I’ve had this done for some time now, but only got around to rendering just now. It’s my tried and true Kentrosaurus ala Heinrich, but now with the lessons learned from the elephant gait analysis. Can you see the difference from my old walk (from way back when)? Beside the background color?

The difference is very subtle but has the effect that while the back two legs basically biped along with 4 frame overlap, the front legs are asymmetrically shifted so that – instead of an alternating left / right stance – there is more time with three feet on the ground. Once I’ve seen both, the symmetrical one looks laughably wrong.

Heinrich said it would look cool: Rock Climbing Elephants It does

Here’s a complimentary perspective of Heinrich’s Camarasaurus pics, in which Heinrich dreams of possessing wall-climbing spiderman skills and a portable, motion-tracking enabled CT scanner.

We interrupt our scheduled programming to bring you these images from… your brain.

I’m not sure if this has much to do with any of the topics I write about, I could imagine it has some overlap with the perception studies relevant to non-photorealistic computer graphics. Who cares. It’s mind-boggling. And offers shadowish echoes of other research… ie. the brain record of a black women looks caucasian, which would be in keeping with research on empathy and identification – assuming the viewer was caucasian. Fantastic, scary stuff.

It’s easy to forget that the quality of life that most American workers enjoy (or at least have enjoyed) was won in an endless chain of hard-fought battles, both bloody and peaceful, but always intense. Ace & Son post an historic document which allows a look back at the animation union in 1945.

A union is a model of DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.

Important in times when most vfx artists reject the idea of a union. Click the union man to zap over.

While researching Stegosaurus for the reconstruction test above, some kind soul (Nick Gardner?) from the DML referred me to this insightful article on Stegosaur lips by Stephan A.Czerkas. To Nick or whoever it was who gave me this tip, please allow me to properly give credit! I did this a while back – feels like ages – and drag it out now in response to Jaime’s theropod lips post.

The paper deals with a number of observations and comparative analysis – the deep-set teeth, the ambiguity of an upper beak, feeding necessities, cladistic inference and the similarity in bone surface to turtle jaws. Overall very convincing, particularly when formulated as a sculpture by the masterful hand of the author himself:

Most convincing of all is the general flimsiness of cheeked alternatives. The more realistic they are, the less seem plausible. There seems to be a cheek-meme in which they look like a sock-like, rubbery jaw-sleeve. I even see it in digital TV versions and the JP Triceratops is at least related. Where does this come from?

I tried to reproduce it here, with closed and open incarnations. Not convinced? Me neither. Czerkas extends likely liplessness to all advanced ornithischians, and except for mention of the many beaked theropods, leaves saurischians open to interpretation.

Justified critique on the state of science TV and art is not exclusive to paleontology…

I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel that bills itself as ‘The History Channel’ can broadcast such rubbish as Ancient Aliens. If it were an entertainment programme, I’d have fewer worries (although it would still make me cross)

Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews

The History Channel would be about history, not von Daniken and Nazi UFOs; Discovery would be about science, not motorcycle enthusiasts and bargain hunters; the Learning Channel would be about learning, not octuplets and hoarding; the SciFi channel would actually present decent science-fiction, instead of schlock horror, ghost-hunters, and fake wrestling.

PZ Meyers on science TV

Jaime Headden (Qilong) is on a roll. Yesterday he shared stippling techniques, today he discusses lips. He also cites the varanus nostril type, something I also find very interesting.

So, picking up on the earlier post… say you see an interesting image at FYDA!, and say there’s no artist or source mentioned (there is). And say there’s no big watermarked artist name smack in the middle (good for you, Christopher!). Use the google image search and – voila! Project Dryptosaurus + a cool assortment of color-matched landscapes.

Then you google Dryptosaurus’ headline image and you get patriotic butterflies. This is begging to become a meme.

Continued from earlier… now a run…

the same run at 1/8 regular speed:

Over at SciAm’s Symbiartic, Kalliopi Monoyios addresses an interesting case of derivative artwork representing the carbon cycle. It’s most revealing to overlay these images directly: all I’ve done is scale the figures to fit each other. I have no knowledge of the processes or artists involved – I’d rather point to a google search feature that helps in identifying imagery.

