REGENT Seagliders for the Military: 3D Mission Animation

Five hundred miles from Cebu, in the Philippines, a tactical heads-up display marks a position at sea, and REGENT's seaglider film for military audiences begins there. REGENT builds electric wing-in-ground-effect craft, and this 72-second 3D animation speaks to military planners, procurement officials and naval logistics operators deciding whether a seaglider fits contested coastal work. Our case study notes that the animation played a part in REGENT securing a contract with the Department of Defense.

A military cargo plane carries a seaglider in its hold, shown in an x-ray view. On a remote shore, battery containers recharge a military vehicle and a docked craft. Seagliders skim on hydrofoils with low radar and sonar signatures and fly in formation, and a map draws 200-mile corridors linking Cebu with Bacolod, Mindanao and Cagayan de Oro. Cutaways show 12 passengers, two crew with mariner credentials and no pilots required, a 3,500-pound payload and autonomy readiness.

The Motion Giraffx storyboard kept the film silent and let type do the briefing. Labels such as LOW SIGNATURE OPERATIONS read like a mission display, and a planner can check each figure against a requirement without a narrator in the way.

A vehicle built for remote coastlines is hard to film on one, so we build the coastline around it in 3D animation, specifications attached, for an audience that needs both.