There's no business like drone business [drone light shows]
J. O'Malley · Engineering & Technology · 2021
The display seen across London on the New Year's Eve used 300 drones to "paint" the sky with tributes to NHS staff and notable figures from 2020. A turtle was displayed which was accompanied with a voice message from Sir David Attenborough about saving our planet. Drone light shows are now an essential part of any high-profile outdoor event. So how do they work? Designing drones shows is a new discipline that requires new tools. So how does an artist put metaphorical pen to paper, when the canvas is several hundred spots of light that can be arbitrarily arranged in the sky? For both SkyMagic's software and Dobrovolskiy's Drone Show Software , the process begins in Blender. This is an open-source modelling package that is used across the visual effects industry to make 3D models for everything from video games to Hollywood movies. The artist can use Blender to do the creative work of designing the animation, dragging, and dropping the on-screen drones to where in the sky they need to be, in 3D space. And they can play back the animation at will, tweaking it to make sure everything is where it needs to be.