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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:48 am
by Treads Lightly
Let me first say that I understand how long he worked on the Quentin model and there are so many things right about it, but there are some glaring errors as well. Please note that I don’t want to offend anyone but rather critique for educational reasons. In other threads natural wolf movements were suggested, this model provides a very good reference for explaining those movements.

Smell Meat Test #2:
This is what reminded me about the growling thing. But that aside, there is disturbing quivering lips. It is as though there is a blower just off camera trying desperately to keep him cool…or something.

He shuts his right eye tightly, but not the left. There is no movement of the upper and lower lid on that side past closed.

The nose is made of jello.

The mouth opens far too wide for the word “I”.

The ears attempt to flick, but do so unnaturally.

Eye tracking error and map change. The color of the eyes changes throughout the animation.

He is a paraplegic, the body is rock stiff.

Feed the Beast:
Notice that most of the things I mentioned above were fixed? I presume that in the test he was trying to do a bunch of stuff just to see if it would work. The eyes track correctly, and they are consistently colored throughout.

The only problems I see with this one are the lower jaw moving from side to side slightly as he says “Beast”, no wind, no global illumination, and the ears fold back before he “attacks”. In this case they should have been pricked forward.

Oh yeah and there is the roar…

I don’t particularly like the color scheme, but the model is very solid. All of the points I mentioned are performance errors, and not problems with the actual model.

Someone mentioned the teeth, to me they seem to be to scale. It is the weird snarling that makes them stand out. Scroll to the beginning of the Smell Meat Test #2 video, the teeth are completely covered by the lips.

Comments?

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:22 am
by NightmareHero
Treads Lightly wrote:
Someone mentioned the teeth, to me they seem to be to scale. It is the weird snarling that makes them stand out. Scroll to the beginning of the Smell Meat Test #2 video, the teeth are completely covered by the lips.

Comments?
Ah that must be it then, cause I associate a werewolf with a real wolf when it looks close to a wolf, and I don't see a real wolf snarling all the time, at least from what I remember in pictures and documentaries that I've seen the animals in.

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:33 pm
by kita
i just thought of this. how would the 4legged and 2 legged stance work together cause on a real wolf the spine is conected farther back so it can stair forward with out strain but if it were to stand up it would have sort of a crain effect. and if it was 2 legged up right it would be like us but on all fours it would have a reverse crain effect. i think or it could just be me :?:

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:42 am
by NightmareHero
kita wrote:i just thought of this. how would the 4legged and 2 legged stance work together cause on a real wolf the spine is conected farther back so it can stair forward with out strain but if it were to stand up it would have sort of a crain effect. and if it was 2 legged up right it would be like us but on all fours it would have a reverse crain effect. i think or it could just be me :?:
I'm not familiar with the terminology that you used, or what context it was used in, could you please explain what a crain and reverse crain effect is?

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 6:15 pm
by kita
by crain effect i mean a sort of a an up ward curve like a u only not as sharp of a turn. its the same when its reversed only its up side down
think of it like this ok you get on your hands and knees and look forward. it scrunches up your neck and over time it gets very sore and with a reverse example try going around all day while having you head tilted as far forward as possible. once again your neck gets very sore.
*i suck when it comes to examples* :(

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:46 pm
by Keaalu
I think I see what you're getting at - the spine on a human goes into the skull from underneath, but on a wolf the spine and skull connect from behind, so the configuration would probably be tricky if you wanted to NOT favour one sort of locomotion over another - if the spine/skull is humanlike, they'll be more inclined to walk upright, to avoid having to crane the neck up if running on all fours, and vice versa for a wolfish spine/skull.

I also read somewhere that for an interchangeable biped/quadruped gait, you'd probably need lemurish/"monkey hips", but I'm not sure about that. :P

Aside: Can't access Rowsby. GRR

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:06 pm
by Figarou
Keaalu wrote:I think I see what you're getting at - the spine on a human goes into the skull from underneath, but on a wolf the spine and skull connect from behind, so the configuration would probably be tricky if you wanted to NOT favour one sort of locomotion over another - if the spine/skull is humanlike, they'll be more inclined to walk upright, to avoid having to crane the neck up if running on all fours, and vice versa for a wolfish spine/skull.

