#3D modeling in .NET

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 4, day 11

Be careful with this thing or you'll poke someone's eye out

[madamutzsar]

Was reminiscing on Fish Flash yesterday while modeling and thinking of how I'd like to give the game a makeover, and why not do it in 3D?! I've had trouble finding direction for my pet/farm sim, in which I wanted a Fish Flash-like mini game anyway - perhaps I should make this little elf the star and expand upon her life! She could have a home to decorate in addition to her sweet threads ;D

[cloudvisualspew07x]

[codingcorgi]

Day 13-14 coding progress. Well got a migraine last night and passed out, and had my game development class to teach today, so I finally got time in the evening.

Yesterday I made a sword in Asset Forge for getting things ready for the upcoming game jam! Today I decided to get back to my Maui app which is now called Puppy Tasks. I am having issues as you can see... I can't get my Moods enum to show up correctly. I've tried 2 different ways of implementing this and I'm so frustrated. Any help would be appreciated.

Tomorrow I'll be working at this problem more until it's fixed

[faggotbeloved]

Cold Metal Biting Soft Flesh | Yandere!Curly x Captain!M!Reader

2: Blinking (A Good Thing) (~2k words)

Cw: Canon typical gore and body horror, manipulation, many short timeskips :(,

This work does not contain smut but is 18+. Minors and fem-aligned people, please do not interact. AN and taglist at the end.

Last time: You, the captain of a colonization ship, discovered the charred body of an ex-freighter captain. You, along with some of your other crewmates, set out to heal him as much as possible.

└───────────────────────┘

Curly has a remarkably strange pain tolerance–in blanket tests, his threshold is significantly higher than even the toughest member on board, but whenever he’s doing anything that you supervise–eating, talking, moving, the like, he gasps and winces and whimpers loudly and only seems to be soothed by your hands doing the task for him. You don’t blame him for unimaginable pain, but it makes it hard to do your captain's duties.

“Facial reconstruction is today,” you chirp as you enter the medbay. “We got a bunch of skin from your DNA. We should be able to at least repair your eyelids, add back your lips, recanalize your tear ducts, and see if we can get your other eye open and working,” you list, watching Curly read the captioning machine. “When we touch down on Earth, we can look at getting you an evaluation for a cochlear implant, but there’s not much we can do for your hearing right now.”

Curly nodded, his eye trained on you even when new people entered the room.

“You’ve met Rhodes, but this is Dr. Simmons; she used to be a plastic surgeon, but switched professions to come to this colony. She’s worked on a 3D model of your face and can replicate it pretty well, does that sound good?” You informed, to which Curly tore his eyes away and glanced at Simmons before looking back to you. He nodded, reaching out for you. “Yeah?” You questioned, coming closer. Curly pat the bed with his forearm nub, requesting your presence. “I’m here, don’t worry. I’ll be in the next room over, catching up on some work:”

──────────────────────

For a man with no arms or legs, you’re surprised at how good at violent behavior Curly is. His heart rate skyrocketed once you left, and he clashed teeth and bones with any doctor misfortunate enough to get near him. Soon, you were ushered back in, and you watched his erratic chest slow down into heavy gasps the second you entered.

“He got anxious, we think,” one of the colonists said. “He thinks of you as a safety net.”

“You’re talking about him like he’s not in the room. Let me see him,” you commanded, suiting up in scrubs.

You observe him on the operating table, uneasily glanced at the beeping monitors, and wrote something for him to read.

It’s okay. I’m here.

You flashed the whiteboard at him and he rested his arm on your knee. You smiled underneath your mask at his endearing clinginess.

Let’s get you knocked out so Simmons can start? :)

Curly glanced at the board, then you. He sighed and laid back, waiting for the mask to go on.

──────────────────────

It was strange. Not… repulsive, per se, but different than before. They’d reconstructed much of his eyes–plural, since the closed eye was half-blind but still worked–and had fixed his tear ducts, so now he could theoretically close his eyes and sleep. That is, if he could remember how. Actively months, but physically decades, without activating the nerves had nearly disintegrated them.

Either way, it was odd watching someone carry a conversation calmly through tapping morse code with his amputated arm (he’d forgotten about it until now) and eye-tracking devices (newly installed) while the same eyes watered and pooled with tears in a vain attempt to moisten it.

His face was even odder. You’d grown used to the single bulging eye, and now both were in use and constantly trained on you, the lids refusing to close for even a second. His face was a mess of bandages and temporary stitches holding together numerous skin grafts.

You spotted a trail of drool down the corners of his reconstructed lips and carefully swiped it off with a towel.

“You look better,” you determined, gazing intently at his face. It was a work in progress, trying to restore and heal the man who'd faced such horrors. “How do you feel, though?” You asked.

His eyes darted around a keyboard and spelled out, “Numbed 2 Hell. Am I Hot Again?”

You snorted. “Yeah. Give it time to heal–a few months until the bruising goes away, you'll be just as pretty as ever,” you assured with a crooked grin. “They say it's a wonder you can even see. Your good eye was so dry, they expected corneal ulcers, vision loss, stuff like that, but your eye was more or less okay.”

Curly nodded and stared at you for a long moment. He snapped out of it after the door to the medbay opened and looked over at the intruder, a passenger with a broken arm.

“Loud In Here. And Bright,” he typed quickly. ‘I wish I could recover somewhere more peaceful’ was what he meant to say, but he’d hoped you would come to that conclusion on your own.

As if on cue, you called for Rhodes. “Hey, do you think we could put Curly in a different room? Anywhere would be fine–hey, Curly, would you mind being put in my quarters? It's also keycard protected,” you suggested.

