How to Animate Flight Paths Between Cities on a 3D Globe

Kevin Schwed··4 min read
tutorialflight pathsglobe animationglobe studioarc animation

Animated flight paths on a 3D globe are one of the most visually striking elements in video production. You see them in news broadcasts, travel vlogs, corporate presentations, and documentary intros. A glowing arc connecting two cities, tracing across the curvature of the Earth — it communicates global scale instantly.

The problem is that creating these animations has traditionally required either expensive 3D software like Blender or Cinema 4D, or complex After Effects setups with plugins like Video Copilot ORB. Both approaches take hours and require significant technical skill.

Globe Studio changes this. Here's how to create animated flight path arcs between any cities in minutes.

What You Need

  • Globe Studio (free download)
  • A list of cities you want to connect

That's it. No After Effects. No Blender. No 3D experience.

Step 1: Add Your Locations

Open Globe Studio and add your cities to the storyboard. You can search by city name, country, or paste coordinates directly. Each location becomes a stop in your animation — the camera will fly between them.

For a flight path animation, you need at least two locations. Add as many as you want — Globe Studio will create smooth camera transitions between all of them.

Step 2: Enable Flight Arcs

In the Settings panel, navigate to the Flight Arcs section. Enable arcs and you'll immediately see curved lines connecting your locations on the globe.

Globe Studio flight arcs are geodesic — they follow the curvature of the Earth, just like real flight paths. You can customize:

  • Height: How high the arc rises above the globe surface
  • Thickness: The line width of the arc
  • Opacity: From subtle to bold
  • Color: Any color, or use the gradient option for a fade effect
  • Line style: Solid, dashed, or dotted
  • Trail effect: An animated glow that travels along the arc

The gradient option is particularly effective — it creates a trail that fades from bright at the origin to transparent at the destination, giving the arc a sense of direction and motion.

Step 3: Customize Per Segment

Globe Studio lets you override arc settings per camera segment. This means you can have different arc styles for different legs of the journey — a bold red arc for the main route and subtle blue arcs for secondary connections, for example.

Each segment in your storyboard can have its own arc height, color, and style. This level of control is unique to Globe Studio — most other tools like Mapimator or Animaps apply a single style globally.

Step 4: Add Country Highlights

Flight path animations look even better with country highlighting. When the camera arrives at a location, the destination country lights up with a fill color, border highlight, or both.

You can configure this globally or per-location. Different countries can have different highlight colors and modes. The highlights persist across the animation, building a visual map of everywhere you've visited.

Step 5: Fine-Tune the Camera

Globe Studio's storyboard editor lets you control:

  • Dwell time: How long the camera stays at each location
  • Transition duration: How fast the camera moves between stops
  • Camera distance: How close or far the camera is at each stop
  • Custom camera angles: Override the default view at specific locations

For flight path animations, a slightly elevated camera angle works well — it shows the curvature of the Earth and the full arc of the flight path.

Step 6: Export

Export as MP4 (H.264), WebM (VP9), or PNG sequence. Choose your aspect ratio — 16:9 for YouTube, 9:16 for Instagram Reels and TikTok, 1:1 for social media, or 2.39:1 for a cinematic widescreen look.

Pro users can export at up to 4K resolution. The free tier exports at 720p with a watermark.

Tips for Better Flight Path Animations

Use the Blue Marble texture at 8K or higher. The extra detail shows continents and ocean textures that make the globe feel real.

Enable the atmosphere. The thin blue glow around the edge of the globe adds cinematic depth.

Turn on city lights for night scenes. If your sun position creates a night side on the globe, city lights add beautiful detail.

Use wave effects sparingly. A pulse wave at the origin city adds a subtle "departure" feel, but too many waves get distracting.

Experiment with the lens flare. An anamorphic lens flare catching the sun creates a cinematic look that's hard to achieve with other tools.

Why Globe Studio vs. Other Methods

The same animation in After Effects with Video Copilot ORB takes 2-4 hours and requires knowledge of 3D layers, expressions, and compositing. In Blender, it requires 3D modeling the globe, UV mapping textures, creating curve objects for flight paths, and setting up materials and rendering.

Globe Studio does all of this with a visual storyboard editor in 10-15 minutes. The results are broadcast-quality, and you keep full creative control over every visual detail.

Download Globe Studio for free → and create your first flight path animation today.