3d simulation of extinct biomes

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

The tracks and trilobites in general look so good! I have some questions, though. Will the tracks start to degenerate after a track way is long enough? Otherwise the seafloor would perpetually be covered in tracks as trilobites kept walking and resting. The enrolling animation is not very realistic; the trilobite would not jump into the water and then enroll but thrust its pygidium into the substrate and possibly vault backward a little, being about half covered in sediment. Will the trilobites enroll when the player comes close by, as if scared by the player, or only do so when predators such as cephalopods are nearby?

[ftlcgi]

The tracks are set to dissapear after a certain amount of time, they take out memory space and they have to be cleared.

Yes they enroll whenever a predator comes nearby or the player, i can set up an entire food chain.

This AI system is very complex, i rewatched the tutorial four times and even talked to the developer about it's features.

I can update the animation it's easy to make adjustments and i have some more features that i want to ad, as i mentioned in a previous post i want the body to bend when navigating rough terrain, i can make trilobites to swim but i don't have a way to switch between swimming and walking yet (the developer of the AI Plugin said this feature should ready soon), i want the trilobite to be grabbed by the predator when it's eaten (right now it can get hit untill his life depletes and he dies).

They have reproductive behavior and they can pas through different larval states i would like to take advantage of this feature to.

[Mahnmut]

Astonishing work!

As I mentioned before, I am usually not a fan of simulated biology, because I feel it lacks the immeasurable depth of complexity that is the essence of real life, but your animations are getting to a point where they are fun to look at.

Best Regards,

J

[ftlcgi]

I am working on completing the models I have for the Hunsruk slate biome and maybe even add some new models, this time i want to add lots of improvements and as detailed as possible

Ammonocrinus it's completly remade from these two articles,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232687427_Revision_of_the_Flexible_Crinoid_Genus_Ammonicrinus_and_a_New_Hypothesis_on_Its_Life_Mode
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Reconstruction-of-life-time-position-of-Ammonicrinus-a-Enclosure-of-the-ammonicrinid_fig6_264797070
I'm testing how it reacts to different animations and when i'm happy with a result i will texture it

The bobbit worm has a body now but the waving legs animation is hard to upload to sketchfab

This sea spider was originally made with the legs bent backwards and the it's stretching unnaturally when it's animated.

I added some extra details that helps with stretching animations but i may need to reatach it's legs becouse walking animation is dificult for spiders and it needs a good model for it

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by ftlcgi

[ftlcgi]

I've been working on recreating some carboniferous plants from Mazon Creek Lagerstätte

you can see the plant models on sketchfab here:

https://sketchfab.com/primal.cgi/collections/mid-pennsylvanian-mazon-creek-north-america-2f5566dce8ea470aa7a9cdeed0e24bca

Edited April 30, 2023 by ftlcgi

[DUNK08]

Beautiful scenery! I like how you added weather, rain, Fog and night mode with ancient moon light reflecting off of the plants. Their are fossils of rain drops from the carboniferous! The models are looking really good! I think there is some adjustments you can make to some of the plant models.

 

Lepidodendron: I think the proportions of Lepidodendron is a little bit off. The foliage at the top is a little to big in proportion to its height. The root base at the bottom is a little to small. Here is a good picture of Lepidodendron size comparison and how it grew. The young Lepidodendrons should be pole like. Young sigillaria was somewhat pole like like Lepidodendron because it grew the same way from the ground.

 

Here is a picture of its fossilized stump.

here is some links.

Lepidodendron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidodendron

Stump: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271213023_A_new_look_at_Lepidodendron_ophiurus_BRONGNIART_and_the_recognition_of_L-wingfieldense_sp_nov_Flemingitaceae_Lepidodendrales_from_the_Langsettian_Bashkirian_of_Derbyshire_East_Midlands_UK

stigmaria: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Reconstruction-of-stigmarian-root-systems-with-highly-branched-systems-of-rootlets-A_fig1_303523719

Sigillaria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigillaria

 

Psaronius: I think the Psaronius Roots should go higher up on the stem and flare out at the bottom because its hole stem was made up of hundreds of roots. like this reconstruction.

[ftlcgi]

7 hours ago, DUNK08 said:

I think there is some adjustments you can make to some of the plant models.

thank you, i'm going to ad these changes to the models

[ftlcgi]

Short video showing plants growing, this kind of animation is a bit taxing for fost computers but i might be able to find a use for it

It's a very basic animation and not meant to simulate realistic plant grouth but it might eventualy be developed into a nice feature

 

I adjusted the lepidodendron and sigillaria and immediately seemed like a visual improvement

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by ftlcgi

[DUNK08]

It Looks very good! Besides the proportions, the density at the top of full grown Lepidodendron could have been left the same but aside from that everything looks Really good! looking at different paleo art reconstructions can also help with knowing how Lepidodendron top looked.