Curly nodded with what he hoped wasn't too much enthusiasm. “Well, it's settled. Let's move him to Captain’s Quarters.”

──────────────────────

Curly was comfortable in your quarters. You'd erected a curtain wall to give him some privacy against your nephew, but Curly preferred it open when you were busy at the computer. Your higher ups were intrigued to hear how Curly was doing—he and his crew never claimed their paycheck, so they were a missing persons case for years that nobody investigated. Every ten or so minutes, Curly would cough or make some sort of movement to bask in your attention for as long as possible until you went back to work.

“Capt. I’m Cold,” the eye tracker read. “Any Blankets?”

The only one you had on hand was a throw blanket on your bed, so you draped that over him and kept it as comfortable as possible for him, but as soon as your back was turned he raised the blanket to go over his face and inhaled.

──────────────────────

“Okay, that first one was a prototype. Proof of concept. Let's try this one,” you decided, fitting a better prosthetic hand on Curly. It was bionic, since you had all of the materials to splurge for the best, and as soon as the hand opened and closed, he used his eyelids to blink rapidly and used his new hand to wipe away the tears he felt.

“Hey, your eyelids work! And the hand! You know, your brain can actually trick you into feeling what your bionic hands feel,” you said excitedly, rubbing his shoulder gently. “Let's try the other one on,” you directed, attaching the bionic wrist to Curly’s forearm.

Once Curly got used to the arms and understood their strength, he hesitantly wrapped them around your neck and pulled you into a hug. “Thank you,” he rasped, voice heavy from disuse and of the same cadence of many hard of hearing people you'd met. You returned with your hands on his bandaged waist, gently holding him as well. “Of course, Curly.”

After a very… very long hug, Curly let out a sigh and laid back down. Once you brought the blanket to his chest, he stopped you there.

Curly typed up a quick message on the eye tracker, “Can I Try Keyboard? I Want To Type. New Hands.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Here, his wireless one’s hooked up to my laptop. I'll get my laptop up and running so you can get my attention when you need it.”

Curly nodded and began a coughing fit once he had the keyboard, but instead of using his hands he requested you to straw feed him water.

──────────────────────

Weeks passed, and with all of the medical supplies you could scrounge up, Curly looked significantly better. His prosthetics, when he chose to wear them, could easily support him and the vast majority of his skin grafts were settled. His facial reconstruction was far from healed; he still had a few months left, but he was actually more or less okay. Compared to how he came, at least.

You’d fallen into a comfortable routine: awake at 0800, and by 0900 eat breakfast with Curly and your nephew-slash-first-mate, Sealegs. Check on and mediate conflicts between settlers, and by 1000 ensure everyone is awake. Work until 1400, have a late lunch with the upper crew, and then work until 1900. Afterwards, watch some TV with Sealegs (and, by default, Curly), then sleep by 2100 if you didn’t stay up late flipping through the various health, robotics, and physical therapy textbooks you picked up on your noble quest to help this man.

You woke up, of course, multiple times a night to the emergency alert. Curly, the poor man, had somehow stopped breathing every few hours just until his heart rate skyrocketed. Upon questioning, Curly blamed a family history of night terrors and sleep apnea, because it’d be ludicrous to suggest such a kind and selfless hero like himself would choke himself just so you’d tend to him and sit by him until he fell back asleep.

──────────────────────

The first sign of healthy fat was celebrated. For too long, he lived on rations, mouthwash, and then himself. For a person so horribly harmed, it was amazing to feel a bounce back in his skin. Physical therapy, though marked by many celebrations, was far less exciting. It was like you were his crutch, but also his legs. He couldn't work with you, and he couldn't work without you.

“Come on, I want you to walk to the other side of the room,” you sighed. It had been an hour of this; he'd fumble a few steps, clumsily sign “HELP ME,” then collapse back onto the bed.

“Just ten steps, Curly. It'll be a good start,” you added hopefully, signing as well as talking into the voice to text machine. “If you make it to the painting, I’ll carry you back and we can end it for tonight.”

Curly furrowed his brows and took two steps, then three, then up to eight before he stopped to regain balance, and finally took two more steps towards you instead of the wall. He raised his arms expectantly, waiting for you to pluck him out of the prosthetic legs and carry him back to bed. “I WALK TEN, HELP ME,” he signed quickly. “THIRSTY. WATER?” Curly requested, a weak smile on his face.

Another sigh left your throat, but you couldn't stay mad at him, not when he clung to you so carefully as to not catch your skin with the prosthetic and he buried his face in your neck–out of reflex, you assumed. You laid him down on the cot, but as you stood back up he let out a protesting groan. “LAY WITH ME PLEASE,” Curly pleaded, making a spot for you in his bed, freshly cleaned from that morning. You hesitate, but the eyes he gives you makes you ignore the work you wanted to get ahead on and instead lie beside him, immediately being encased in metal arms that press you against Curly’s tachycardic heart. Soon, you fell asleep and, for the first time, slept through the night without being awoken by blaring alarms.

The next morning, Dr. Simmons woke you at 0928 for Curly’s next surgery–checking in on some bone they'd been growing for a nose surgery, then trying to compile a medical plan for when Dr. Simmons had to inevitably leave for the next colony. It took hours, but soon you had a lengthy calendar of healing times, surgery schedules, and more. Throughout all of this, you worked yourself to death keeping up with both Curly and the entire ship, trying your hardest to stick to your preferred schedule at all costs. Curly was happy to pick up for you whenever you fell asleep at your desk (he was happy to find the Captain’s duties were similar, even decades apart) and according to chat logs, he began a correspondence with your own boss to explain the situation and request to stay under your care as co-captain with Sealegs staying as First Mate. Once you awoke, you had a long talk about not using your computer with permission, but gave in to his request of co-captaining only if your boss allowed it. Which… was approved the same day.

