A Sivatherium for World Giraffe Day 2019

Today is World Giraffe Day - an initiative set up by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) to celebrate giraffes and raise awareness for their conservation on the LONGEST day of the year (get it?). Yes, you may not be aware, but giraffe populations across Africa are on the decline. The total population has dropped almost 40% since the 1980s. While the conservation of other iconic animals like elephants and rhinos has gained a lot of attention over the years, the giraffe decline isn't as well known to the public, and even came as a bit of a surprise to science community. But it's true. Giraffes face issues related to habitat destruction and fragmentation, poaching, and human conflicts in various areas of the continent.

So for World Giraffe Day 2019, I have something special for you. You may recall for the past few years I've been creating digital paintings in Adobe Photoshop to benefit animal conservation, including giraffes. The awesome people from the Los Angeles Zoo have been running an annual event for the last four years specifically dedicated to giraffes, called 'Laughs for Giraffes.' It is a live comedy show/fundraiser, which benefits the GCF mentioned above. To help with this effort, I've created a few paintings for this event. The first year I painted a giraffe, and the next year I painted the only other member of the giraffe family, the okapi. For this year, I realized I was out of  living giraffids. Sure I could just paint more giraffes or okapis, but instead I took this opportunity to delve into my paleoart roots.

While the only living members of the giraffe family are giraffes and okapis, you may be surprised to learn that in prehistoric times, the group was quite diverse. Not only that, but many of them looked very different from what you might think of as a giraffe. Modern giraffes are quite exceptional and extreme animals, even by prehistoric standards. Most of the extinct giraffids did not have exceptionally long necks, for instance. The species I decided to focus on for my giraffe conservation painting this year, was Sivatherium giganteum:

Click to Enlarge

I would like to take the rest of this post to discuss some of my research process and how I came to some of my decisions and interpretations in this piece. I think the painting is far more interesting if you understand what's going on in it, and hopefully this blog post can be a nice companion text to the painting for those who are curious to learn more about this bizarre animal. Just a warning, it's a long post, so I hope you're ready to learn about all the prehistoric Himalayas! For the TL;DR version, don't leave! Just skip to the 'Results' section below.

Restoring Sivatherium giganteum

At 2.2m (7.4ft) at the shoulder (3m or 10ft in total height), with thick forelimbs, and an estimated mass of around 1246 kg (2746.96 lbs), Sivatherium is thought to be the heaviest ruminant ever discovered. One thing that drew me to it as a subject is the fact that it had a shorter broader snout from the living giraffids, and very extravagantly shaped ossicones (horn like projections of bone that remain covered in skin and fur - unique to the giraffe family), that are quite different from what you see in giraffes and okapis - superficially looking somewhat similar to a moose's antlers.

I set out to paint this bizarre animal in its ancient habitat, and wanted to do it justice, so I put in the time for perusing the scientific literature to learn as much as I could about the anatomy, ecology, and geologic context of the animal. While the process was certainly involved, I thoroughly enjoyed it, considering it's been quite some time since I've went all in on a paleoart restoration. It was also a fun challenge in that typically my paleoart interests tend to focus on various Mesozoic archosaurs, and I'm not usually as familiar with the nitty-gritty details of extinct mammals. 

With all good paleoart, it's best to start with the fossils.  For my reconstruction, I based my proportions on photographs of the original fossils, as well as the original drawings and description by Falconer and Cautley in 1836. The technical description and skillfully drawn figures were incredibly helpful. But in addition to this, London's Natural History Museum even digitized the holotype specimen described in the paper, and uploaded the 3D model to interact with online! You can even play with it here:

Sivatherium giganteum skull by NHM_Imaging on Sketchfab

 This was a really great reference to help understand the form of the skull in three dimensions. It isn't a complete replacement for the original paper and figures, however, as using all three resources provided valuable insight that couldn't be deciphered from only one source. Being able to see this thing from different lenses, and read the insights of the original description was all invaluable. Since the original description focused mostly on the skull, the body proportions were based on the Basu et. al. reconstruction and mass estimate from 2016. This provided the insight into the the thicker proportions of the front legs, and helped to plan out general body proportions. 

