See all my Blender addons on Superhive >

Lepido builds real butterflies and moths inside Blender: a monarch, a blue morpho, a swallowtail with tails, a European peacock with its four blue eyes, a giant atlas moth, a luna moth with long ribbon tails and 48 more species, each with its own wing shape, wing pattern, underside, body, antennae and real size. Pick one from the picture gallery, then pose it, animate it or fill a scene with a whole swarm.

Every species is built from the real animal: forewing and hindwing outlines with hooked tips, scalloped margins and tails, veins, eyespots with pupils and highlights, white-dotted borders, bands, wavy moth lines, bark mottling and glass-clear windows. The underside is painted separately, so a closed butterfly shows its leaf, bark or eyespot camouflage. The pattern is painted into a texture atlas for the four wings, with iridescent scales on morphos, swallowtails and the sunset moth.

Each butterfly is one light mesh with a small rig. Choose a pose (flying, basking, perched, wings closed, moth at rest, pinned specimen) and switch on the wing beat: it is keyed and loops, so it plays without scripts and exports to game engines. Make a flying swarm, let butterflies settle on a selected mesh such as flowers or leaves, or send them along a curve.

A new butterfly every click
Surprise picks a real species, sometimes wearing another one's pattern or brand-new colors. Monarchs, morphos, swallowtails, silk moths and more.

Pick a species, done
Choose a species by picture in the sidebar and the butterfly rebuilds with its own wing shape, pattern, body and size.

Keyed, looping wing beat
Turn on Animate and the wings beat on a small rig. Plain keyframes: no scripts, and it exports to game engines.

Six poses in one click
Flying, basking, perched, wings closed (showing the painted underside) and pinned specimen.

Features

• 54 real species: nymphalids, swallowtails and birdwings, whites and yellows, blues and skippers, silk moths, hawk moths and other moths
• Real wing shapes with hooked tips, scallops, lobes and one to three tails
• Painted wing patterns with a separate underside, veins, eyespots and wear
• Recolor any pattern, or put one species' pattern on another's wings
• Slim, stout, furry, skipper and hawk moth bodies with eyes, palps, coiled proboscis and legs
• Clubbed, hooked, feathery, thread and thick antennae
• Six poses and a looping, keyed wing-beat or slow wing fanning
• Swarms in the air or resting on any mesh, and flight along a curve
• Real wingspans from 28 mm to 250 mm
• Surprise, Vary and New Colors buttons for endless new butterflies
• Picture-driven sidebar, Shift+A menu and Convert to Mesh
• Game-friendly: one mesh, PBR materials, low-detail option

Requires Blender 4.2 or newer. Tested on Blender 4.2, 4.5 and 5.2 LTS.