Welcome, Grant Curly, the co-captain of the Astraeus.

┌───────────────────────┐

Thousand month hiatus for the most boring damn chapter I’ve ever made… ugh. I'm sorry, everyone who waited :(.

I took 2 years of ASL in high school; ASL, when written out, is in all capital letters, I usually see it without much punctuation, and it doesn't use filler words like ‘the’ and ‘of’, with grammar to the tune of time-topic-comment-verb, and while I'm by no means fluent, I still tried to keep it as accurate as possible for my HOH friends who are probably sick of italic English that ‘means’ ASL. Those who are more experienced and can point out flaws, by all means, do so, please.

Taglist:

@eaterof-concrete + @tfamidoingwithmylife + @onlyemb3rs (It HAS been a long time, no worries if you guys want to be removed ^^,)

[reasonsforhope]

"When Francois Beyers first pitched the concept of 3D ocean farming to the Welsh regulators, he had to sketch it on napkins. 

Today the seafood farm is much more than a drawing, but if you walked along the Welsh coastal path near St David’s, all you’d see is a line of buoys. As Beyers puts it: “It’s what’s below that’s important.”

Thick tussles of lustrous seaweed suspend from the buoys, mussels cling to its furry connective ropes and dangling Chinese lantern-esque nets are filled with oysters and scallops. 

“It’s like an underwater garden,” says Beyers, co-founder of the community-owned regenerative ocean farm, Câr-y-Môr. The 3-hectare site is part of a fledgling sector, one of 12 farms in the UK, which key players believe could boost ocean biodiversity, produce sustainable agricultural fertiliser and provide year-round employment in areas that have traditionally been dependent on tourism. 

Created in 2020 by Beyers and six family members, including his father-in-law – an ex-shellfish farmer – the motivation is apparent in the name, which is Welsh for “for the love of the sea”. ...

Pictured: Drone shot of Câr-y-Môr, which is on the site of abandoned mussel farms. Image: Scott Chalmers

Ocean farming comes from the technical term ‘integrated multi-trophic aquaculture’, which means a mixture of different seaweed and shellfish species growing together to mutually benefit each other. But it’s not just a way of growing food with little human input, it also creates ocean habitat. 

“You’re creating a breeding ground for marine animals,” explains Beyers who adds that the site has seen more gannets diving, porpoises and seals – to name a few – since before the farm was established.

Ocean farms like Câr-y-Môr, notes Ross Brown – environmental research fellow at the University of Exeter – have substantial conservation benefits.

“Setting up a seaweed farm creates an exclusion zone so fishermen can’t trawl it,” explains Brown, who has been conducting experiments on the impacts of seaweed and shellfish farms across the UK. 

Brown believes a thriving ocean farming industry could provide solutions to the UK’s fish stock, which is in “a deeply troubling state” according to a report that found half of the key populations to be overfished. “It would create stepping stones where we have safe havens for fish and other organisms,” he adds. 

But UK regulators have adopted a cautious approach, note Brown and Beyers, making it difficult for businesses like Câr-y-Môr to obtain licenses. “It’s been a tough old slog,” says Beyers, whose aim is to change the legislation to make it easier for others to start ocean farms. 

Despite navigating uncharted territories, the business now has 14 full-time employees, and 300 community members, of which nearly 100 have invested in the community-benefit society. For member and funding manager Tracey Gilbert-Falconer, the model brings expertise but most importantly, buy-in from the tight-knit local community. 

“You need to work with the community than forcing yourself in,” she observes. 

And Câr-y-Môr is poised to double its workforce in 2024 thanks to a Defra grant of £1.1 million to promote and develop the Welsh seafood industry as part of the UK Seafood Fund Infrastructure Scheme. This will go towards building a processing hub, set to be operational in April, to produce agricultural fertiliser from seaweed. 

Full of mineral nutrients and phosphorous from the ocean, seaweed use in farming is nothing new, as Gilbert-Falconer notes: “Farmers in Pembrokeshire talk about their grandad going down to the sea and throwing [seaweed] on their farms.” 

But as the war in Ukraine has caused the price of chemical fertiliser to soar, and the sector tries to reduce its environmental impact – of which synthetic fertiliser contributes 5% of total UK emissions – farmers and government are increasingly looking to seaweed. 

The new hub will have capacity to make 65,000 litres of sustainable fertiliser annually with the potential to cover 13,000 acres of farmland. 

But to feed the processing hub, generate profit and reduce their dependency on grants, the co-op needs to increase the ocean farm size from three to 13 hectares. If they obtain licences, Beyers says they should break even in 18 months. 

For now, Beyers reflects on a “humbling” three years but revels in the potential uses of seaweed, from construction material to clothing.  

“I haven’t seen the limit yet,” he smiles."

-via Positive.News, February 19, 2024

[arminreindl]

Croc Paleontology Recap January 2025

The year has just begun and already we got a bunch of pretty neat new studies on fossil pseudosuchians so I'll just briefly go over them and unless I forget or end up procrastinating/getting too busy I'll hopefully be able to keep this going throughout the rest of the year.

Just to give you a brief overview, the highlights of this month include: salt glands in gavialoids, crocodilian predation on azhdarchids, diversifications and extinctions in thalattosuchians and a new species of aetoaur from India. Lets begin.