Reconstruction from Basu et al. 2016 (anterior view)

Reconstruction from Basu et al. 2016 (left lateral view)

Many older restorations of this animal have been depicted as very moose-like, no doubt because of the larger snout and extensive headgear. I didn't want to assume this to be true for my restoration, however, as moose have very specific anatomy in their snouts to give them their characteristic bulbous nose. Their skull's nasal opening is also much more receded and enlarged than what is seen in the Sivatherium skull. I read up a little on modern mammals with particularly bulbous snouts, like moose, and the saiga antelope, and determined a stout, but not particularly bulbous nose was the most logical way to go for Sivatherium. The skull nasal opening just didn't seem to fit what we find on animals like moose, saiga, or any sort of trunked animal. 

A classic moose-like Sivatherium. Image in the Public Domain

Since giraffes are particularly strange, even among their own family, I didn't want to give my Sivathere an overtly giraffe-like pelt. After all, okapis have a completely different pattern on their hides than the famous spots of giraffes, despite being each other's closest living relatives. I ultimately decided to give my subject a somewhat okapi-reminiscent look, but wanted it to feel like its own animal. After all, it's not uncommon for even closely related animals to have completely different color patterns based more on habitat and ecology than what is related to them. While some of the colors on my subject match those found on the okapi, I wanted to make the shapes of the leg stripes and patterns on the head unique to this animal. The torso of my Sivathere is somewhat loosely based on the eland, which is a very large living antelope (which are also ruminants). I chose the eland because Sivatherium was a very large animal, and I decided to depict it living in a similar type of environment as the eland. I considered perhaps using the nilgai as a reference, since they currently live in the geographic area that this Sivatherium was found in, but decided to go with the heavier eland, since the environment of the Himalayan foothills has changed quite a bit in the last 2.5 million years. 

The ossicones on the head were fun to restore, since, unlike horns, they are covered in skin and fur. I made the ones projecting above the eyes very giraffe-like (including the worn-down hair on the tips from intraspecific fighting common in older bulls). For the large-flat ossicones on the back of the head, I gave it a short velvety fur (I've had the pleasure of petting an okapi once, and this was somewhat based on the amazing feel and sheen of their coats), with some longer hair tufts near some of the fringes. These tufts are speculative, but my idea was that they could help emphasize the size and shapes of the ossicones when advertising status to females. 

My idea was that the individual in the foreground is an older more experienced male, with a younger male behind him - the start of what are known as bachelor herds in the social structures of many types of animals, including giraffes.

As far as postures go, I had played with a couple ideas. I always wanted the one in the foreground to look somewhat alert, similar to poses I've seen by giraffes surveying their landscape. For the one in the background, I originally wanted to have it foraging. I went down a research spiral trying to figure out if Sivatherium was a browser or grazer (Most of the sources I found suggested it was more of a grazer, but I found differing opinions and interpretations in different sources). Partly since I couldn't find a definitive answer to this question, I ultimately decided to instead depict the animal taking a drink. 

One main reason for this was to help hammer home the giraffe relationship. Since this painting was done for a charity auction, I wanted it to be as educational as it possibly could be from just the visuals, since I wouldn't be around to explain the whole thing. The rendering of the animals looked somewhat okapi-like - which was a good start, but I thought it best to hammer home the giraffe family connection by depicting one of the animals in the iconic giraffe drinking posture. Not only does this help sell the familial relationship, but it's also probably how the animal actually behaved. This awkward legs-splayed posture is also found in the okapi (which is even closer related to the Sivatherium than the giraffe is), which implies that this drinking posture evolved in the family before the comically long neck of giraffes did. 

One part of this project I found enjoyable was building a simple 3D model in Maya and taking an hour or so to throw in a really rough rig to help me experiment with volumes and poses, and to help me understand this bizarre animal in perspective. For the reconstruction I converted the figures from the above-mentioned skeletal reconstruction (Basu et. al 2016) to image planes in Maya to help with proportions when making my rough volumetric model:

The Paleoecology of Sivatherium giganteum

With my subject animal picked, early on I decided to take this further than my previous paintings, and attempt to restore the full environment. This required more extensive research, and helped inform some of the decisions made for the restoration of the animal itself, as all animals are a product of their environments. 

