An example of combining Following a spline path combined with the a butterfly flapping its wings.
. Not a full tutorial but a overview of the process I used. See included .sifz moth file.
import image of butterfly. trace a wing with region. Apply image to region use onto for blend and group, name it wing. Duplicate then flip it for 2nd wing…Draw body group it.
Then use groups translate widget to assemble butterfly.Group all name it Butterfly.
Read follow a spline Tutorial https://wiki.synfig.org/Doc:Following_a_Spline
Draw a path for your butterfly to follow. Select butterfly group. Select Origin Green dot On groups translate widget Then CTRL Click widgets blue dot for rotate. Then " select the curved spline layer (it should be the last layer in the Layer panel’s list) by holding Ctrl and clicking on it." "Right-click on the dotted line that indicates the position of the curved spline - not on any handle, but on the dotted line between handle From the context menu that pops up, select “Link to Spline” You should now be able to move your butterfly along the path using group widgets green dot.
Now animate it. again refer to follow spline tutorial
Now to animate the wings we Group both L-wing and R-wing named Butterfly.
Using Butterfly Groups transformation widget select yellow dot (next to blue dot) horizontally scale the wings. doing so will scale both wing child groups. No need to animate them separately.
Next enter animate mode click on the green guy and in the Time track stating at frame 0 alternate open and closed wings every few frames til you get a flapping motion when played.
open Butterfly group and place a time loop layer above the wings. https://wiki.synfig.org/Time_Loop_Layer See included moth.sifz file to see how I did it
moth.sifz (14.7 KB)