Evidence for salt glands in gavialoids

Starting off with something relating to the dispersal of gavialoids, we got "Evaluation of the endocranial anatomy of the early Paleogene north African gavialoid crocodylian Argochampsa krebsi and evolutionary implications for adaptation to salinity tolerance in marine crocodyliforms" by Pliggersdorfer, Burke and Mannion.

The title already gives a lot away, but the point was that Argochampsa, from the early Paleocene Ouled Abdoun Basin in Morocco, was examined for evidence of salt tolerance. Why? Because the dispersal of gavialoids remains weird. Both modern forms aren't especially keen on saltwater and are only known to consistently occur in freshwater (tho we have a recent example of an indian gharial caught in a fishing net off the coast of India), yet we have plenty of extinct gavialoids that either indicate that the group must have crossed oceans (see any "gryposuchine") or straight up lived at sea (also see some "gryposuchines").

Now, one such example might also be Argochampsa. Both because the Ouled Abdoul Basin famously preserves coastal deposits and because, at least following some phylogenies, Argochampsa might be closely related to the gharials of South America and today (others say its not even a gavialoid but lets ignore that for now). So all things considered one might expect marine habits from Argochampsa, yet so far no such adaptations could be identified. Well, Pliggersdorfer and co. analyzed a thus-far undescribed skull and actually managed to find something. Small depressions on the inside of the skull are suspiciously similar to ones seen in the extinct, fully marine metriorhynchoids, depressions that in the latter have been interpreted as having been left by salt glands. There is also some further evidence through the morphology of the inner ear.

This conclusion further extends to a handfull of other taxa, including the dyrosaurid Rhabdognathus and the recently named gavialoid Sutekhsuchus, and lends itself to the hypothesis that salt glands may have been ancestral to gavialoids, something I personally find unsurprising given their proximity to crocodyloids and their dispersal across the world (really if anything alligatoroids seem like the odd one out).

Fun fact, yours truly is featured in the paper in the form of two silhouettes.

Left: Argochampsa, illustrated by Seismic Shrimp/JW Right: Piscogavialis, perhaps the most famous marine gavialoid, illustrated by Joschua Knüppe

The brain of Paralligator

Second on our neat little list, the neuroanatomy of Paralligator, studied through CT scans and 3D modeling and published on in "Neurocranial anatomy of Paralligator (Neosuchia: Paralligatoridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia". Given that I am not great with brain things, I'll keep this one short.

Now for those unfamiliar, Paralligator is part of a somewhat strange clade known as the Paralligatoridae, which contrary to their name are nowhere near real alligators (tho some do look deceptively similar). Instead, they are much more basal members of Eusuchia.

Measurements of the olfactory bulbs, responsible for the sense of smell, indicate that in Paralligator this sense was similarily developed to allodaposuchids and crocodilians, as is the inner ear who's anatomy suggests a semi-aquatic lifestyle. Paralligator does however differ in possessing a mesothemoid, a bony septum in the olfactory region that is also seen in dyrosaurids, baurusuchids and dinosaurs, but not modern crocodiles.

Borealosuchus remains from Colorado

Tho seemingly unexciting, this study, "First record of Borealosuchus sternbergii from thelower Paleocene Denver Formation (lower Danian),Colorado (Denver Basin)" actually helps us fill a neat little gap in our previous knowledge on croc survival across the Cretaceous-Paleocene extinction.

Simply put, though America's croc record across the KPG is rather remarkable, showing both many survivors and some incredible diversification after the impact, Colorado is kind of a blind spot, despite its potential importance. Perhaps one of the best examples of a survivor concerns the genus Borealosuchus, which is both geographically and stratigraphically widespread. To put things into perspective, this genus occured as far north as Canada and as far south as Texas, first appearing in the Late Cretaceous and dying out in the Eocene.

This paper now described several skulls from the Corall Bluff's locality of the Denver Formation, earliest Paleocene, that can be attributed to Borealosuchus sternbergii, definitively extending its range beyond KPG (granted, there are tentatively referred Paleocene occurences elsewhere), making it one of the largest suvivors of the mass extinction, with adults growing up to 2.3 meter in length. The specimens from Colorado are smaller, in the 1.5 to 1.7 meter range, but they are also regarded as immature individuals and are therefore also regarded as usefull in illustrating how the animals changed as they grew into adulthood.

This paper is especially well timed for those that follow @knuppitalism-with-ue 's Formation Stream series. As you might know, Corall Bluffs is to be drawn barely a week from now and this is a fantastic addition.

Left: Borealosuchus drawn by Atak_Draws Right: Distribution of Borealosuchus by Lessner, Petermann and Lyson 2025

Growth of a peirosaur

Our next paper for discussion is "Life history and growth dynamics of a peirosaurid crocodylomorph (Mesoeucrocodylia; Notosuchia) from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina inferred from its bone histology" by Tamara G. Navarro and colleagues. This study conducted the first histology of peirosaurid limb bones, specifically of an indetermined taxon clading together with Uberabasuchus.

As a brief refresher, peirosaurids are a branch of medium to large sized Notosuchians that I personally think can be aptly described as appearing somewhat like scaly dogs or pigs with often robust, wedge-shaped heads and heavily armored bodies.

