Plateosaurus Interpretations

Before the modelling process begins I need to decide which type of paleonologists' interpretation I will follow for the animal's physical aspects. During the history of the study of dinosaurs, perception and interpretation have changed. In the late years of the 1800's and early 1900's dinosuars were portrayed as slow, stupid animals. They were bulky and sluggish, and theories of behaviour were put forward such as sauropods living in swamps to support their great bulk. However, as the study of the fossil animals became more sophisticated, these ideas began to shift toward a new view, that they were diverse and not all big and stupid. As more species were discovered it became apparent that many dinosuars were light and fast, like modern birds. Even the largest were very heavy and bulky, but were perfectly able to move at a good pace and support their weight with immensly strong musculatures. Later, the intelligence of the animals was in speculation. Many species such as sauropods and stegosaurs (mainly large plant eating species) did indeed have very tiny brains. This stood in stark contrast to the huge cranial cavity to mass ratio of many theropods, which generally indicates intelligence.
Because of these shifts of attitudes in the Paleontological field, the interpretations of what the dinosaurs may have looked like and the way they might have behaved have changed drastically. Today's interpretations show warm blooded creatures, with varying types of musculature which has been brought about by better understanding of the realtionship between bones and muscles. The swan-necked image of sauropods has all but dissapeared, study of the veritbrae in sauropod necks has revealed that such movements would have been all but impossible for them. This discovery in turn lead to the reversal in the idea of their feeding habits, many were low browsers and not tree feeders. This pointed to evidence of herding behaviour. In this way, a small discovery leads to many others which ultimately infuences the way we imagine the animals would have lived.

The species I am focussing on is Plateosaurus. These creatures appeared around 210 million years ago in the Triassic era. Dinosaurs were relatively new to the planet, and the dinosaur ecosystem was not as diverse as it later became. Plateosaurs belongs to the group known a Prosauropods, they were the ancestors of giants like Bracheosaurus and Diplodocus - the most well known sauropods. These early dinosaurs were herbivours, and judging by their bone structure it is generally accepted that this particular species fed on both low vegetation such as horsetail ferns and shrubs as well as higher food sourses such as tree ferns and smaller trees. This diversity of diet of probably was probably an important factor in the success of the species.
The Triassic era was a hard one for life on Earth. There were old two seasons, dry and wet, and all the continents were still joined as the supercontinent Pangea. At this time the Archosaurs were slowly dying out, being replaced in the ecosystem by the emeging Dinosauria.
At this time, South Wales would have been a huge river plain shrouded by mountain ranges. During the lush wet season the greenery and animal life would have flourished, no flowering plants would evolved for tens of millions of years, so this world would have been a largely green one. The landscape would have been dusty scrubland, flat and wide. The river system would have been an artery of green, with forests of coniferous trees and ferns and other plants. This is the world in which Plateosaurus existed, and in the animation I want to show how a footprint made by a single animal at the end of the wet season survived for hundreds of millions of years as a fossil for us to discover.

Visual references:
From the current view of the animal species, I have chosen work done by other people that I feel appropriately represents a realistic view of the species. I am not a paleonologist, therefore I have to use the work of other more qualified individuals as a foundation for my own. Here are images which I feel have captured the creature well:

I will use images like these, as well as skeleton references, to build my own interpretation of how this dinosaur may have looked and moved.

Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin

From the ships wikipedia entry (the only concrete source I can find, loathe as I am to use it:)

The Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet space control-monitoring and surveillance ship that was devoted to detecting and receiving satellite communications. Named after Cosmonautt Yuri Gagarin, she was completed in December 1971 to support the Soviet space program. The ship also conducted upper atmosphere and outer space research.
It had very distinguishable looks due to two extremely large and two smaller antenna dishes placed on top of the hull.
In Soviet times, the Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the world's largest communications ship and was the flagship of a fleet of communications ships. These ships greatly extended the tracking range when the orbits of cosmonauts and unmanned missions were not over the USSR.
In 1975, the ship was a part of the Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz joint test program.
The communications ships belonged to the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The maritime part fell under the responsibility of the Baltic- and Black sea shipping. The ships had home ports in the Ukraine (the Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and the Akademik Sergei Korolev) so, after the fall of the Soviet Union the ships were transferred to Ukraine – ending their role in spaceflight.
She was sold for scrap shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union along with another surveillance ship, the Akademik Sergei Korolev.