If you drag/drop an image from anywhere onto the input bar of google image search, it will present a swarth of 1) instances where that exact image can be found throughout the net and 2) a wild assortment of imagery that has nothing to do the source image except that they share the same palette to an degree that can only be called uncanny. If I find an interesting, uncredited image and would like to know who created it, I often use this feature. It’s also interesting to see where your own imagery is popping up. An all-round good tool to have as a modern illustrator.

The 3d-ish carbon cycle image cited above is apparently credited to Nasa (though not with absolute clarity).

and here the same walk at 1/4 regular speed:

Updated work on the study Biomechanics of locomotion in Asian elephants by Genin, Willems, Cavagna, Lair & Heglund. I’m getting a better grip on the staggered footfall patterns and the forces which are driving them forward, visible in body lunges particularly in the treadmill versions.

Another paper of direct relevance is The movements of limb segments and joints during locomotion in African and Asian elephants by Ren, Butler, Miller, Paxton, Schwerda, Fischer and Hutchinson. That has much more detail on each individual joint.

In my quest to truly understand gaits, I’ve dove into the study Biomechanics of locomotion in Asian elephants by Genin, Willems, Cavagna, Lair & Heglund. The graphic below is from the paper, and you can see that they are interested in calculating the forces on each of the joints. While that is interesting, I’m after the visual effect as represented in a walk cycle. So I took that bottom image and created an animated gif. It should run at .2 seconds a frame on most current computers, which would be in keeping with the given speed for this gait. I’ve doubled the walk so that – on the left – the elephant is stationary, on the right the ground position is. I want to do both gaits and eventually develop a system so that the footfall pattern can determine a non-linear, hand-animated sequence.

This sequence will – hopefully – be based on a simulation that Heinrich is trying to squeeze into his busy schedule, so that it would be specific for Kentrosaurus. Rock’n'roll.

Heinrich sent me this link and I’ve been geeking out on the different visualizations of these hooves ever since. Dr. Christoph von Horst creates plastination sheets of really interesting quality…

Allow me to get positive! After praising David Krentz and Angie Rodriguez for their dinosaur work on Dinosaur Revolution, allow me to move on to something far more exoskeletal: echinoderms.

Christopher Mah is doing some great stuff over at his Echinoblog and deserves a healthy dose of praise. I’m a regular there and once you read his stuff, you will be too. Very refreshing to see passionate, well-articulated reports about these animals that I otherwise (except for the occasional crinoid) wouldn’t think all too much about. He manages to place them within an exciting context of ecosystems, evolution and freakiness – in a word, cool.

Dan Varner (via DML) points out this very fine screen shot from Dinosaur Revolution by David Krentz. Amidst the many negative critiques the show has received, its almost universally praised for the quality of its models and their shading. An image such as this really does show what’s been achieved.

Edit: rereading this, the composition and mood comes off way too short. Intended message: this image is all-round fantastic!

Rick de Mott has an interesting review of Contagion over at AWN. In the context of dinosaur documentaries pandering to entertainment expectations, it’s an interesting thought that much of entertainment panders to this as well. Which is why its so run-of-the-mill. Contagion seems to be an exception…

This isn’t an alarmist thriller where scientists have to hijack helicopter in order to save loved ones. In a world where pseudo-science is rampant, this is a light in the dark. A champion for science and those that believe in it. The film makes you wonder if de-funding the CDC is more dangerous than de-funding the Pentagon. Disease kills more people worldwide than terrorism.

Florian Witzmann and Oliver Hampe find Paget sickness in dinosaurs… and create a very interesting cross-section graphic, apparently from a ct scan. German version at Spiegel (hit the image) or a google translation.

Robin Ebser, a friend in Scwhabenland just sent me photos of a dinosaur exhibit in Ludwigsburg – where I lived and worked the last 5 years. Every year they have a themed pumpkin show, apparently it’s one of the largest worldwide. Of course, they waited until I left before making a dinosaur theme. Interesting: the name plates cite a cooperation with the Sauriermuseum Aathal. Revolution this!
After the fold: T-rex (of course), Sauropelta, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, a sauropod, Hadrosaurus, Dimetrodon, Dunkleosteus, a lizard  and a… something. Thanks Robin!
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