The results show that the animal had reached sexual maturity, yet was not yet fully grown. What's also noted is the exact growth dynamics of this animal. This is to say, the studied peirosaurid had overall slow growth with cycles of no growth whatsoever and two periods of increased growth, tho once put against other notosuchians the study deems the growth rates to be better described as "moderate". Pepesuchus meanwhile, belonging to the closely related itasuchids, was a fast grower. Extending things beyond their shared clade shows a virtual mish-mash of dynamics, with Araripesuchus buitreraensis displaying slow growth rates (yet Araripesuchus wegeneri having faster rates than the peirosaur), Iberosuchus showing slow rates, and Notosuchus displaying high growth rates (hell, theres even variation between individuals). A final point concerns the age of the individual, which is....contradictory. Based on the limb bones, the study estimates that the animal was at the very least 15 years old, but previous study of the osteoderms has yielded an estimated age of 18 years old. Ultimately, further study is needed, but it does clearly show how the histology of different parts of the skeleton varies.

Shown below, Uberabasuchus terrificus by Scott Reid

Predation on pterosaurs

Here's a fun one, "A juvenile pterosaur vertebra with putative crocodilian bite from the Campanian of Alberta, Canada", once again with a name that tells you very much what you're in for.

Brown and colleagues report on the discovery of a juvenile specimen of the azhdarchid Cryodrakon from the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta, Canada. The neck vertebra bears some conical bite marks, notably different from those of theropods, which generally have D-shaped or compressed tooth crosssections (sans spinosaurids, which aren't present). Champsosaurus is also ruled out due to its inferred feeding preferences, weak bite force and slender teeth. Mammals are potential candidates, but the team regards it as more likely that the trace maker was a crocodilian. Considering the fauna of the Dinosaur Park Formation, this would suggest the culprit was either Leidyosuchus, Albertochampsa or an animal described as "Stangerochampsa-like".

Now this is a very interesting, if not exactly unexpected interaction. On the one hand, having direct fossil evidence for this is a big deal, even if we don't know if the bite marks were left due to the pterosaur being actively hunted or if they were simply left when a lucky croc came across the carcass of an already deceased Cryodrakon. On the other hand, crocodiles and kin are notoriously opportunistic and broad in their diet, so one feeding on a pterosaur is something that seems like a no-brainer in principle, especially a relatively small individual with a wingspan of "only" 2 meters. This is further supported by the fact that crocodilian bite marks have also been reported from the Romanian pterosaur Eurazhdarcho.

Obvious difference in prey size and geography aside (and taxon names even within the chosen setting while we're on it), Prehistoric Planet really nailed the nailon the head with this one.

In the left corner, a juvenile Cryodrakton (art by Hank Sharpe). In the right corner, Leidyosuchus (art by Gunnar Bivens) LET THEM FIGHT (or scavenge)

Evolutionary trends and extinctions in Thalattosuchia

This one's a last minute entry, by which I mean this one got just published as I was about to wrap this whole thing up. "Analysing Thalattosuchia palaeobiodiversity through the prism of phylogenetic comparative methods" explores how the evolution and the extinctions of members of this group were shaped by both biotic and abiotic factors.

Given the shere breadth of this topic, a quick summary of thalattosuchia seems kinda in order. In short, thalattosuchians are a group of what are likely to be early crocodyliforms adapted to life at sea. They can be split into two groups, the teleosauroids, superficially gharial like animals that likely stuck to coastal waters, and the metriorhynchoids, open ocean animals with fluked tails, no body armor and paddle-like limbs. Both groups reached their greatest diversity in the late Jurassic, but managed to survive into the Cretaceous before disappearing entirely.

The study recaps that thalattosuchians first reach great diversity during the Toarcian, tho this is likely influenced by preservation bias thanks to Lagerstätten such as the Posidonia shale, and a later diversification takes place during the Bathonian. Regardless, the transition from the lower to middle Jurassic sees an increased trend in both thalattosuchian groups towards shorter snouts, which are associated with durophagy or hypercarnivory. This essentially gives rise to the teleosauroids of the Machimosaurinaei, which appear during the Bathonian and have blunt, robust teeth, as well as the metriorhynchoid Geosaurinae, which appeared at the same time and had ziphodont (serrated teeth). The reasons for this could be twofold. On the one hand, thalattosuchians were very abundant, so expanding into new nisches helped them coexist, with ecosystems preserving fish-eaters, hypercarnivores, durophages and more at the same time. More of an underlying factor could be a drop in ichthyosaur diversity, leaving plenty of open nisches for these crocs to fill.

Subsequently, during the transition from the Middle to Late Jurassic, there was another diversification event with both groups establishing new major clades, possibly associated with the warm temperatures of the Late Jurassic, before the diversity crashes with the onset of the Cretaceous. The authors note that this too might have been related to climate, with the Cretaceous survivors mostly being found in warmer waters.

Left: A Dakosaurus ambushing an ichthyosaur by Gabriel Ugueto Right: A large Machimosaurus rests on the beach as a sauropod approaches, art by Joschua Knüppe

and for the final study I wanna talk about

Kuttysuchus: A new Aetosaur from India

Now, by all accounts one might be surprised to see this just kinda thrown in at the end here rather than getting a dedicated post as I usually like to do with new forms. And truth be told, theres just not that much to say about "A New paratypothoracin aetosaur (Archosauria: Pseudosuchia) from the Upper Triassic Dharmaram Formation of India and its biostratigraphic implications".

Kuttysuchus is our first pseudosuchian to be described this year and to get things out of the way, its not super exciting in terms of material. Like some other recently named aetosaurs, Kuttysuchus is based entirely on a handfull of osteoderms. And there's nothing wrong with that, after all osteoderms are rather distinctive for these animals. It does however mean that the information we can get from them is a bit limited and thus makes it hard to really put together something engaging.