Sivatherium giganteum (meaning 'Shiva's Beast') comes from the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene boundary of the Sivalik Hills of the Himalayas in what is now India and Pakistan. The genus lived from around 5 million years ago to around 8,000 years ago (which would have had it overlap with modern humans - and we even have ancient rock art that might be depicting it!). The specific locality I restored in the painting is at around 2.5-2.6 million years ago, from the late Pliocene Pinjor Formation. 

preliminary planning sketch

The Sivalik Hills at the time was a warm, humid environment, with seasonal rainfall, including summer monsoons, and wildfires during the dry winter periods. It appears as if there were grasslands with freshwater ponding conditions, adjacent to upland montane regions (indicated by pollen of more temperate flora). Sivatherium shared this environment with other animals like ancient species of elephants, hippos, rhinos, as well as hyenas, mongooses, rodents, lizards, and more. Around the time period depicted there may have been a faunal turnover event from an even wetter environment, where there might have been a large freshwater lake opposed to smaller ponds (as indicated by slightly older fossils of darters, pelicans, crabs, crocodylians, etc). The environment was slowly trending toward cooler and drier, especially later, as the Pliocene gave way to the Pleistocene around 1.8 million years ago, when increased tectonic activity occurred in the region. This changing climate, along with the barrier-free migration of fauna from Europe and Africa into the Indian subcontinent had a part in the extinction of some of this unique Sivalik fauna. 

environment color work in progress

To depict this environment, I decided to render a lowland grassland, adjacent to the mountains to the north. The idea of a seasonal monsoon was appealing to me, as it felt like a unique idea to depict a grassland that was recently flooded by the storms, creating well established ponds. I kept a mixed savanna transition to woodlands in the background, as the environment was still in transition to extended grasslands. Everything is bright green thanks to the recent storms, and the freshwater ponds have green algae from the family Zygnemataceae growing in them (zygospores of this algae have been found in deposits, suggesting stagnate freshwater).

I depicted a darter in the foreground and a few pelicans taking refuge in one of the temporary ponds in the background. These are based on fossils found from the area. The pelican and darter bones that were found weren't complete enough to confidently assign to any current or known extinct species, though. I therefore left the pelicans somewhat ambiguous as to their affiliation, and rendered the darter in the plumage of the modern Oriental Darter (Anhinga melanogaster), mostly to help indicate the Indian setting. I also found it enjoyable to show now extinct animals coexisting with modern species, which is something that happened regularly throughout the world, but we don't always think about. I particularly liked the idea of adding birds that depend on large bodies of water to these seasonal flooded grasslands. Animals will take advantage of available resources, even if they are temporary, seasonal phenomena. It made me think of my time living in the Bay Area of California, where I would see American white pelicans hanging out in the salt ponds along the bay only during certain times of the year. 

blocking in color before adding lighting and removing line work

One final detail I would like to point out, is in trying to restore a full ecosystem, I added a fun little flourish I don't usually see in paleoart. If you look under the drinking Sivatherium, you will see its droppings. One thing that I instantly noticed when I went to South Africa four years ago was how easy it was to tell there were lots of big animals living in the area by the various and plentiful droppings you would see - even if the animals weren't present. I felt it necessary to include this crucial part of the ecosystem into the painting.

Results

So with all of that, we have a painting of a pair of Sivatherium who emerge out of the woodland onto a flooded grassland after a summer monsoon, to take advantage of the newly deposited freshwater ponds for a drink.

I added a built-in white matting around the composition to evoke the feeling of a classic Victorian naturalist plate, often paired with scientific texts on 'exotic' animals in the 19th century. 

Since this is a more obscure subject for many viewers, and all of this information might not be immediately apparent to someone bidding on the painting at a conservation fundraiser, I got a custom engraved plate to add to the picture frame, so that the future owner can have some context:

Sivatherium label giving just the broad strokes

My training as a museum docent has taught me that interpreting natural history isn't all about regurgitating facts or teaching someone everything about a subject, but rather giving them just enough to steer them in the right direction to discover more. So in this case, the painting is the way to pique their interest, and the engraved plate gives them the tools to learn more, if they so choose.

The final framed print at a gallery event, where I had the pleasure to discuss my work with viewers.

I would also like to note that depicting an extinct giraffe relative isn't only to satisfy my own interest in prehistory. I hope it also helps people to think about the plight of the modern giraffids. With giraffes on the decline, and their okapi cousins endangered, it's quite possible that sometime in the future there won't be any members of this unique family on the planet anymore. I hope by showing what used to be here, I can help people understand what amazing creatures are at risk, so that we can do something about it. Hopefully it can inspire someone to think "I wish I could see one of these crazy things living today. Maybe I should support efforts to save their cousins so they don't have the same fate."

