Attached Link: Towards Walk Paths for Props

Hi Mackill. Whilst I think you would probably have to do the takeoff frame by frame by hand, I think a walk path could be the way to go for the flight path after that. I have come up with a system for such flight paths that uses two walk paths, one used as normal to define the path over the ground, and another used to define the up/down motion. See the link above for more details of my "Walker3D". I won't say that this is easy to do, but I find it a lot easier than trying to key in the whole flight path by hand. After reading your post I made a quick attempt at a bird in flight using Walker3D. I really have no idea how a birds wings move in flight, and I didn't even attampt a takeoff, so its not very good, but perhaps it gives you an idea of what can be achived using walk paths. As to the flapping wings, I made a one cycle flap and saved it as a 5 frame animated pose, I then moved to frame #6 and applyed the pose again, moved to frame #11 applyed the pose again, then saved all this as a new animated pose, then just kept applying this pose till the end of the animation. The pose also included a slight upwards movement of the bird's "hip" on the down stroke of the wings. The flapping pose can be added either before or after you do the walk cycles. The banking from side to side was added by hand as the last stage in the animation. If you have any questions on this method, feel free to ask away, I will do my best to help.