The History of 1250 scale

Rather than copy it all to this page, a very good and concise history of the 1250 scale ship market can be found on this page:

http://www.steelnavy.com/1250hist.htm

To summarise what is said on those pages, the hobby as it is today began out of necessity. The first 1200 scale model ships were made by companies who won government contracts to supply the navy with recognition models. This was the basis for the hobby, and several firms did well producing them until the early 1950s. There was a lull in the market between when the scale was used for the military and when it became a hobby. With the revival of the german economy in the 50's, hobbies became an affordable luxury once more and due to the metric system models began to be made in 1250 scale for collectors. The hobby really took off in the 1960's and many of the firms that started then are still successful today, such as Navis Neptun, Hai and Albatros among others. The hobby has grown slowly since then, and is in a state of transition today where the old ways of production and style are being challenged by newer methods and technologies. Together, the two schools of thought could bring wonderful models to the market, however this is unlikely to happen as in every industry there are those who stubbornly cling to the old ways, and mistrust the new. This is natural however, and the hobby will continue to develop.
Major problems facing the hobby are the greying of both collectors and producers, the hobby is quite litterally dying. New blood is scarce as younger people simply aren't interested or don't know. How well producers and retailer adapt to these problems will be the challenge that will decide who goes and who stays on.

Many exellent photos of 1250 scale ship models bith old and new can be seen here:

http://gs61.photobucket.com/groups/h70/7EGAO7QTCZ/?albumview=grid

Mould and cast research

I wanted to get my mould and cast technical research done early, as when my RP'ed masters arrive I want to be able to proceed quickly and with confidence. During my stay at home to "rest" my bad wrist, I decided to have a go at the process using some masters that I had printed last year and I hadn't touched yet. This was excellent practice and I learned alot about dealing with RP masters and moulding and casting for resin kits. I'm dozy and forgot my camera, so no pictures I'm afraid. I'll try and take some when I'm back next.

Preparing the RP master:

The machine that I had the ships printed on was the Envisiontech Perfactory; an SLA type 3D printer.

On preparing the masters for moulding I discovered some key issues and pitfalls:

• The parts always have small spikes left by the printer as supporting material. These must be very carefully separated from the component, parts can easily break at this stage. The best approach is to gently run a sharp scalpel blade along the join of the spikes to the part, this will gradually remove them without harming the component.


• Fine parts should not be printed so that they cannot support themselves. For example, the 5 inch gun barrels came out .3mm in diameter. Because they were printed horizontally they had supporting spikes which were extremely difficult to remove. Of the eight that were printed, I only managed to sucessfully prepare three. Next time I would print a similar component vertically to avoid the supporting spikes.


• Some parts may have areas which are not fully hardened, and may break easily. Be prepared to replace them. However if the master is designed to be strong and structurally sound then this happens less.


• The resin used is actually quite strong, and will stand up to significant punishment during the moulding process. This means that quite large undercuts van be present in the mould, as long as the object that has been undercut is quite tough. For example, the upper decks of the destroyers extended out from the main structures, because they were designed to be .4mm thick they were strong enough to be undercut in the mould. If the master comes out, so will the resin.

I decided on two types of mould for the kit, an open topped one part mould for the one piece hull and superstucture, and a two part mould for the fittings sprue. Open topped moulds are generally the simplest type, and will do fine for most applications. The imporatant aspects to get right are a watertight join between the mould floor and the master, and a smooth mould floor with no scratches that is a flat as possible.

Two part moulds are more tricky. The masters must be half covered by chavant clay or plastaline. Then the first have is poured, the masters are removed and cleaned, inserted into the new half and waxed then the seconf half is poured. It's much trickier than it sounds. However, I discovered some very handy tricks while making them. Lego bricks are a brilliant mould making gadget, they save material, flat sqaure wall can be built in seconds and they act as locators for the two mould halves.

