Helicopter Flight Simulator

What it is

A from-scratch helicopter flight simulator in Unreal Engine 5.2, flown live with a joystick to author piloted flight paths for previs (the rough animated draft a production uses to plan shots before the actual shoot). Custom helicopter physics, joystick mapping through the Logitech Profiler, and speed-reactive propellers that drive rotor RPM as a function of velocity — so the helicopter reads as a flying aircraft rather than a 3D model on rails.

Built as Realtime Supervisor at Versatile Media (2023) for the Decision Heights previs. Output is captured as flight animation and drops straight into the previs scene.

In short: a from-scratch flight simulator that produces piloted (not keyframed) flight paths for previs.

The problem

Authoring a helicopter flight path for previs has two unsatisfying defaults. Hand-keyframe the path and it reads as 3D-on-rails: every motion preplanned, none of the small variations a piloted aircraft has. Capture an actor performing in real time against a live helicopter sim and the actor has to actually pilot a believable flight path during the take, which is hard to get right and harder to redo.

The shoot needed a way to author the flight path with real piloting-style input (joystick in hand, flying through the city in real time, as many takes as it took) without locking it to a single live take.

What it does

Joystick-driven flight, in real time. The operator steers the helicopter with a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick mapped to Unreal’s input system via the Logitech Profiler. Pitch, roll, yaw, and throttle behave like a helicopter, not a generic vehicle.

Speed-reactive propellers. The main and tail rotors rotate at a rate proportional to the helicopter’s current speed. Hover slow, propellers spin slow; punch the throttle, propellers blur. Subtle, but it’s the difference between previs that reads as a flying helicopter and previs that reads as a 3D model on rails.

Recorded as flight animation. The flight is captured as animation and used as the helicopter’s motion in the previs scene, generating a piloted (not keyframed) flight path that combines with the rest of the previs in post.

Technical implementation

Built from scratch in Unreal Engine 5.2. No third-party flight plugin, no off-the-shelf helicopter asset. Helicopter physics, control mapping, camera attachment, propeller logic, and input handling are all custom. The propeller rotation samples the helicopter’s velocity each tick and drives rotor RPM as a function of that, with the response curve tuned to read clearly on previs renders without crossing into “spinning so fast it strobes.”

The Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick is mapped through the Logitech Profiler so the stick’s axes feed directly into Unreal’s input bindings. No extra middleware layer to maintain on shoot day.

In production

Built for and used on Decision Heights at Versatile Media in 2023. The flight model, the joystick mapping, and the propeller logic generalize beyond helicopters: the same simulator architecture is a reasonable template for any airplane previs at the studio (rotor or fixed-wing), with the helicopter physics swapped out for the appropriate aircraft model.