PERCH — Creature Landing & Perching

Stop Making Your Birds Fly in Circles. Give Flight a Place to Land.

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Ever noticed how artificial game worlds feel when flying creatures never actually touch the environment?

In default Unity, getting a bird to land realistically is frustrating. Birds snap onto branches with zero braking weight, talons float in mid-air because Unity IK only supports Humanoids, multiple birds glitch inside each other on the same rail, and landing on swaying trees or rocking boats breaks completely.

PERCH solves all of this out of the box.

It connects soaring flight, approach banking, aerodynamic flare, talon contact, resting idles, and takeoffs into one seamless, natural cycle. Whether you are building an atmospheric forest, an open-world RPG, or a stealth game with reactive wildlife, PERCH makes your world feel alive.

Watch your birds scan for open perches, bank into smooth turns, flare their wings to shed speed, and firmly grip branches, fence rails, or power lines using a custom Generic Rig Two-Bone IK solver that works with any bird skeleton—no Humanoid setup required. Birds can even land on moving objects like swaying tree branches, rocking boats, and moving vehicles. When players draw near or fire a shot, flocks react with natural, staggered panic scatter waves.

🌟 8 POWERHOUSE FEATURES

1. Smart Perch Authoring & Automatic Slot Reservations

Set up individual perches, fence rails, or telephone wires in seconds. PERCH automatically manages smart reservation leases so birds never overlap, fight for spots, or clip inside each other. Built-in wingspan clearance prevents crowded perching on shared rails, and slots release immediately if an approaching bird is startled or redirected.

2. Aerodynamic Flight, Banking & Flare Braking

Birds in PERCH don't stop abruptly like robots. They bank into turns, follow smooth deceleration curves, and flare their wings to bleed off speed right before touchdown. Building drones or VTOL vehicles instead of birds? Switch to Hover Descent mode for smooth vertical landings and rotor spin-downs.

3. Universal 2-Bone IK Foot Locking (Works on ANY Bird)

Unity's built-in IK only works on Humanoid avatars. PERCH includes an analytical Two-Bone IK Solver built specifically for birds, creatures, and landing gear. Talons and feet firmly lock onto uneven bark, curved branches, fence posts, and rocks with zero foot sliding—even while the bird bobs its head during idle animations. Fully compatible with Generic rigs and any marketplace model.

4. Moving Supports & Dynamic Momentum

Breathe life into dynamic environments. Birds effortlessly track and land on swaying tree branches, rocking boats, and moving vehicles. When launching from a moving support, the bird naturally inherits the platform's speed and direction for a physically believable takeoff. Static perches automatically bypass moving calculations to keep CPU overhead near zero.

5. Flexible Animation: Mecanim, Procedural, or Direct Clips

Choose the animation workflow that fits your project. Plug into your existing Mecanim Animator controller, or use the 100% Procedural Driver to flap wings, bank in flight, sway while breathing, and fold wings with zero animation clips required. A direct playables mixer is also included for silky-smooth clip blending.

6. PERCH Studio Hub (Ctrl+Alt+P) & Level Raycast Scanner

Stop placing landing spots by hand. The 1-click Surface Scanner casts rays across your rocks, rooftops, and branches to automatically detect valid landing surfaces and generate perches in seconds. Rehearse approach paths directly in the Scene View without entering Play Mode, backed by full Undo (Ctrl+Z) support.

7. Living Flocks & Threat-Reactive Panic Waves

Create believable wildlife ecosystems. Roaming birds autonomously search for open perches, rest for configurable durations, and take off to explore. When a player, predator, or gunshot triggers a threat, nearby perched birds burst into the air in realistic, staggered panic waves.

8. Drone & Quadcopter Landing Out of the Box

PERCH isn't limited to birds. It comes ready for autonomous delivery drones, military VTOL dropships, and surveillance quadcopters—complete with vertical descent paths, ground sensor detection, and propeller speed ramp-downs upon touchdown.

📦 WHAT'S IN THE BOX?

• 2 Rigged Stylized Birds: Garden Finch (11 bones) and Willow Wren (13 bones) with custom hand-painted textures.
• 10 Baked Animations: 5 dedicated motion clips per bird (Flap, Glide, Land, Stand Idle, Takeoff).
• 7 Ready-to-Play Demo Scenes: Courtyard showcase, 24-bird ambient park flock, moving boat/branch demo, model integration sandbox, and stress benchmarks.
• Original 3D Blender Files: Full .blend source files included for both bird meshes and animation rigs.
• 100% Clean C# Source Code: Fully commented, modular, zero DLLs, zero external dependencies, and zero GC alloc per frame.
• Comprehensive Documentation: Complete 47-page online guide, video tutorials, and API reference.

👥 BUILT FOR EVERY ROLE IN YOUR STUDIO

• Level Designers: Populate realistic perches across massive environments in minutes with the automatic surface scanner.
• Game Designers: Adjust flight speed, perching dwell times, and scatter radius directly in Inspector profiles without writing code.
• Technical Artists: Pin talons to uneven surfaces with custom 2-bone IK on Generic rigs without complex rigging constraints.
• Programmers: Enjoy zero garbage allocation (0 GC alloc) during flight, clean C# events, and an extensible IPerchFlightProvider interface.

💡 INTEGRATION TIPS & SCOPE

• Custom Models: Works with any bird model. Simply assign the wing and leg bones in the setup wizard and assign your landing/flight clips.
• Navigation Scope: PERCH handles local approach curves, obstacle clearance, touchdown alignment, and takeoff momentum. For long-distance 3D pathfinding through complex indoor corridors, hook your favorite navmesh or waypoint solution into the IPerchFlightProvider interface.
• Pipeline Compatibility: Works in URP, Built-in, and HDRP. The core C# code has zero render pipeline dependencies (simply assign your project's materials in Built-in/HDRP).