I also read somewhere that for an interchangeable biped/quadruped gait, you'd probably need lemurish/"monkey hips", but I'm not sure about that. :P

Aside: Can't access Rowsby. GRR
You know, werewolves are also known as "shape shifters." :shift:

I suggested that these werewolves can "double shift."

http://calypso-blue.com/werewolf/viewto ... =1811#1811

Sure, when standing upright, the werewolf's head will be on the spine just like a human. But when it wants to run on all fours, it can change its body to accommodate it. A 2nd shift. I see nothing wrong with this.

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:56 pm
by ShadowFang
I dunno, a shift is pretty rough on the body. A werewolf is not going to want to shift just on a whim. There had better be a damn good reason for the werewolf to put his/her body through such a strenuous act. Shifting any part of your body isn't as easy as taking the top of your convertable car.

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 9:01 pm
by Figarou
ShadowFang wrote:I dunno, a shift is pretty rough on the body. A werewolf is not going to want to shift just on a whim. There had better be a damn good reason for the werewolf to put his/her body through such a strenuous act. Shifting any part of your body isn't as easy as taking the top of your convertable car.
heh, you make it sound as if you've gone through the process.

:shift: <-----This guy ain't screeming in pain. :wink:

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 3:02 am
by NightmareHero
kita wrote:by crain effect i mean a sort of a an up ward curve like a u only not as sharp of a turn. its the same when its reversed only its up side down
think of it like this ok you get on your hands and knees and look forward. it scrunches up your neck and over time it gets very sore and with a reverse example try going around all day while having you head tilted as far forward as possible. once again your neck gets very sore.
*i suck when it comes to examples* :(
No you don't you help me see it in my head, I thank you. :-)

What is the shape of a shapeshifter?

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 4:30 pm
by Scott Gardener
My werewolves have fluid forms rather than a fixed half-wolf state. They can shift all the way or to any intermediate form. But, the most common form I picture, outside of outright human (with slightly lupine traits dismissable as interesting coincidences) and outright wolf, stands on two digitigrade hind legs and preserves a wolf's length tail, human-length arms, and a wolf-like head with the occiput slightly enlarged, with the foramen magnum moved posteriorly--the big opening in the skull for the spinal cord moved downward, so the head can sit upright.

My werewolves can change the size of their brains and preserve human memories, but the amount of genetic engineering on the part of my werewolves' creators was pretty tremendous to figure it out. Seizures are one of the risks that converted lycanthropes face in the first few weeks of new-onset lycanthropy. Flexing and extending a brain according to osteopathy happens in the real world on the order of a millimeter or two; squeezing a 1.4 liter brain into a 500 milliliter space, however, is a different story. Granted, the brain is 90% water, but dehydrating it alone without doing anything else would kill pretty quickly.

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:54 pm
by kita
well since the bones change and grow out of no where i think they will manage :D

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 6:25 pm
by Set
For a half wolf to be able to walk on both two legs and four, assuming the arms are roughly human length, it would have to hold its legs farther back than a real wolf would. The werewolf would bend its knees more than a real wolf and would look like its crouching down when the legs are directly under its body. When its running it would have to have a somewhat rolling gait, almost like a bear, with hind legs hitting first and front second. I could try and draw this, it's not the easiest thing to explain.

Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 3:04 pm
by Scott Gardener
Wouldn't it just be easier to shift to wolf form to run, and then shift to a hybrid form to stand upright on two legs? It avoids the awkwardness of dinky little legs when standing upright or gangly long legs when running on all fours, or kicking up one's rear end like a 1978 Camero with too many custom add-ons...

It's what my werewolves do, anyway.

8)