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

These plants look so good! The Websteroprion looks good accept that the scolecodonts are not connected to the head by tissue; one of my newer reconstructions haven't yet put on my website (which I'm in the process of re-doing) shows how they connect, based off of modern bobbit worms. Also the teeth do not go through the pads on the top of the head, moving under it like in the new reconstruction. To clarify this reconstruction is looking towards the ventral side of the worm.

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Bringing Fossils to Life

[ftlcgi]

thank you, that's a very nice reconstruction, it also reminds me i havent made any bivalves yet, i have a lot of models ready for the hunsruk slate biome and i want to make a new video with all of them including a bobbit worm, i'l try to make one from the paper you linked.

I fixed most of the old models like the eurypterids, the webbed ammonite that had an extra pair of arms :))

I improved the underwater rendering a bit and i want it to be different from what i posted before.

I still havent touched phacops yet, it has a lot of details that i need to fix

And there are still some i want to make like Weinbergina, Mimetaster, Nahecaris

[ftlcgi]

An ammonite with webbing between it's arms

I made a high detail version and with exaggerated features, and more than enough arms for a cinematic scene, if it ever goes public i'l post a link here, here are some renders from that model

 

The photophores were animated to

 

Edited May 7, 2023 by ftlcgi

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

The ammonoids look a lot better than they used to, though there are still some details that I would fix. The first is the jaws, which appear very beak-like, and while they would look great on a Cretaceous Ammonite, Devonian ammonoids had lower jaws more like warped plates with a pointed apex (see below figure from this paper).

Second, Devonian ammonoids would not have swam with their tentacles extended, if they had any like Cretaceous Heteromorphs; this would create drag and heighten their chances of injury. In modern cephalopods with elongated tentacles, the tentacles are retracted and shoot out to grab prey. Below is a nice diagram of the arm crown of a squid.

http://tolweb.org/tree/ToLimages/buccMemb2.jpg

Here is a gif of a cuttlefish attacking a shrimp, which could be helpful for animating an ammonoid hunting.

[ftlcgi]

10 minutes ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

see below figure from this paper).

i looked at this image while i was adjusting the model, i keep rewatching all your posts and i cant figure out how it looks from a frontal view.

After looking more closely to the image  i guess the jaw viewed from outside it's wider and not sharpened like a beak, if the darkened parts are supposed to be outside the body the lower part seems thinner and wider and the upper part maybe thicker and more rounded

 

I can fix those hunting and swimming  animations

Thank you for having the patience to explain these details

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

Mimimitoceras does show the jaws from the front in the illustration above, as does Postclymenia, however the Tornocerid does not. I made some quick drawings of this, my interpretation of the upper jaw in Postclymenia, and what I can see of your 3D model for comparison with the figures here and above. Red shaded areas show what surfaces would not have been covered in tissue and would have been visible from the outside. When the ammonoid pulled its head into its shell and covered the aperture with its aptychus/lower jaw, most of the ventral surface would be open to the elements; I did not shade this part..

[ftlcgi]

1 hour ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

I made some quick drawings of this,

I think i got it, i was a bit confused without the explanations but it's clear now

I made all three examples but i only animated the third becouse it had both jaws

I guess this is how the jaws work together? in the figure there is even a mark where the upper jaw would scrape by it

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

The animation is a little off; a video I found suggests that the smaller upper jaw moves, the lower jaw not moving as far. The models looks great, except that the animated lower jaw has a large v-shaped notch on the ventral surface; the figures make it clear that this area actually projects in a small point (G and K in the figure. The views from the top appear to have this notch only because the view is from above the center of the jaw, not right above the tip.