More interesting than the anatomy then is the range and its relationship to other aetosaurs. The fossils are known from the Dharmaram Formation of India, which you might recall is also home to the recently named Venkatasuchus. Both Venkatasuchus and Kuttysuchus are members of the Paratypothoracini, tho the former is significantly more derived and the latter more basal.

Fossil osteoderms of Kuttysuchus, all belonging to the central double row that stretches across the back.

I'll be entirely honest. This was a lot more work to type out than anticipated, but admittedly also fairly rewarding. Hopefully you dear reader found it equally interesting, and hey, congrats on making it to the end.

[redslug]

Life is good, the LoRA works

But Redslug, you might say, why are you training a whole character LoRA if the character is gonna have a full 3d model anyway? You saw what neuroslug did to the yellow flowers on test moth's skirt, it massacred them. And also ate the eyebrows off of the poor gal.

So to avoid that happening I'm giving it a reference point for what exactly it should be looking for. As a bonus, it leaves me with the option of doing 2d animation for some of the shots to then drive final video. Some raw outputs without control nets I'm especially fond of this one looking like a crappy failed selfie

UwU or something

[wauzmons]

We have been Betrayed, Backstabbed, Bamboozled: The Future of Elysian Eclipse

So, if you are active on our Discord, you know that EE is made in the Unity Engine and the CEO just decided to massively fuck over all the devs who are using it...

Callum Upton made a great video explaining the situation:

But it gets even worse!

Unity since defended themselves, saying that these fees are only affecting 10% of their customers, because of the $200k and $1m thresholds, so Indie devs don't have to worry about that.

…which isn't true:

Unity Plus

They aren't only introducing these fees but also changed the regular pricing plans! They just removed "Unity Plus" which is the lowest tier and costs about $50/month per dev with taxes. This is what most indies use. The next higher tier costs QUADROUPLE that amount and is also required to remove the universally loathed "made with Unity" splash screen. Oh! And if you have the personal tier, you won't be able to use Unity offline anymore! It now needs to do a license check every 3 days to function!

Unity's Ad Service

The fees will hit devs that do free-to-play mobile stuff especially hard, since they still have to pay the fees even when the players don't buy anything, meaning they could end up owing Unity more than they make in income. But what's this? If you use Unity's advertising service for your game, you will get a discount on the fees! The majority of mobile games run on Unity, meaning they are trying to monopolize the mobile ad market with this!

Publishers

Elysian Eclipse has caught the interest of a really big studio and publisher, who is considering to handle the marketing and publishing for the game. They are obviously planning to make the game come out big with sales, going beyond Unity's thresholds. But since the game is made in Unity, they probably now have to reconsider that carefully, since that would cause a massive amount of fees with Unity's new pricing model. So any game using Unity is now an instant turn-off for publishers, also massively hurting indie devs who don't reach that income threshold yet.

What will happen now?

So, Unity can't be trusted anymore and should be seen as a major threat to us and the gaming industry. Even if they walk back on some of these decisions, what has been said, has been said. They showed that they don't care about destroying thousands of games, as long as it nets them profit, so who knows what they are going to do next?

I will pause the development of Elysian Eclipse and release the Patreon demo, including all the prototypes like Aquatic Stage for free today. I canceled my subscription and it will run out next year, so Unity isn't getting a single cent from my games anymore.

Unreal Eclipse?

In the meantime I'll focus on improving my C++ skills, so I can work more effectively in Unreal Engine 5. Unreal is the current industry leader, offering much better solutions for graphics and performance for 3D games. It is also partially open source and completely free until you reach $1 million in revenue.

It is unlikely that I will be able to just translate the game from C# to C++ and port it over, since it is using a lot of engine-specific features. This basically means, we will start from scratch... I can't tell yet how much work this will be or in what ways the game will change.

But one thing, you can always be certain of: I will NEVER BETRAY MY DREAM. I will finish this project, no matter who or what stands in my way. I hope you will continue to support me on this journey.

That being said,

FUCK JOHN RICCITIELLO!!

Fucking cunt.

[saint-nevermore]

hey everypony ive mopped some floors on my patreon and decided to do something else with it, it will be more like a journal where i throw down all my background thoughts, because boy have i had a lot of those! i uploaded a big fat folder of CSPs and files i havent posted about Dragons, Dinosaurs, and Birds. other things i may include more are Taxidermy and 3D Modelling

at the moment im unable to work and im starting the application process for PIP. money has always been tight but itll get worse this winter. i was the only one in my house working. i figure if i can focus more on my art it would be a net positive until i can get into a better living situation. by supporting you would be making what i do possible ^_^

anything helps in this day and age, so i will also plug my kofi in case sub models arent your thing. thank u all for playing dragons with me, i wouldnt still be here creating if it werent for the kind folk here.

kestrel from memory for your time 🐦‍⬛❤️

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #5040:

Just the lack of curly haired options in character creators. There’s straight, wavy, and coily hair, but almost never any true curly hair styles.

My hair naturally has big curls that make my entire hairstyle poof up. In a ponytail, it looks like a loose ball of yarn. I’ve never seen this texture of hair represented in base video games. Even downloading hair pack mods will net you maybe one or two styles with this texture, and none of them are for men.

It’s very strange that the three options for hairstyles in games are perfectly straight, slightly wavy, and tight small coils. (1A through C, 2A through C, and 4A through C. There’s no 3A, 3B, and 3C hair textures.) I’ve noticed this ever since I was a kid. And as a kid, I was mistreated by my mom because she never taught me to take care of my hair correctly, and others would grab my ponytail and make fun of me. Seeing movies where the nerdy, curly-haired girl gets her hair smoothed out and suddenly she’s pretty did a lot of damage to my self-perception. Nowadays, I want to embrace my hair, but I don’t see any option in games to do that.