So please, help support the giraffes on this World Giraffe Day! Either by supporting the GCF directly, or, for those of you in Los Angeles, consider registering for the upcoming Laughs for Giraffes event, where you can have a great time watching stand-up comedy, and maybe even be the one to take home a framed copy of this piece of original paleoart. 

References

• B. Clifford, Andrew & M. Witmer, Lawrence. (2006). Case studies in novel narial anatomy: 2. The enigmatic nose of moose (Artiodactyla: Cervidae: Alces alces). Journal of Zoology. 262. 339 - 360. 10.1017/S0952836903004692. 
• Basu C, Falkingham PL, Hutchinson JR. 2016 The extinct, giant giraffid Sivatherium giganteum: skeletal reconstruction and body mass estimation. Biol. Lett. 12: 20150940. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0940
• Clifford, A., & Witmer, L. (2004). Case studies in novel narial anatomy: 3. Structure and function of the nasal cavity of saiga (Artiodactyla: Bovidae: Saiga tatarica). Journal of Zoology, 264(3), 217-230. doi:10.1017/S0952836904005540
• Dennell, Robin. (2008). The taphonomic record of Upper Siwalik (Pinjor stage) landscapes in the Pabbi Hills, northern Pakistan, with consideration regarding the preservation of hominin remains. Quaternary International. 192. 62-77. 10.1016/j.quaint.2007.06.024. 
• Estes, R. D. (1991). Behaviour guide to African mammals. Berkeley etc.: California University Press.
• Falconer H, Cautley PT. 1836 Sivatherium giganteum, a new fossil ruminant genus. Asiatic Res. 19, 1 – 25.
• Franz-Odendaal, Tamara & Solounias, Nikos. (2004). Comparative dietary evaluations of an extinct giraffid (Sivatherium hendeyi) (Mammalia, Giraffidae, Sivatheriinae) from Langebaanweg, South Africa (early Pliocene). Geodiversitas. 26. 
• Khan, Aleem & Akhtar, Muhammad & Sarwar, Muhammad & Saeed, Muhammad. (1991). Vertical distribution of Siwalik Giraffids. Acta Scientia. 1. 145-152. 
• Khan A, Khan M, Iqbal M, Akhtar M, Sarwar M. 2011 Sivatherium (Artiodactyla, Ruminantia, Giraffidae) from the Upper Siwaliks, Pakistan. J. Anim. Plant Sci. 21, 202– 206.
• Mcgraw, William & Hayek, Lee-Ann & Werdein, L. (2000). The paleodiet of Giraffidae. 
• Murie J. 1871 II.—On the systematic position of the Sivatherium giganteum of Falconer and Cautley. Geol. Mag. 8, 438 – 448. (doi:10.1017/S001675 6800192970)
• Patnaik R., Nanda A.C. (2010) Early Pleistocene Mammalian Faunas of India and Evidence of Connections with Other Parts of the World. In: Fleagle J., Shea J., Grine F., Baden A., Leakey R. (eds) Out of Africa I. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht
• Prothero, D. R., & Williams, M. P. (2017). The Princeton field guide to prehistoric mammals. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press.
• Solounias, Nikos & Teaford, Mark & Walker, A. (1988). Interpreting the diet of extinct ruminants: the case of a non- browsing giraffid. Paleobiology. 14. 287-300. 
• Stidham, Thomas & Krishan, Kewal & Singh, Bahadur & Ghosh, Abhik & Patnaik, Rajeev. (2014). A Pelican Tarsometatarsus (Aves: Pelecanidae) from the Latest Pliocene Siwaliks of India. PLoS ONE. 9. e111210. 10.1371/journal.pone.0111210. 
• Stidham, T., Patnaik, R., Krishan, K., Singh, B., Ghosh, A., Singla, A., & Kotla, S. S. (2017). The first darter (Aves: Anhingidae) fossils from India (late Pliocene). PloS one, 12(5), e0177129. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0177129
• Witton, M. P. (2018). The Palaeoartists handbook: Recreating prehistoric animals in art. Ramsbury, Marlborough: The Crowood Press.

MONSTRO!

Hey everyone! I've mentioned this before, and showed some in progress tests before. But now the full film is up and running online after making it's rounds in the festival circuit! Feel free to check it out below!

¡MONSTRO! from Chris Romano on Vimeo.