I first glued all the masters onto a styrene block that would act as the reservoir, then I fixed them to the mould wall and poured molten cavant clay up to the level where i wanted the mould to part. Chavant cap is not really suited to this type if punishment as it turned out, the wax crystalises as the clay cools and also because it is so tough it is tricky to get the masters out in one piece and clean them. Next time I will use softer plastaline. Once the half-mould is built you can make as many halves in silicone as you like. For this model I made five, then removed the masters and after cleaning I inserted them back into the moulds I had just made and poured five second halves. This resulted in five very neat and precise moulds that ended up producing extremely good casts with barely any flash.

Making five hull moulds was relatively easy, as I just took five good casts from the first mould and moulded them. Due to the good quality of the moulds I was able to cast eighty kits in three days!! I am very pleased with the tricks I learned and the success of the moulds, I believe I will be able to get straight on with it when the new masters arrive. This is important because time will be short by that stage.

A Question of Scale

At the very beginning of the design process a decision has to be made, what scale will tghe kit be? Here is a list ofthe most common scales for different model types.

Aircraft:

1:144
1:72
1:48
1:35
1:32
1:24

Vehicles:

1:72
1:48
1:35
1:6

Ships:

1:2400
1:1250
1:1200
1:1000
1:700
1:350
1:200
1:96
1:72

These are are not set in stone, but as a rough guide these are the scales to choose from as they appear most often in industry. For this project, given the size of the vessel and the cost of rapid prototyping I have chosen 1:1250 scale. This is a popular scale that will be affordable for me to design the model in.

This particular scale presents a number of issues, chiefly concerned with representation. At this scale detail is more represented and suggested than accurately reproduced. Many parts must be overscaled to allow casting. For example, 5 inch gun barrels are often three to four times their scale diameter in this scale, otherwise they would simply be too fine to cast. Therefore, choice of representation and a measure of artistic liscense is essential when working in this scale to achieve an effective design. I will have to make these decisions as I go along, and desicribe them and theirimportance here.

The Model Kit Industry

The scale model kit is broad and covers a huge range of subjects ranging from figuramic models to vehicles and creatures. However, there are three main kit types that use different materials and require different skills to build them. The three main kit types are:

Plastic Injection Kit:

These are by far the most common type of kit. These are produced by larger companies that can afford the huge overhead costs of producing steel injection moulds to mass manufacture kits. Here is an example of a typical injection moulded kit, a Vought Corsair in 1:72nd scale by Revell:

The most distinctive features of this type of kit are the sprues that hold the parts in place and the shell style parts. Plastic kits usually have higher numbers of parts than other kit types, this is due to the difficulty of moulding solid parts in steel as the mould has no flexibility and undercuts are all but impossible to mould. The sprues are the channels in which the molten polystyrene plastic is injected into the mould at high pressure. This either forces air out or compresses bubbles down to very small sizes. This casting technique has the advantage of keeping all the parts together on a relatively flat packed shape, making packaging and transport economical to to the small size and low weight of the boxed kit.

Examples of the largest and most successful plastic kit manufacturers include Revell, Games Workshop, Airfix, Trumpter, Dragon, Hasegawa and Testors. Links are included on the right hand list.

Resin Kits:

These are quite similar to plastic kits in many ways, but have fundamental differences. Resin kits tend to be of more obscure and specialised subjects that are not in huge demand. Because the costs of producing resin kits are lower than plastic kits, not as many models have to be sold to make a profit and so more specialised and lower volume kit runs can be made. This is evident in the flourishing after market parts for plastic kits industry, as the resin upgardes can be used to augment a plastic kit that could not include the parts originally. Resin parts can be very complex, as the sillicone used in the moulds allows huge undercuts and a wealth of surface detail. This means that whole parts can be cast with relative ease, unlike a plastic kit. However this often causes larger parts to become very heavy and use large amounts of resin, as the shell style components are more difficult to mould. Due to this, resin kits are usully around three times the price of a similar plastic kit on the market. However because of the specialist nature of the models competition is usually low, so competeing on price is rare. Plastic kit manufacturers more ferquantly compete on price, while resin manufactureres compete of quality. A major develpoment in the resin kit industry is the introduction of rapid prototyping which has lead to very high quality masters with a huge level of detail, the same is true of the plastic kit industry.

Successful Resin Kit manufacturers include Forgeworld, Combrig and Verlinden among others. Below is a squad of resin figurines produced by forgeworld.