In general, there seems to be this weird anti-curly hair bias in media. It’s very strange. I’d want to make mods to add more curly hair to games with character creators, but I’m busy and I don’t know how to make 3D models to begin with.

[ph-cutie]

disco elysium posts ive made with references/funny transparent artefacts to place anywhere on and off the net

texturefile/color ref album

harry and kim spinning gifs / everyone else spinning gifs

paledriver 3d model

nose references / hand references

harry and kim in the jackets drawing (transparent bg png)

portraits in jagged spheres / diamonds (spinner gifs)

evrart artefacts compilation (flashing)

@evrartclairequotes is my quote homunculus (i am mildly fond of evrart claire as a character)

[anxiouslyeccentric]

@three-dee-ess i figure im a lil late to the party but it'd be worng to not contribute my humble pile

From left to right top to bottom:

The blue 3DS XL belonged to my older brother, who let me use it to play my copy of Pokémon Y until our parents eventually bought me my own 2DS, the one all the way to the far right with its circle pad lovingly rubbed off XD. The XL 3DS for a few years was unplayable since my big brother had dropped it off of a desk while it was plugged in, damaging the charge port until i eventually found a place that could fix it, a place id eventually end up working at myself XD.

The orange new 2ds right below it was also my big brother's, this the replacement he'd bought and used after his first 3ds had its charge port damaged. From a few years stuffed in and out of tight pants pockers, the shell of the console became bent, and it had difficulty reading games until i ended up fixing the issue myself a few months after he decided to part with it.

The Special edition Pikachu 3DS was a Mercari find years ago when i was at my first job making bookoo money with no bills to pay, and decided 200 was a great price for Pikachu and him cheeks. Love this system, even though if you put it in sleep mode and carry it around for more than a few hours, it has an error and makes you turn off the system, so not a Walking-around-as-a-tourist 3DS unfortunately, but other than that and a minor chip in the shell, works perfect!

The blue base model is actually a modded japanese base model with a capture card installed! Ive yet to have time to properly use it in any kind of streaming capacity, but it's still with the box and has everything from the modder! I paid a pretty penny for it a few years back, but im not sure it would pull the same value today. Who knows!

The orange and white new 2ds with the target exclusive pikachu hard shell was a christmas gift from back in highschool. I spent many an off hour in my debate class's script room hunting shinys and playing pokemon Amie in my copy of Alpha sapphire for hours on end. Great times! It's lovingly adorned with stickers, and remains my most decorated 3ds.

And lastly, but certainly not least, my new 3ds with a healthy collection of kisekai plates. This was actually a 20th Anniversary pokemon red and blue edition that had its original box, inserts AND plates included with it! Paid about the same for the 3ds with the capture card, but this one had absolutely increased in price since my purchasing. The other plates id come across separately, all during my time with my first job. Generally i prefer having the 151 pokemon colored spites plates that are on it now, or the Blue Gingam Check plates, and i even purchased the matching theme for the system before the E-shop closed, so they match! This system is my current "main one" and has every pokemon virtual console software downloaded onto it pre eshop closure, and i just recently finally modded it for pretendo and Netpass, both of which work wonderfully!

Im really hoping pretendo can get the Pokémon chat Player Search System up and running eventually for Pokémon X, Y, omega ruby and alpha sapphire, since a bulk of my time with the 3ds was spent battling and wonder trading to my heart's content. I can only hope.

Currently im playing a lot of Tomodachii life, a game i picked up from my job last christmas as a gift to myself, and fantasy life! Both heavy hitters I'd recommend to anyone with a 3DS! But yea, buy a 3ds for a reasonable price, and mod that sucker! Use Net pass and play all the games you want! All emulation is ethical ethical emulation.

[britt-kageryuu]

The guys are sitting around a large table that has a long grill through the middle, with a couple metal plates on some parts that act as griddles. The table seems to be on a rooftop somewhere, but the skyline is blocked by canvas sheets painted to look like a New York City Skyline.

The guys are all dressed in color coded shorts, their masks, and shirts with different graphics on them. Raph = an Aligator Snapping Turtle holding a barbell in its mouth wearing sweatbands, Donnie = Reboot Process Interrupted Current Mood: Murderous, Leo = a turtle covered ing glitter with a unicorn horn on its head, Mikey = I have a Psychology Degree and am Eager to Use It! (Threat).

They were having Yakiniku, with a few other things on the grills and griddles, chatting among eachother, and answering questions from the chat. On one end Mikey was experimenting with 'steam baking' a cake on the griddle.

Shelldon is flying around the area announcing the questions, while River is in stand-by/sleep mode on a box in the back charging. Shelldon is also acting as a speaker playing music as he floats around.

"So we had to send someone to grab some more ingredients, the poor new guy was so confused by the list, so I volunteered to go with him." Mikey says as he checks his experiment, "This guy apparently never went shopping in the marketplace before, and I swear he almost overpaid on ingredients, so many times. Senior Hueso gave us a budget, and I wanted to make sure we stuck to it."

Shelldon swerves around next to Donnie, "Hey Dad, TechnoTurtle, wants to know how you have so many 3D models in such a short amount of time. Got any answers Dude-Dad?"