As I've said before, this was produced at Side Effects Software, and was done completely in Houdini. I was an animator on it, and designed the simple face rig system, as well as did a number of asset management things.

Here is the official description from vimeo:

¡MONSTRO!  

imdb.com/title/tt3733992 

The new film by Christopher Romano, with Executive Producer Kim Davidson.... A rickety scientific expedition ventures down the Amazon River to a dark lagoon, in search of a mythic Creature! But the Creature, it seems, has a less than mythic agenda! MONSTRO! is a horror story. A love story. A ribald comedy!MONSTRO! at facebook.com/monstro2014, twitter.com/toonlets, and instagram.com/toonlets. And check out sidefx.com to learn more about Houdini 3D animation tools!MONSTRO©2014 Christopher Romano and Side Effects Software. All Rights Reserved.version 1.2 

toonlets.tumblr.com

-Evan

RIP: PDI 1980 - 2015

Really sad day. An incredible culture and history is disbanded. You will be missed, PDI.

-Evan

Cretaceous Mantua

Hey gang, quick post! A new website is up and running, with tons of information on the research being done at the Hornerstown formation of New Jersey, much of it by Drexel University. So if you were wondering what New Jersey was like back in the day (i.e. 65,000,000 years ago), browse the site and take a look at some of the now-extinct animals that were roaming around then:

http://www.cretaceousmantua.com/

Thoracosaurus neocesariensis eating Enchodus by Evan Boucher

I'm posting this here because it is in the Inversand Quarry that my good friend, a certain specimen of  Thoracosaurus neocesariensis, was pulled out of ten years ago. As you probably know by now, this croc kind of led me on taking my love for paleoart and paleo-related topics seriously, as well as helping in launching my own professional career.

Thoracosaurus necesariensis skull and dentary (NJSM NH 2005.2).

 Image by Thea Boodhoo, 

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Anyway, check it out! There's some cool information and images of plenty of fossil specimens of crocs, turtles, fish, bivalves, etc. It's a great resource and I hope to see more of these kind of outreach materials for other research projects in the future!

Enchodus by Evan Boucher

-Evan

Dreadnoughtus schrani, from a Human's Eye view

Last Thursday was a REALLY BIG day (pun intended). If you care at all about dinosaurs, you would know that it was the day that Dr. Ken Lacovara and the rest of the Drexel University paleo-team finally introduced the world to Dreadnoughtus schrani! This super-massive Titanosaur was discovered in 2005 in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina, and it took just about ten years to finally get out into the world. The reason for this, is because of how much material was found. Unlike most large Titanosaurs, Dreadnoughtus is about 70% complete (opposed to the typical 2-20%), so this big guy will be a staple for anyone interested in studying the biggest of sauropods, or just the limits of size in terrestrial vertebrates in general. So it was quite an adventure to get the thing out of the ground, to Philadelphia, prepared, and studied.

image credit: the ever-talented Jenn Hall

The completeness is a pretty big friggin deal, because it allowed the team to more reliably estimate the mass to 65 tons (more than a herd of Elephants, a gaggle of T. rex, or a Boeing 737-900), and estimated to have been somewhere around 85 ft long. Yeah, that's pretty big. But here's the kicker - the fossil bones showed signs that the animal was still growing! Awesome. Also, the paper is open access, so you should totally go check it out.

Ok, now that I've gotten you all acquainted with ol' 'Dread,' you may be wondering why I'm writing about him on this blog? I've never regurgitated a press release of a newly announced dinosaur before. Well, two reasons. First off, this animal holds a special place in my heart. For about two years during grad school at Drexel, I was introduced to this giant in the Paleo Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. I helped open the first big field jacket (the femur, which is about as tall as me, by the way), and spent countless hours (along with many others in the army of volunteers) cleaning and repairing many parts of the skeleton; getting it ready for study.

I was first sent to volunteer there since I was starting my master's thesis project, and needed to be better acquainted with the whole science of paleontology. After many months of learning from the best, I was then brought into the newly opened fossil lab at Drexel to help train and supervise other volunteers (this was in the old cramped lab - I never actually got to work in the big beautiful lab that all the Dreadnoughtus press images showcase). Volunteering at the museum was one of the greatest things I've ever had the opportunity to do, and I've met some incredible people through there.

