3d simulation of extinct biomes

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

10 minutes ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

That's why I like Julio Lacerda's paleoart - the dinosaurs are more accurate and much more peaceful creatures. https://paleoart.tumblr.com/

 

Awesome stuff!

 

I really like Dan @ www.thecodontia.com 's work, it's super super cool.

 

Your work is also a particular enjoyment of mine - the Microraptor is perfect, the Michelinoceras rigourously put together, and the Eldredgeops very pretty, with the broken crinoids in the background! Just neat work!

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

Thank you very much! I really enjoy making paleoart, and have been experimenting with new effects. If you want me to do a specific genus, please tell me.

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

22 hours ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

Thank you very much! I really enjoy making paleoart, and have been experimenting with new effects. If you want me to do a specific genus, please tell me.

 

You're doing a very good job! Have you done Anurognathus?

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

I have drawn Anurognathus, but have not made a digital version. I will have to play around with different poses before I make a new one.

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

39 minutes ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

I have drawn Anurognathus, but have not made a digital version. I will have to play around with different poses before I make a new one.

 

Very cool! Feel free to send it (PM if you want), I bet it looks awesome!

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

Here is my new Anurognathus, chasing a dragonfly at dusk, when this genus is thought to have been most active. I have not done a pterosaur, or a vertebrate for that matter, in a long time and am a little rusty. Hope you like it!

Edited July 31, 2022 by Bringing Fossils to Life

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

1 minute ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

Here is my new Anurognathus, chasing a dragonfly at dusk, when this genus is thought to have been most active. I have not done a pterosaur, or a vertebrate for that matter, in a long time and am a little rusty. Hope you like it!

That's awesome! I love the blur on the insect and the detail with the teeth is fantastic! As always, great work on the background.

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

Glad you like it! the background was a blurred photo; I added the sunset. Sometimes I get a little lazy with the backgrounds.

[ftlcgi]

In 2010 i found bones belonging to two mammoths on a river bed near my hometown, i keeped them for some time but they were starting to degrade so i donated them to the Geology Museum in Bucharest, i went together with the reaserchers in the place where i found them and we took out more bones from a cervid and a bovine, i lost touch with them after some time, i knew that the were going to write a paper about the finds so i keeped looking for it online, but recently on this forum i got help from @digit on this forum thread:

https://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/124472-is-it-from-a-horse/

and found the paper, it turns out that the researchers keeped digging and the site produced more papers, here are the links on Researchgate

 

First find of elephantid remains from the Pleistocene of Copaceni (Ilfov County, Romania)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256497404_First_find_of_elephantid_remains_from_the_Pleistocene_of_Copaceni_Ilfov_County_Romania

 

Early Pleistocene amphibians and squamates from Copăceni (Dacian Basin, southern Romania)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348807830_Early_Pleistocene_amphibians_and_squamates_from_Copaceni_Dacian_Basin_southern_Romania

 

O noua asociatie de mamifere de varsta Pleistocen inferior de pe Valea Argesului Inferior (Copaceni, judetul Ilfov)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250305450_O_noua_asociatie_de_mamifere_de_varsta_Pleistocen_inferior_de_pe_Valea_Argesului_Inferior_Copaceni_judetul_Ilfov

 

Early Pleistocene freshwater fishes of Copăceni (Dacian Basin, southern Romania)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338788477_Early_Pleistocene_freshwater_fishes_of_Copaceni_Dacian_Basin_southern_Romania

 

Early Pleistocene freshwater fish fauna of Copăceni (Dacian Basin, southern Romania) – preliminary data

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333916525_Early_Pleistocene_freshwater_fish_fauna_of_Copaceni_Dacian_Basin_southern_Romania_-_preliminary_data

 

This find got me realy excited and since recently i got a one year experience in reconstructing devonian fauna, i'm thinking this would be a nice side project.

The site has remains from large fauna aswell as some small animals, plus a river/lake biome with lots of fish and aphibians, i want to recreate the site from different perspectives, one for the large fauna, one for the small animals and an underwater scene. I will make most of the 3d models but becouse the project is kind of big i will try to purchase some of them.

 

As a start i made basic models for some of the animals, some will have fur and will need real world references (that means i need new ways of making things), i'm experimenting with different methods of rendering the fur and after i learn more about it i'l ad more details on the models

 

Mammuthus Meridionalis

I used scheletal recreations from sketchfab to draw the basic body shape but some features turned exagerated so i still need some real elephant referances to fix it.

 

Leptobos vallisarni

To make it i used this paper that is showing the skull

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310499975_New_fossils_of_Bison_palaeosinensis_Artiodactyla_Mammalia_from_the_steppe_mammoth_site_of_Early_Pleistocene_in_Nihewan_Basin_China

 

Psekupsoceros orientalis - i'm not to sure about the horns, i used some drawings to make them that were not very precise

 

Trogontherium dacicum

- a giant beaver, just a basic shape for now

- I used this recreation of Trogontherium cuvieri to make it and some recreations of Casteroides

https://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/en/periodiques/geodiversitas/30/4/premiere-recolte-de-trogontherium-cuvieri-mammalia-rodentia-du-pleistocene-moyen-de-pologne-et-revision-de-l-espece

 

Wels catfish (Silurus glanis)

- The same wels catfish living today

 

Desmana radulescui

- An aquatic mole

 

Allactaga

 - a tipe of jerboa, there were more small rodents found.