Vac Formed Kits:

This type of kit is becoming rarer and rarer as the quality of other kit types improve and they become more affordable. Vac formed kits suit larger scale models, and the most common vac formed kits now are for radio controlled ship models as it is an affordable alternative to glassfibre models in the same scale.

However, many kits of smaller scales have been made. As the hobby has evolved, these kits have bome less popular with smaller scale modellers due to the difficulty in building them and the lower levels of detail compared to other model types in the same scale.

Most small scale vac form kit manufacturers have fazed out of production, however many large scale model kit makers still govern a large part of the indurstry. They include Robbe, Graupner, Billing Boats and Wattage among others. Below is a 1:10 scale model vac-formed powerboat kit.

For the production of the Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Resin manufacture is the only realistic choice. So the masters will be designed with this manufacturing process in mind.

Extended Major Project Begins!

So begins my Magnum Opus! The final chapter in my journey through university modelmaking! In this project I will be creating two pieces of work, one is a live brief. In this first post I will breifly outline the two projects.

Project 1: "Tracking Dinosaurs" live brief from the National Museum of Wales.

In this project I will be producing a short educational documentary about how footprints become fossilized. Many prehistoric footprints of early Dinosauria have been found in Wales. South Wales was a large plain made up of river systems in the Triassic period - about 250 million years ago. During the period of Earth's history the first Dinosaurs appeared. They left evidence in the form of fossilized bones and footprints that can give us clues as to the way that they lived. The purpose of the documentary is to follow the life of the footprint from when it was made by a Plateosaurus, to when it was unearthed by paleontologists - and all the processes it went through inbetween.

My learning aggreement requires me to model the Plateosaurus as accuartely as I can, however I wish to place it in an eductional context that will be attractive to industry at the show.




Project 2: Hobby model kit of the ship "Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin."

This project is a somewhat unorthodox one. I will be designing a model kit intended for hobbyists, the model will be of the Soviet sattellite tracking ship "Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin." My learning aggreement requires the digital design as the final outcome, however if time and funds allow I will have the designs rapid prototyped and then mould and cast a few samples for the show.






















The first stage is research, which will follow in this log.

Fur really is murder - Part 3.

Having layed out Tigger's UVs I thought I'd give some fur effecs a go. Boy was that a mistake. Though once I got the hang of it results started to come through, and I'm pleased so far. The first step was to create a new fur description. All you see at this point is white spikes placed all over the body. However, after you edit some atributes like global scale, hair widths and so on it starts looking more like a coat of fur. The first thing you have to do is comb the fur into the directions you want, as they are all over the place to begin with. After combing you get something like this:

Once all the combing was tweaked to satisfaction I started editing attributes such as length, scraggle, clumping, and many others to get somewhere to start with:

The next step is to paint on the length map, so that the hair is the right length at a given point. Other attributes still needed tweaking at this stage. To cut a very long, complicated and laborious story short I ended up with this:

There is still a long way to go, but it's a pleasing start.

There's more than one way to skin a cat

Though I have now met the assesment requirements that I set out for myself, there's no reason to stop there. I think people will see what I have done as more of a "finished product" if he is more complete in his appearance. So, with my spare three days before the deadline I will attempt to texture and fur him. My progress so far has been good. I spent some time laying out his UV's by hand, only using planar projections and then stitching and sewing the UV's together. In order for his fur to work this has to be done, but it also allows me to create textures for his nose, paws and skin easily. Here is a snapshot of the layed out UV's:

I think I have done quite well here, and my mapping skills seem to have developed since the virtual modelling and apache projects.

However when I have finished texturing and fur I will have to delete all the history on the mesh, which will mean I have to re-skin him. This is not too big an issue however, and I'm sure I can do better than my first skin. The first skin process went quite well and works pretty satisfactorally. Though much practice is needed yet. Here's a snap:

The result is pleasing, and he behaves much like the digital puppet he should be, with very few glithches and unexpected behaviours. Here's the first pose I put him in, which was quick and simple to do using the controls I set up:

Dem bones dem bones dem dry bones

I've decided rigging is best left to sailors.