Ok now on to the second reason why I'm taking the time to write about this. As I've mentioned, the paper is free online for everyone to check out. As a part of this, all of the supplemental materials are also available. This also includes 3D laser scans of the entire skeleton! If you've been following this blog for a while, you should know of my interest in scanned fossils. I kind of owe a lot to them, actually.

Dreadnoughtus scan data

A lot of the press around the find has focused on the scale of the animal. You can see people posing with the bones in a lot of the press images, and see that it was indeed big:

Dr. Lacovara standing next to the femur - from here.

 But the life restorations associated with the press release are hard to get a true sense of scale from (Mark Witton also wrote a bit about this), since the late Cretaceous doesn't really have any familiar points of reference for us humans (nothing against the artists at all, I was having trouble with the same problem with my own restoration work). The same goes with the 3D data. You can tumble around and examine the bones quite nicely, but virtual space is particularly difficult to inherently understand scale.

Proxy mesh of 'me' standing next to an illuminated Dreadnoughtus "mount"

So with that thinking, having access to the data, I brought it into Autodesk Maya, and built a scale proxy model of someone my height (6'3), and parented a camera to the 'head.' I then slapped together a rough animation and some lights to visualize how big the animal would appear to me, if I were standing right next to it. I thought this was a particularly interesting point of view since next year the bones will have to be shipped back to Argentina, and there's no guarantee I'll ever be able to see them again in person. The video is not the prettiest thing in the world (I didn't bother making an environment), but I think it gives a pretty good idea of how big Dreadnoughtus was. Particularly the part where the camera looks up the neck, and sees the lone cervical vertebra floating off in the distance. If only the rest of the skeleton was there, it'd really drive the point home!

So anyway, That's what I have to say for now about this guy. Seeing the pictures after all these years was like seeing an old friend again. I'm so happy for my friends and colleagues who brought Dreadnoughtus schrani to us all, and am incredibly grateful to have had a small part in it. Congrats everyone!

-Evan

Ref - Lacovara, K. J., Lamanna, M. C, Ibiricu, L. M., Poole, J. C., Schroeter, E. R., Ullmann, P. V., Voegele, K. K., Boles, Z. M., Carter, A. M., Fowler, E. K., Egerton, V. M., Moyer, A. E., Coughenour, C. L., Schein, J. P., Harris, J. D., Martínez, R. D., and Novas, F. E. (2014). A gigantic, exceptionally complete titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from Southern Patagonia, Argentina. Scientific Reports. 4, 6196; DOI:10.1038/srep06196.

MONSTRO! Early Tests

Last time, I mentioned I would try to dig up some of my animation tests from the upcoming short film 'MONSTRO!'which is directed by Christopher Romano.

Well I've went ahead and done exactly that! Below are some early and rough animation tests I did when exploring our Houdini pipeline. I was figuring out how to best set up shots, as well as doing some major rig-wrecking. None of these are particularly incredible, and as you will see I didn't even have clothed models or textures to work with yet, but it was a fun exploratory time. If nothing else, it will help give you an idea of how I spent most of my internship a number of years ago. Well...most of it, anyway.

First up, we have the first animation test done for 'MONSTRO!' I was exploring the process of animating characters in Houdini while also assessing the first pass of the body rig, which was based on the Houdini auto rigging tools. There wasn't a face system yet, which I ended up having to develop later. I was also making sure to test out ways of having characters interact with props and the environment in Houdini. This test was animated in 12 fps to test a stop-motion style look, which was being explored for the film:





Next, we have a lipsync test. This was done to test out the first pass of the face rig I developed. I was seeing how far I could get with extremely limited controls, and to get a better idea of what necessities were still needed in the system. The face rig was a limited blend-shape based rig, using CHOPs expressions to mimic a 'set-driven-key' type of behavior (for those familiar with Maya), and some fancy SHOP network magic to add in some asymmetry. The audio is Pappy O'Daniel from 'O Brother Where Art Thou?'





After that, I thought I'd post this weird cloth sim animation test. It was created to have something to test parameters on, for a first-pass DOPs/CHOPs based cloth rig system. Obviously these particular settings don't work very well, but I also should have expected that due to how pushed the animation was :) It was fun to go really goofy with it.





And finally, after getting a working body rig, and developing and improving the face rig system, I went ahead and did a full body dialogue test to see how well the character would hold up when acting.
The rig is pretty limited, so this test was more to see how far I could push it, and to explore ways to get some more traditional animation concepts in there. The goal was to make it convincing despite the limitations. The audio is Ray Stantz from 'Ghostbusters.'





