Swarm Panel

Please specify whether you designed a show for outdoor or indoor settings. This will help setup drone size, exporters and possibly other parameters adaptively.

Click on the Drones button to select the collection that is your primary source of your drone objects. By default you do not have to change this setting, the Create Takeoff Grid button below will create a "Drones" collection and set it as your primary source automatically.

The Max acceleration button sets up a maximal acceleration (in all directions) that is used by the automated motion planning functions of Skybrush Studio, for example when automatic transitions or transition times are calculated.

Before creating your first takeoff grid that initializes your drone objects, you can select a template object for your future drones. There are three options to select from, given by the Drone template drop down menu.

The default option is an isotropic Sphere. Select Cone to have a simple anisotropic object (suitable for yaw-controlled shows), or select Selected Object for any custom object that will be used as your drone template.

If Selected Object is chosen, make sure you have your template object selected before pressing the Create takeoff grid button. Note that this object will disappear after the creation of the swarm as it shall be used for the template only.

If you select a "Sphere" or "Cone" type drone template, you can also setup a radius for your template object before creating your first takeoff grid. Similarly to the Drone template option, this setting will also disappear after creating the takeoff grid.

If you wish to change your drone size at a later stage, you can use standard Blender tools for this. First select all your drone objects you wish to resize, then set the "Transform Pivot Point" to "Individual Origins" and the simply scale up all objects around their own origins with s.

The Create Takeoff Grid button helps you set up your takeoff and landing grid. The takeoff and the landing grid is assumed to be the same by default, but you can change them later on if needed.

For a regular takeoff grid you can define the number of rows and columns, the exact number of drones and the spacing between them. Once you press OK, a rectangular grid is created with the specified parameters.

For advanced settings enable the Advanced checkbox.

If you wish to have a separate column and row spacing for your basic takeoff grid, enable the Use separate column spacing checkbox and setup a separate column spacing.

If you wish to takeoff (and land) in layers, you can also define a more complex takeoff grid with slots, where each slot contains more than one drone with typically, but not necessarily smaller spacing (see the Intra-slot parameters). With such a takeoff grid it will be guaranteed that only one drone will takeoff from (and land to) every slot at a time, using layered takeoff and land operations automatically.

The Create takeoff grid operator also creates all Skybrush-specific collections (Drones, Formations, Templates) that you will need for your drone show, it adds the first "Takeoff grid" entry to the storyboard and also initializes your drones in the 3D Viewport editor.

The Takeoff button adds a takeoff maneuver to a specified altitude and with a specified average vertical velocity from your initial takeoff grid. The start frame of the maneuver can be customized, although it is usually the same as the first frame of the scene.

If the takeoff grid was created with more than one drones per slot, use the layer height parameter to setup the altitude difference between additional target layers above the default layer during the layered takeoff operation.

This button should ideally be pressed right after the takeoff grid is created, but before any other formations are added. It is also possible to use the operator later after having defined the first few formations, but you must ensure that there is enough time before the first formation to perform the takeoff and get to the first formation in time.

The RTH button performs a return-to-home maneuver with a specified average velocity from your last formation of the show. This procedure brings the drones straight above the positions where they are supposed to land to an altitude that can be specified in the operator.

If the takeoff grid was created with more than one drones per slot, use the layer height parameter to setup the altitude difference between additional target layers above the default layer during the layered RTH operation.

Note that the maneuver is not performed at the specified altitude — it is initiated from the positions at the end of the last formation. However, all drones arrive to the given altitude (or layered altitude) value, above the takeoff grid.

This button should be pressed after all formations of the show are inserted to the storyboard, but before the landing entry is given.

The Land button lands the drones, starting from a given frame such that they move downwards in a straight line from their current position until they reach the given target altitude (ground is assumed to be at Z = 0). As usual, the average velocity of the descent can be adjusted.

If the takeoff grid was created with more than one drones per slot, use the Motor spindown delay parameter to setup the time difference between landing layers. This ensures that drones will land close to the others within the same slot only when the motors of the neighboring drones are already stopped.

This button should be pressed after the return to home entry is inserted to the storyboard.