Evoke

Drone Light Show

Competition: Drone Light Show

  • Submit your entry as a blend file including a rendered video preview that is playable with common video players (1080p)
  • This compo is remote-submission only. We have to prepare things beforehand and can’t include an entry at the party. Sorry.
  • Deadline for submissions is: 23.07.2026 23:59 CEST
  • Submit your entry via email (including links to blend and video file) to drone-compo@evoke.eu
    • if you don’t have any means to put your files somewhere please contact us
  • You have to use the template from here: https://codeberg.org/newemka/DroneCompoTemplate
  • You have to use blender 4.1.1
  • Make sure your content meets the following constraints:
    • minimum Drone Distance: 2m
    • max. horizontal Speed: 7m/s
    • max. Up speed: 4,5m/s
    • max. Down Speed: 3,5m/s
    • max. Horizontal acceleration: 6m/s²
    • max. Up/ down acceleration: 4m/s²
    • Scene is set to 10fps
    • Make sure you stay inside the Geofence!
  • you have 100 drones to play with
  • Use the addons and techniques provided in the template to check these constraints
  • If you want to have sound please add it to the blender file as a mp3 file
    • note that we are not yet 100% sure if we can make real sound sync possible. if we fail to make this happen it might be off by 1-2 seconds because we will have to press a play button manually.
  • For the actual show we will merge all entries into a final blend file and introduce transitions between entries. We will somehow make sure that your first frame will be reached. You do not need to worry about Start/Landing etc.
  • Make sure to pack all resources into blender (no more references to your local file system)
  • Running time: 20s to 90s
  • In case we get too many submissions there will be a preselection. This preselection will likely take into account the length of your entry as we have a fixed time window (probably 15 minutes) for the drone compo. i.e. if you make a entry using the maximum time it is likely to get filtered out as this would block too much time. However if you limit yourself to 20 seconds with a static entry it is likely to be shown as we can probably fit it in somewhere.
  • Note that it is possible - but unlikely - that we may lose a drone during the show (that happened last year) and your entry might be shown with less drones than planned.

in case you have any questions please contact drone-compo@evoke.eu

Orga disclaimers

Please note that this compo is highly risky in multiple regards and might not happen due to a magnitude of things:

  • we fail to get all the permissions needed to actually run a show. we are confident that this will work but it might just fail in the end
  • the weather is too bad on both days (a bit of rain is ok but storm would kill the compo right away)
  • on the day of the show the local airport might just say “no” and decline take off
  • fixed time slot: unlike other compos we can’t really stretch the compo time and will have to plan around that (i.e. preselect in a way that we can fully utilize the time slot)
  • something else we are not yet aware of (we are still learning)

Status Quo Permissions

The process of getting all the permissions is a classic waterfall process so they all depend on the previously listed step.

  • Neighbours are ok with it ✅
  • Flight permit by the German Airspace Authority ❌
  • Permit by the Office for Public Order ❌
  • Area permit by the city (they are the owners of our flight zone) ❌

We are already in contact with the people from the city and have gotten positive vibes but for the next steps we need the flight permit and - probably - due to all the drone incidents at airports in recent times they seem to be a lot more rigid (last year this was the simplest of all the bullet points). Right now there is a legislative process in the works which is supposed to be finished by July and a permit can only be handed out by then. However there is already a directive by them that drone flights are generally to be permitted in so called airport control zones and in the conversations with them it seems more of an how (i.e. can we run one full show with 15 minutes or do we need to take off twice for a shorter time) and not an if anymore. So positive vibes as well but no actual permit yet.

Some inspiration on what you can do

Here is the video of last years drone show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_EHFf49mNA

The source blend file can be found here: https://nbg1.your-objectstorage.com/public-akronyme-analogiker/EvokeShow2025Colors_Final.zip (note that the creation process was a bit different as we used a different drone model that required a different blender setup)

Also make sure to watch the videos provided in the README of the template file