ButterFlight
Physically plausible butterfly flight, as a Maya plug-in
Maya C++, MEL, Python · Feb – May 2026 · Team of 2
- 100 butterflies in a swarm, with path following and wind
- 5 DOF thorax, wings and abdomen
A Maya 2026 C++ plug-in that automates physically plausible butterfly flight, based on Chen et al.'s SIGGRAPH 2022 paper, so VFX artists can fill a scene with butterflies without keyframing them.
- Parametric 5-DOF motion of the thorax, wings, and abdomen, driving a hierarchical skeleton
- Quasi-steady aerodynamics: lift and drag on each wing, plus a curl-noise vortex field for the chaotic wobble of real flight
- Swarms of up to 100 butterflies with path following and wind, baked to standard Maya keyframes for Alembic or FBX export