Welp, I hope you've enjoyed these goofy little tests. For more, be sure to check out the MONSTRO! channel on vimeo. Also keep your eye open for when 'MONSTRO!' comes to a town near you! You can also keep up with the film on facebook and twitter, if you so desire.

This is probably it from me on this subject, at least until the final film appears online, which I will be sure to post when it is released publicly.

-Evan

MONSTRO!

Shameless plug time! Three years ago, when I first made the move across-country to California, it was to start an internship animating on a short film. That film is finally coming out! It starts the festival circuit this week, and you should check it out if you have the opportunity.

The film is called MONSTRO! and it's written and directed by Christopher Romano as a part of a joint project with Side Effects Software (PSSST! That's the HOUDINI guys!). In premise, it's a comedic animated spoof of the classic Universal Monster movie, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, but there are plenty of surprises. It's quite silly and fun.


MONSTRO! ... TRAILER 01 from Chris Romano on Vimeo.

This project means a lot to me because it is really the first time I was working on a CG project outside of school, and the first time I actually got paid to animate, and play around in CG. The people behind the film put a lot of faith in me by offering me an internship when I was some 2700 miles away, since I was willing to do character animation in Houdini (That's right, pretty much everything except for modeling was done in Houdini for this project). That internship was a HUGE step in launching me on my career path, and I couldn't thank my friends and former coworkers enough for helping me make that happen.

But enough sentiment - for the film, I was brought in essentially for character animation. I was given a lot of freedom to experiment with different animation styles before the production started. I spent a lot of time with the first few characters, particularly these two:

 

I did a number of animation tests helping to define and develop their movement styles and personalities (which I may post soon, if I can dig them up). I believe the final film only has one short series of shots that are my final animation, but I ultimately ended up setting up a lot of the pipeline, and designed the face rigs, since there wasn't really any out-of-the-box or established ways to work with faces in Houdini (Most if not all the rigging specific tools, including the auto rigs, are very body-centric). So I learned a heck of a lot and had a lot of fun working on this project.

Anyway, keep your eye out for it. You can find the festival schedule here, so if it's in your area, you should go see it. Also you should be sure to 'like' and 'follow' it to help get the word out there!

-Evan

Some Creatures

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been much more active these days over at 90 minute comics. I have some ideas for some interesting things brewing though, which I'm not at liberty to talk about until substantial progress has been made though.

Anyway, this is just a quick post of some fun things I've posted on my facebook page but realized never made it to here. First, since the world desperately needs more critically endangered Saiga antelopes, I spent a couple hours getting back into ZBrush and roughing one out.

(click to bigify)

I would like to get better with starting sculpts from scratch in ZBrush instead of taking the time to first do a low-res base mesh in Maya, so that's what this was an experiment in.

Next up, is just a digital sketch of a dragon I did when I didn't have any ideas for one night of 90 minute comics. This was done in Photoshop in the allotted comics time...so 90 minutes. It was fun to just make it up off the top of  my head as I went. Been a while since I had such an enjoyable sketch session :)

(click to bigify)

I'll try to be more regular. Sorry about the hiatus!

Best,

  Evan

Halloween Warmup

Did some playing in Zbrush today. Fall being my favorite season, I decided to rough out a pumpkin:

And then naturally had to give him a face:

But don't worry, this won't take the place of my yearly Jack-O-Lantern Designs! I'll get to those a bit closer to Halloween. I just wanted to test one out in 3D, since it's been years since I've carved a physical pumpkin.

*Random Thought while Sculpting Today: Although you have more flexibility with the actual face creation, virtual pumpkin carving takes way longer than regular pumpkin carving, because you have to, well...build the pumpkin first. Also you can't put a candle in the virtual one and place the whole thing on your stoop. So major downside there...

Stay Tuned for more Pumpkins leading up to Halloween!

-Evan

Sculpting Final

As you may or may not recall, I'm taking a clay sculpting class through work. Today was our last day, and here is what I came up with:

-Evan

Whoah Physical Media! What is this nonsense?

Since I spend so much of my time these days solving technical problems, I decided to enroll in a sculpting class once a week after work to help me keep my creative brain working. One reason I chose the sculpting class is because I haven't done any real sculpting before. I've dabbled, but usually just playing around, and not trying to actually to improve my craft or anything. The closest  I've gotten to real sculpting has been in the form of digital detail sculpts and this thing. So this has been a relatively new and challenging experience for me. Hurray for learning!