I posting on sketcfab more models of living plants, mushrooms, trees etc. made with photoscanning, here is the collection for the entire project if you want to take a look.

https://sketchfab.com/primal.cgi/collections/15-1-pleistocene-copaceni-beds-romania-2684e10b2d644b4a8c4994f72a7fc3fc

 

Animal Behavior Kit is a newer and better AI for animals: (it's way more complex than the old one)

Here is a trailer for the AI if youre interested in it's capabilities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EE4lYAh_oo

Untill i get the models ready i'm testing with some purchased models complete with animations, the rhyno in the image below will be replaced with Stephanorhinus (allso found at the site)

 

The animals can walk in herds and react to predators, to test it i'm using this cape buffalo model as a placeholder for the Leptobos

 

Ultra dinamic sky is a new weather and lightning improvement added that is worth mentioning, it helps me recreate some amazing weather effects, take a look at the asset video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b52npy-XUdQ

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by ftlcgi

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

This is amazing and should be enough for Member Contributions to Paleontology! @Fossildude19

[Fossildude19]

10 minutes ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

This is amazing and should be enough for Member Contributions to Paleontology! @Fossildude19

 

Unfortunately, this doesn't really qualify. 

[ftlcgi]

Stephanorhinus etruscus

- A rhinoceros found at the site

- The model is based on reconstructions like this one: https://www.deviantart.com/sinammonite/art/Stephanorhinus-etruscus-280700846

- the Stephanorhinus and Mammuthus Meridionalis were not wolly as the ice age versions, they had a bit of hair but the climate was even warmer than today, this site has some great paleoart from early pleistocene including the animals i'm drawing https://prehistoric-fauna.com/Stephanorhinus-etruscus

 

The Flora

From what i can find there was predominantly more steppe biome than today.

There are plants common with today's enviroment, and are easy to draw, and there are some invasive plants that will have to be excluded, i allso found some papers with polen records from pleistocene that i didn't had time to sort.

I'm not going to post the plant models here becouse there are going to be a lot of them but will be posted on sketchfab.

https://sketchfab.com/primal.cgi/collections/15-1-pleistocene-copaceni-beds-romania-2684e10b2d644b4a8c4994f72a7fc3fc

 

The enviroment for small animals

There were few tipes of extinct mice found that are not worth the work, (i'l try to find some similar models with animations and just buy them) and the Desmana (posted yesterday) are now extinct, the rest of the small critters found are living today.

I allready have some lizards, newts and snakes that i had purchased in the past, i will have to retexture some of them to get the same species from the papers, for example i have a viper model but i need a Grass snake (Natrix natrix), it's easy to retexture and keep the original model and animations.

 

The underwater enviroment

Besides the Wels catfish (posted yesterday) there were some perch, a salmon, a pike and some frogs and i allready bought most of them completly animated, the enviroment needs some detail work, here are some screenshots.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by ftlcgi

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

These are even better than the other ones! I love the color patterns!

[ftlcgi]

3 hours ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

These are even better than the other ones! I love the color patterns!

these models are not made by me, they are bought from the unreal engine marketplace :)

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

Ah, I see.

[ftlcgi]

Pachycrocuta

The papers mention a hyaenid coprolite found nearby, and Pachycrocuta might had been to be the most likely

The model is based on this reconstruction: https://prehistoric-fauna.com/Pachycrocuta

 

[ftlcgi]

Lately i've been working on improving animations, materials and AI and i havent had time to work on 3d models, some are just minor improvements but will contribute to the realism of the simulator., here are some of the improvements i added recently.

 

Animation retargeting

I've been struggling to make this work for some time and i got it to work in a simple and efficient manner.

In the past i used to make an basic movement animation for every model, and every new model had to be animated from scratch, that meaned that i had to work alot more to ad more complex annimations.

Now i can make one good swimming animation for a fish and share it with all other that have the same bone structure, the technique is so good i can retarget the swimming annimation from a fish to a completly different animal like an amphibian.

I used the swimming annimations from purchased models on my models and they move way better than i was able to make, sadly i can't upload these annimation on sketchfab becouse they were not made by me but but i can use them in my project.

 

Sexual dimorfism

Some Placoderms (like Cocosteus and Bothriolepis) male have been found to posess claspers that help with mating, like modern sharks, the new AI Plugin that controlls the movement of the animal allow me to ad these claspers to male placoderms, if an animal will be set as male it will have these, they can even be set to grow with age. The feature was developed to allow male deer to grow horns, it's a separate 3d model and i don't have to draw different versions of the same fish, the code will ad them.