Ok well it's easy to get a little discouraged sometimes I guess. The rig so far is thuswise:



Yes, it looks pretty. But it's not a very good rig. So I'm starting again.
The biggest problem I'm having is (predictably) the flaoting clavicle bones. Because these move o much in real cats it needs to be present and articulated on the rig. However normal shoulders (like yours and mine) have very little play in them in comparison, with rotation being their main method of movement. A cats move alot more, as well as rotate, this makes it very tough to control and getting the relationship between the shoulder and the rest of the leg right is downright solid.
I have learned alot from the first rig however, and I'm no stranger to starting over from scratch. So I'll start again, and do it my way.

Tigger takes shape

I'm more or less at the end of the modelling stage now. I've tried to create a bald cat, but slightly fleshed out so as to reduce the amount of fur I would have to put on him. His poly count is 2470 tris, which is pretty good considering I wanted to keep him low poly for easy fur rendering.

I've re-proportioned him a little, as he was built more like a panther than a domestic cat, so I've reduced his general beefyness but he's still quite muscular as TB is. Here's a screen shot.



I have found out that the workflow for a furred character is this:

• Model
• Lay out UV's
• Texture/materials
• Fur
• Rig
• Skin

So this makes actually applying fur risky time wise. I think that I will procede to the rigging stage, but only build the rig. When I am happy with the rig I can import his geometry and add fur, then skin him. This should mean I can meet my assessment criteria, and go a little further. I think this is safe as the model didn't take too long.

I have also left certain things off the model by request of Steve. To speed things up, I am not required to add an rigged mouth. I.e he will always have his mouth shut. This can be added later. I've also left dtail off the limbs and paws, this can be done with fur and maps instead. this should make him a very efficient, but low res character which would fit Steve's budget in industry.

Caturday

Here's TB so far. This is about five hour's work. Alot of work still needs doing, but it's a good start.

Everyone hates the crazy frog but....

It's a pretty good animated music video. So here it is, for your annoyance.



I think one has to admit that he has alot of character, even if it is intensely irritating.

Sex sells. So do funny animals.

I've been looking around for all the CG animals featured in ads over the years, and found some of the best. The great thing about these is that they often portray fairly realistic animals doing unexpected things, just as TB will. Here are the pick of the best:





Not technically CG, but well worth a mention:


My persobal favourite from Canada:


Not CG again, but it has cats!


Unfortunately I couldn't find the Injury Lawyers 4 U ad featuring the worst CG eagle EVER. Shame.

Shadow of the (alpha map) colossus

Here's an interesting article about the making of the game "Shadow of the collosus." The description of how they made the fur on the creatures is about half way down the page. Here's a screen shot:

Feux feux fur

I came across an interesting post on a forum while looking for ways to make fur for games using polygins and alpha maps. The thread is entitled "hot female game characters" but it got a bit off topic to something more useful. The poster makes a good point here:




"I don't know about that... This is a screenshot I found at Gamespot of White Knight Story:



The hair looks incredibly sharp, but that is more an effort from the modeller, who obviously know how to use alpha map well. But the texture obviously aren't that high-res, and the eyes and the face show some obvious signes of polygons. the fur around his collar also suggest s single layer of texture. This is very nice looking, but no where even close to that image of FFXIII above.

In that FFXIII image, you can see each individual strand of hair, the texture shows absolutely no distortion near the curves, and remain sharp throughout. There are no signs of polygon, as everything is absolutely smooth. And all these things are achieved in a very high resolution - that image is huge. PS3 doesn't have a single game with visual quality even close to that."

You can read the whole thread (if you really have to) here.

Real fake or fake real?

Before development of Tiggerbush can really begin, an important decision must be made. This problem is whether to aim for a realistic cat, or a characterised toon version. Consider the two interpretations below. They are both of the same subject; the saber toothed tiger. The cartoon version is from Ice Age, and the realistic depiction is from 10,000 BC.





There are serious considerations for both versions. The toon version may be too far from what the client has in mind, but the realistic version is probably out of my reach and skills at the moment. The only way I will find out which is best to do (or how far down the middle to go) is simply to get stuck in and see how it evolves. This is a haphazard, though often effective approach. Either way, time is short and I must get started.