We're about halfway through the class and in each session we just do gestural bust sculpts based on a model for about two hours. Here's what I ended up with today. Still incredibly rough, but I guess you can't be expected to be amazing at anything on your first go.

-Evan

Tupandactylus VI: Final Product

Alas the time has arrived! Sorry it's been a while since I've posted on this guy. I think the difference between the last image posted and this finished animation will speak for itself!




I also decided to do this making-of video. Houdini's procedural nature allowed me to show off some of this process really easily, so I took the time to edit this together:



I hope you enjoy! I really had a lot of fun delving into Pterosaur anatomy. Unfortunately due to time and other obligations at work, I cut the shot in half. The second half would have showed some quadrupedal walking and launching. The motion is all blocked out, but that's where it must remain for now (sigh). I hope sometime in the future I get the chance to revisit it. I really want to play with such a bizarre animal walking. Despite the cut, I'm really excited about the project! Thanks for tuning in!

-Evan

Tupandactylus V

Just a quick post. Been working on grooming the pycnofibers and lighting/rendering/shading. Here is a test composite:

(as always, click for larger view)

Things to continue to fix:
tweak lighting of the fur
adjust the ground texture
I'll probably add a matte painting to add to the environment as well.

But first I need to jump back into finishing the motion.

It's getting there...

-Evan

Tupandactylus IV

I spent the past week taking the time to paint and sculpt the Tupandactylus model. I initially started by trying out 3D-Coat thanks to a recommendation I received.  I painted the diffuse color map in 3D-Coat, and there is a lot about the program that I really like a lot. It's very easy to pick up, and there are a lot of nice tools. When it came to sculpting, I had so much trouble getting  it to properly export a displacement map. It was also crashing constantly, which was incredibly surprising, because of the specs of the machine I was working on. After about a day of trying to get it to work, I then turned to ZBrush for the sculpting which worked spectacularly. It was like reuniting with an old friend in a way, considering it's been almost a year to the day since I've used it last.

For sculpting reference, I used a number of diagrams of proposed pterosaur musculature as a loose guide. I also threw in my own knowledge of crocodylian musculature to help sculpt in the major muscle masses. A lot of the fine detail was influenced by birds, a few minor details from bats, and even some influence from lizards. I looked at a lot of pelicans, cormorants, parrots, and condors to try to get some nice face wrinkles. There's a lot of detailed skin texture which is kind of difficult to see on the wider images (click for larger view).

Now I need to work on getting the diffuse, displacement, and normal maps to properly transfer to Houdini so I can move on from texturing. 

-Evan

Tupandactylus III

A lot of cool stuff going on with this guy. I've done the first round of blocking animation, and then moved on to some visual development. I've been working on lighting/shading/rendering as a break from animation. Primarily, I've been playing a lot with subsurface scattering. I set up the shot featuring this guy so that he will be lit extensively from behind. I want to do this so that I can play with the subsurface on the wing membranes, exposing tints of the subdermal layers and blood vessels underneath.

Here is a test image of the subsurface:

I was able to control the subsurface scattering through texture maps, where I painted in the veins and arteries that will subtly shine through the skin in certain areas:

Keep in mind the shading in the top image is from the subsurface alone. That's the tint that's going to shine through. There is just a plain brownish shader (with no displacement) applied to the model at this time. The reason for this is I had a lot of look-development to do in order to figure out what I want this guy to actually look like before texture painting can begin.

I did some visual development by painting over a black and white render of the Tupandactylus with the brush mode set to overlay. After doing a couple of concept paintings, I mixed and matched the various layers to get many more variations. I'm not yet sure which one I'm going to pick, but here are the concept paintings (click to enlarge):

 I looked at a lot of reference imagery of everything from parrots to frogs to butterflies. I often see a lot of pterosaur restorations with the exact color patterns of various types of birds. I wanted to avoid this trend, by attempting to find something that feels like it could have appeared in nature while also feeling unique to this type of animal. I was also trying to make sure the crest stands out as a display device, while also having the entire animal's color palette feel homogeneous.

Now that this has been done, I need to decide on a design, and get to painting. I think this next week I'm going to jump back to animation again, as well as hopefully get those pycnofibers started.

-Evan