plane’s trajectory would cascade through the rig, eliminating the need to manually revise dozens of animation curves. This significantly accelerated the workflow while preserving physical accuracy and believability.
