Unit 9 : Butterfly in motion

In this unit, we are exploring the motions of a butterfly. This animation is approached similarly to the previous units, in the sense that it is a cycle and has a repetitive pattern of movement. However, it is quite different even from the crow animation. Butterflies have fast-paced wing cycles, too fast for human eyes to register as described in the tutorials. According to the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary (2016) :

"rather than flapping their wings up and down like birds, butterflies contract their bodies making a slanted figure-eight pattern with their wings. As the butterfly’s body contracts, the motion pushes air under their wings, effectively propelling it through the air."

Therefore, I approach this cycle differently to create that vital and characterised aspect of a butterfly, that is a graceful, delicate flutter. As I examined the tutorials, it was apparent that the cycle of the wings is fairly simple, with the body going down, the wings going up creating a clapping motion (Lund University, 2021).

Key poses from my own animation

The animation is set to a 17-frame cycle but the motion is very quick, so unlike the previous animations I've worked on, there is a keyframe on every frame that passes. The main poses are on 2-frame intervals, with then the in-betweens added so the cycle is on every frame as follows : 1,2,3,4 etc up to frame 17. I was concerned this would make the animation jittery rather than smooth, but, due to the quick winged motion, it creates an effective butterfly in wing cycle.. 

The rig I used wasn't the recommended rig for this course, as it had some issues that made it unable to animate with, such as a previous animation applied to it that I wasn't able to delete. After spending time trying to troubleshoot this issue, I thought it would be better to use the rig from https://animationapprentice.blogspot.com/ , which is where a lot of the resources are from anyway for this course, but in this instance, the butterfly rig was different. This also meant the controls were different from those in the tutorials, but the principle and concept are the same. Additionally, the type of rig is more styled rather than realistic, but for such a small creature that moves fast, it's not significant for this exercise. Furthermore, while researching a butterfly in motion, I came across a slow-motion video called Butterflies Flying in Slow Motion HD - Houston Butterfly Museum on YouTube, which was very useful in seeing the natural movement of the butterflies, and I wanted to push this element. However, due to the type of rig I was using, it was very limited in controls, so there were some elements of a butterfly cycle I was unable to include, which I will explain further in my analysis. 

This is the basic cycle from the side view of my animation. There isn't too much detail I can add to this animation, not only because of the limited rig controls but also because the butterfly moves so fast, you can't see the detail. An aspect I took from the tutorials was how to favour frames and the explanation behind it. I had never considered or understood this before learning this cycle, so it has resonated with me. It makes sense to do so, so the wings have a natural rhythmic flow to them, rather than being static and robotic. For example, there's not a lot you can do to the wings in this cycle - they go up and they go down. But for the in-betweens, rather than doing just a mid-pose for the wings, I favoured towards the previous frame. So for frame 2, the wings are similar to frame 1, just a bit lower, and for frame 4, the wings are similar to frame 3, just a bit higher. This enhances the position of the wings that create the short and rapid movements, forming the "flutter". It has opened up a new technique and an effective way of creating a natural motion for timings and speed.

As mentioned earlier, I struggled with adding detail, specifically with rotating the wings as they descend. It's evident in the tutorials and the YouTube video that butterfly wings move in an almost figure-eight pattern, but unfortunately, the controls did not accommodate this. The movement of the butterfly was also enhanced by the feet moving in the opposite direction—when the body goes up, the feet go down. I added some motion to the antennae for flexibility and to balance by offsetting the keys. Although this detail might be subtle during playback, it adds to the butterfly's overall realism and elegance. The cycle was not necessarily time-consuming, especially compared to the other units, and I managed to produce it fairly quickly. The next step was to add the butterfly to a motion path. As I've used this method before, I felt confident with what I was doing and appreciated the conveniences of using this tool. The idea was to create a spiral motion path that resembled the natural direction a butterfly moves in, mainly any and every direction. By using the curve tool and setting curves accordingly, I was able to create a quick motion, but also to move in various directions to capture the natural flight of a butterfly and to embody a sense of freedom. 

I then proceeded to create an environment for this animation. I explored Maya's "Visor Content" or content browser in the new versions of Maya, which was an easy solution for finding trees and plants. This was also new to me, so I took some time to use it, and it required some experimentation before deciding on the final result. I really like this feature in Maya and how you can add "turbulence" to the models so they move in the "wind." I also converted them into polygons as they are created using the paint brush tool, which creates curves, and they needed to be renderable. I wanted to avoid adding too many trees, as it made it difficult to see the butterfly, with it being so small and quick. I then included a simple plane to represent the sky and added in some simple lighting and sublte camera movements to closely follow the butterfly. 

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The final animation

This is the final animation. I believe the outcome is clear and impactful, beautifully reflecting the graceful essence of a butterfly. To enhance it further, I would consider adding more butterflies in the background to create a livelier and more energetic feel. Furthermore, I’d like to experiment with a different rig for a future animation to incorporate extra elements, but for this exercise, it's worked well. So far, this was the most straightforward animation I've produced, mainly due to its simplicity and fast-paced motion. There weren't many controls to animate; therefore, it was quick to produce but still effective. I've gained new techniques and revisited previous ones, which has improved my confidence in my work.

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Refinements and Reflections

The final render of a Butterfly animation

Reflecting on my work, I decided to add another butterfly to this animation to enhance the scene. I felt as if the scene lacked some excitement and purpose, so adding another butterfly was needed, and it didn't take long. I imported the animation cycle that I had saved into the saved file with the background and offset the animation, so the butterflies were not mirroring each other and felt more authentic. I did, however, duplicate the motion path and constrained the new butterfly to it but made adjustments to the vertices, so again, they followed different directions. As well as making that change, I incorporated more elements into the scene, and since learning how to save the cache files, converting the paint brush tool (tree mesh) into polygons with the turbulence, importing the cache files back into the scene and on the said polygon, I applied it in this instance. This meant that I could delete the different curves that were created and be left with the polygon mesh with the data of the turbulence and allowed the scene to playback without having to load so much heavy data. It's makes the scene have that exrta layer of detail, as well as highlighting my extended knowledge of Maya and it's tools.