 

Texture variations

The same AI plugin allow me to set different color variations to the same 3d model, so individuals can have lighter or darker texture, living animals have different collor variations as well as extinct ones like the Woolly rhinoceros who had variations from dark spots  to even ginger color.

I used this feature on the wels catfish but i will use it whenever it's possible.

 

 

Edit: Sorry i made a mistake, i got the shape of the claspers from a similar placoderm called Microbrachius

https://www.howitworksdaily.com/ancient-fish-reveal-the-origins-of-sexual-intercourse/

 

Bothriolepis had this frill instead

Edited September 22, 2022 by ftlcgi

[ftlcgi]

Some new improvements on the mammoth, the progress is slower on realistic animals

-  the textures are passable for now but there is still room for improvements

- the fur can look wet in the rain thanks to the weather plugin

- females will have shorter tusks than males (not a separate model just a smaller version for now)

- i'm going to try to draw a baby mammoth that will follow it's parent, the AI plugin has a component designer for that.

- below is a short video showing the mammoths using animations imported from free assets, i'm trying to repurpose animations from other animals (in this case an african elephant)

- the quality of the graphics is lower than normal in order to work on a laptop

 

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by ftlcgi

[ftlcgi]

I updated the Dunkleosteus with a more shark like body, i used the whale shark as a reference, i remade most of the model and rigging and the mouth closes properly this time

i still have some improvements to ad: the spine looks like it's ending where the tail begins, it looks like i made the eyes a bit to small and i'l like to experiment with different textures

Thanks to IsaacTheFossilMan for posting the article on the corrent reconstruction.

 

Orsadesmus rubecollus - a devonian milipede found at Red Hill

The model is based on recontruction from this article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/213776217_New_flat-backed_Archipolypodan_millipedes_from_the_Upper_Devonian_of_North_America

And this recontruction: http://www.devoniantimes.org/who/pages/milliped.html

 

I'm experimenting with different ways on how to draw tabulate corals, i need them to be as low poly as possible so they don't use to many resources but allso look as realistic as possible, i'm going to have to populate a scene with corals where the are partialy obscured by seaweed and improve the models from there, right now they are more like a sketch drawing.

Basic tabulate coral made for backgrounds, i'm using models like this for reefs

 

Pleurodictyum, i used the same method as above to just texture a basic model,

 

Some tabulate corals are to complex and i'l need to make models for them but right now they have way to many polygons and are taxing the resources, i'l have to find a different way to draw them.

 

 

Paleoctenophora is a comb jellyfish member of the Hunsrück Slate, the model is based on this article https://doi.org/10.1038/303518a0

it's missing some parts right now, it will be updated in the next couple of days

Edited October 23, 2022 by ftlcgi

[ftlcgi]

I made some improvements to the Dunkleosteus, the spine looks now like it's going through the upper part of the tail which is thicker,

Also i painted some small scale like pattern on the body, i noticed most placoderms have a bumpy pattern

And the head is shaped to fit this skull instead, the old version was based on a different skull and it looked a bit unnatural

https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/cmnh-6090-dunkleosteus-terrelli-058e9a3493d44a88bf1b64b0e28c9ef5

 

And a render in unreal engine

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by ftlcgi

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

Fantastic work on that Dunkleosteus! Superb, my friend.

[ftlcgi]

A small update for now, greater things are coming soon to this project

Limnomis delaneyi was an early ray-fin fish from Red Hill, it's based on this reconstruction, is still have some details left before it's done

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by ftlcgi

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

The Orsadesmus is wonderful! I have been waiting for one like this. The fish are looking great, too! I can see a lot more details now than when you started posting here. Can't wait for more!

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

Also worth noting is that the reconstructions that I made of Orthocerids and that you used for your reconstructions are likely incorrect, since I didn't see this paper regarding the placement of the Aptychopsis. Some people disagree with this reconstruction, but it makes a lot of sense when you look at other cephalopods and their bite marks (for instance, Ammonoid jaws and Bactritoid injuries made by fellow Bactritids). 

https://novataxa.blogspot.com/2021/09/aptychopsis.html

Here is an updated reconstruction, bactritid jaws based off of the related Agoniatitida and bite marks from Bactritoids. Aptychopsis based off of the paper linked. Color patterns on shells are not made up but from fossils (Except top Bactrites; this reconstruction is outdated in this way). If you have any questions on this reconstruction, please ask.

 

[ftlcgi]

11 hours ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

Here is an updated reconstruction

Thank you very much for the updated reconstruction it makes more sense to have it as a mouth part, i going to update my models soon.

Your drawings are excelent, thank you for posting them, when i see good looking reconstructions like these it motivates me to work on mine.

The Orsadesmus is untextured right now and i'm planing to ad the rest of the Red Hill animals to but i have no ideea about the features of Agelodus, i saw a reconstruction on your blog

http://bringingfossilstolife.infinityfreeapp.com/2021/08/25/fossil-fish-of-red-hill/

Are the features inferred from similar sharks or is it just a pure guess?