 

[ftlcgi]

I'm working on a new enviroment sometime in the Cretaceous, i havent decided where exactly but i'm tempted to make the Hateg island

Currently it has Monkey puzzle, Cycads, fern trees and lots of small ferns from Megascans and i'm looking into some ginkgo trees

 

[ftlcgi]

New models for Hunsruk Slate biome, i've been adjusting the older models recently but making new ones is more fun than fixing bugs

Drepanaspis based on a reconstruction from this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233491256_A_Psammosteid_Heterostracan_Vertebrata_Pteraspidomorphi_from_the_Emsian_Lower_Devonian_of_the_Grand_Duchy_of_Luxembourg

 

Nahecaris, made from different reconstructions, the legs are based on Dilophaspis from this paper

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251189614_New_evidence_for_the_synonymy_of_Dilophaspis_and_Nahecaris_Phyllocarida_Lower_Devonian_Rhenish_Massif

 

Rhenechinus, there's no reconstruction for this sea urchin available but there are some fossil photos in this paper

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258877857_Morphology_and_Ecological_Setting_of_the_Basal_Echinoid_Genus_Rhenechinus_from_the_Early_Devonian_of_Spain_and_Germany

Weinbergina, i made the shell and a leg model from this paper, the reconstruction is incomplete (no ventral part)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225998374_A_new_specimen_of_Weinbergina_opitzi_Chelicerata_Xiphosura_from_the_Lower_Devonian_Hunsruck_Slate_Germany

I was going to ad details from a living horseshoe crab but i found an improved reconstruction from this paper, i'l ad the leg details from this paper soon

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225315795_Weinbergina_a_xiphosuran_arthropod_from_the_Devonian_Hunsruck_Slate

[ftlcgi]

New clip showing Hunsrück Slate biota from the dry land and the sea, most animals have only a basic animation and are walking a predefined path so they can pass in front of the camera.

I usualy try to ad general improvements on every new video but there were lots of bugs to fix on the models so few of them may look a bit out of place, sorry about that.

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

This is amazing! I never saw how beautiful the Devonian could be, even though it is what I most specialize in.

[ftlcgi]

7 hours ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

This is amazing!

Thank you! You helped me a lot with making it.

 

I've been looking into Cretaceous biomes lately and seeing how detailed dinosaurs are made theese days, i'm not confident enough to make a Tyrannosaur or a Dromaeosaur that would look realistic enough, i'l try to take a more advanced course into 3D sculpting.

 

For now i'm trying to make a pterosaur, the goal would be make a detailed model and to animate it to walk and fly, the shape is based on other models but the proportions are based on this paper

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258391482_Pteranodon_and_beyond_The_history_of_giant_pterosaurs_from_1870_onwards

 

Edit:

I usualy ad a bit of sculpting to the low polygon models but i dont work with high resolution sculpting becouse it's more work and invertebrates don't realy need it, but on these animals i have to do it. After i'm done with sculpting i'l need to transfer the high resolution details into a low poly model that works in games. I was excited to see how it will look in the enviroment and i added the unfinished model just for some shots

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by ftlcgi

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

The model looks great! However, it looks very "shrink wrapped", with too little muscles and body fat. I recommend checking out the beautiful pterosaur reconstructions of Pteros.com; they have some fantastic azhdarchids, including the one you are modeling. Will it also have a walking, launching, and landing animation? I have resources.

[ftlcgi]

23 minutes ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

Will it also have a walking, launching, and landing animation? I have resources.

Yes, i realy want to ad launching and landing, these will have to be added as intermediate animations between walking and flying, i'l have to do some research into this.

 

The shrink-wraping is caused by my experiment with sculpting, i tend to make details exagerated, i'm going to put a bit more work into this one,  ad a bit of fluffy hairs on it's body, it will get more improved

 

The model has to be made in such a way that it deforms it's wings correctly, and they deform a lot

 

And a shorter neck, according to this paper

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312550902_Neck_biomechanics_indicate_that_giant_Transylvanian_azhdarchid_pterosaurs_were_short-necked_arch_predators

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by ftlcgi

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

Be careful putting too many filaments on, as these huge pterosaurs could have overheated, like other large animals; though the wing membranes would also have helped reverse this factor. I have inserted below images that helped me in my reconstructions, with the launch and landing sequence. The quadrupedal launch theory seems to make the most sense when it comes to large pterosaurs taking off; do not use reptileevolution.com or The Pterosaur Heresies; these are both made by David Peters, who is not a true paleontologist and backs up his claims on photo shopped pictures of fossils and other reconstructions, which have led him to re-think the taxonomic positions of everything. 

First is the launch, then a landing landing animation, based off of footprints.

 

Here is a paper that discusses landing; it is the most complete online version I could find. I would use their walking sequence rather than the one above, as azhdarchids were more terrestrial than the seafaring pterosaur above.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19692407/

 

Also, I've been meaning to talk to you about your conodont reconstruction; it is obviously based on fish, and some papers provide good arguments  disproving the traditionally vertebrate taxonomic placement of conodonts; PM me for more resources.

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Bringing Fossils to Life