I like to move it move it

I found this video to be very insightful. It was as a movement study for actors, but it's a great reference for general cat movement and will really help with posing and animating TB. Here it is:

Creature Feature Hall of Fame

It’s worth taking the time to have a look at the work of the masters. Computer generated animals are now that stars of family films, music videos and adverts. Through the vision of the artists who created them, to each is brought a unique persona, a sense of life and character. Capturing and creating this through design, modelling and animation is no easy task, and is a skill that takes a long time and a lot of practice to achieve. There now so many good examples that I will simply choose the ones I feel are the most effective and analyze them.

1: Scrat (Ice Age)

This loveable critter graces many bedrooms in the form of a cuddly toy of some sort. He owes his popularity to the artists who created his character. In design he is classically cute – with big eyes, stubby limbs, a twitchy nose and a big bushy tail. This was interpreted brilliantly by the modellers and renderers, then brought to twitchy life by the animation teams. He also demonstrates how props can be used to bring out character. Scrat is rarely seen without his precious acorn, and his small plotlines revolve around it. All this creates a very loveable character which appeals to everyone.

2: Sully (Monsters Inc.)




Though not technically an animal, Sully is none the less a big furry critter with a lot of personality. He was a technical revolution in that he was one of the first movie characters to use fur effects. I imagine many of the geniuses who developed the fur and hair tools lost a lot of their own in the process. Big and cuddly in design, he is a big teddy bear that children loved. His movements are big, slow and clumsy which is an endearing quality that contrasts with his bright and caring nature. A good realisation of an unusual concept makes Sully an unforgettable character.

3: Tank Evans (Surf’s Up.)



Most stories require a villain, or in the case of Surf’s Up – a big meanie. It’s difficult to choose between the characters in this movie, as they are all so unique and cleverly done. However, for me, tank is a fantastic villain. Happiness and sadness and pretty basic emotions in a CG character, but more subtle traits like arrogance and machismo are far more difficult to portray. Tank carries them off perfectly. Every part of his design is meant to emphasize the proud bully that is Tank, obsessed with winning and with no regard to anyone but himself (and his suspicious attachment to his trophies.) Tank is a perfect bad guy for the movie, and though you love to hate him he’s a very memorable character.

4: Puss in Boots (Shrek 2.)



Puss in boots is especially relevant to me on this project. He is a very good example of a characterised cat, and has a lot of personality that owes a lot to the voice of Antonio Banderas. His most charming aspect is the way he is a pint sized hero, brave and fearless, but still lapses into becoming entranced by dangling objects he can swipe at. He is a cat in every way.

5: King Julian (Madagascar.)



This cheeky chappy was the real star of Madagascar. Ok the penguins were cool too but we’ve already had one of those. One could have cut the rest of the film out and just had a 15 minute short about partying lemurs.
The lemur rendition of “Move it” was a stroke of sheer brilliance, and has probably exceeded the popularity of the original. This party animal behaviour is clearly expressed through Julian. His wide range of facial expression and lanky but energetic gait is augmented by Sasha Baron Cohen’s voice acting.
Julian was one of the few characters who really made an otherwise unimaginative film well worth watching.

6: Boog (Open Season.)



Boog is so endearing because he is such a paradox of form and personality. Though he is a fully grown grizzly bear who looks like he has a mean streak in there somewhere, he is in fact a gentle and domesticated animal. If this wasn’t evident enough he carries a tiny cuddly bear backpack – full of animal cracker treats. His movements and mannerisms are clearly based on real grizzlies, even though the model and fur effects are highly stylised. It’s easy to identify with him, and though he looks tough he is a vulnerable and dependant animal who has to find his place in the tough wild world. It’s this contrast that I think makes him such a great example of a CG animal.

7: The Famous Grouse.



Though perhaps not as big screen as the other characters listed here, I feel he is worthy of mention nonetheless. What I like about this character is that he seems to have grown into his role over time. When he first hit the TV screens, he was seen wandering around the scene, seemingly disorientated as if nobody was sure what he was doing there. It was almost as if they had put a real grouse on a white stage and just let it do whatever. Now in the most recent ads, he is seen with a bottle of the whiskey with an affectionate wing around it. I like this evolution of purpose. Aside from this I like his awkwardness and dizzy movements, he is a very well characterised bird brain.

These are excellent examples of CG animals, and show how artists bring out character through their designs and animations.