Donnie was in the middle of eating so it took a minute for them to answer, "Well to be honest, I have planned to make numerous games with 3D models in the past, and then lost interest for various reasons. So I had all the Models saved on a spare memory bank." They pause to take a sip of their drink, "And before we get a question about the many outfits, I left some odd videogame clothes/costume data attached to the models so it's very easy to add new outfits. Think of our Models as videogame avatars instead of VTuber models. Also I don't know what programs others normally use for making VTuber models, Mandarin and I have been using a mix of my programs, and some free to use art programs."

Mikey is seen moving his cake experiment to a counter near the table to cool under a netted cube, "I may have made our original model concepts, and done some minor rigging for them, but once we discovered the mix of programming we use now, yeah definitely better for us. I may love doing art, but making models for VTubing was more complicated than I wanted to deal with." Mikey quickly grabs a few pieces of meat and veggies from the grill with tongs, "Heck, once I told everyone I designed our models, I had to emphasize on my commission page that I don't do models. But I have been making 2D, 2.5D model Assets, with a wide variety of skin tones, and even different species variants." Mikey says with some pride in his voice.

Leo was about to say something, but stopped to stare as Donnie starts to eat a sandwich, he made with grilled meats and veggies, whole. It wasn't an unusual sight for the guys, but it's been a while since he last saw Donnie do this. And that's not to mention the audience who are all very confused and concerned by this.

"I don't know why I'm surprised to see you eat like that Dee, but Wow. I forgot you could-" Leo paused for a sec, "That almost came out very wrong. And not in a way I would want to say."

Sadly some of the audience was able to pick up on the almost innuendo, thankfully they didn't mention it in chat, but they did make memes out of the clip.

Donnie looked at Leo with great offense after finishing his sandwich. "Annoyed Huff. Rude. Dear Brother, you can not fault me for my softshell instincts!" They say with a huff and crossed arms. Their tail seen whipping around behind them.

Raph just lets out a sigh with a shake of his head. "You two are always so chaotic with eachother. But you're my knucklehead brothers." He uses some custom chopsticks to flip the meat he put on the grill before eating it after a few seconds.

The stream goes on with more chatting, and eating, though after a bit of time they're joined by April, Cass, and CJ. With a note that their Dads are on vacation, to get away from some the guys chaotic antics recently.

The chaotic antics in question were not mentioned, much to the audiences great disappointment.

--------------------

Masterpost

This was at least partly my original idea for their 4th of July post, but I decided that the guys would rather just enjoy the festivities instead of streaming the entire time.

And yes Donnie is swallowing the sandwich whole. I just realized how wrong/weird it sounds to describe that hence the 'unspoken innuendo' line.

[artofyangaros]

My process of drawing art that imitates the style of RWBY

(original from Reddit)

We have no idea what'll happen to RWBY, so I decided for some reason to go over the basics of how I draw characters that are hopefully in the likeness of the show's art style. I use paint(dot)net to draw my character art, from sketching to colouring, and I use Blender whenever I feel that a 3D background or scene fits the art.

My art is specifically based on the Autodesk Maya art style that is seen in Volume 7 and onwards, as well as in the Justice League x RWBY movies (the Maya styles of Volumes 4, 5 and 6 are slightly different). However, whenever it's necessary, I will also deviate from RWBY's art style in order to add additional details.

Sketching

Once I have an idea about what to draw, which can take a while to figure out. I begin to draw a sketch. I generally use multiple layers for different parts, so I use one layer for the eyes, one layer for the hair, and so on. I also use different colours for each layer if it's possible, just so it's easier to distinguish the different features. If the cumulative or overall sketch looks complete, I will remove extra lines and move on to outlining, though every now and then I make changes in later steps that will make the final result different from the initial sketch.

To replicate RWBY's style as closely as possible, I use screenshots from the show as reference and I made sure the starting sketch has a larger dimension (minimum height of 1440 pixels if drawing half-body art). I also made a very rough 3D character body model in Blender to help get the perspective right (or as correct as possible), for example if I want to figure out where exactly a piece of clothing should be or look like relative to the body. I also use additional image references, for example references with short hair or mid-length hair for my recent art of Weiss with shorter hair.

Outlining

I begin to outline using thin lines, as well as small brushes for the outlines of the eyes. I also use separate layers for different features of the character and adjust the opacity/transparency if it's needed. For example, in RWBY, eyebrows covered by a fringe or strands of hair will still be visible, although their outlines will be less opaque.

For the hair, I use a dark colour related to a character's hair colour, such as dark yellow or gold if the character has light blonde hair. The outlines of clothing are also made to be less opaque so they would blend more with clothing colours that come later.

Colouring

I put in colours after outlining is done, and I also use separate layers for different parts for the character. Once the colouring is done, I add in additional colours, such as a redder colour (relative to a character's skin tone) to add to the face or indicate blushing. For RWBY or Justice League x RWBY characters, I make use of default colours that are from concept arts or scenes with minimal environmental lighting. This is because it will be easier to make overall adjustments later down the road, especially if the final background involves a different hue or more environmental lighting.

I have a habit of fully colouring the eyes, up to adding bright white highlights to the eyes, before colouring the rest of the character. The eyes are coloured differently depending on who I am drawing. If I am drawing a pre-existing character such as Ruby, I also make use of default colours. Otherwise, I usually start with a base colour, usually a lighter colour, and then I imitate iris shading by adding layers of that colour with a darker tone or shade. I make the pupils black or a colour based on the base colour.

Shading

I move on to shading the non-eye parts after all the colours are added. If I am drawing an existing RWBY character, I try to use the shade that is usually found with that character's model. Otherwise, I use a layer of either black or a shade based on the main hair colour, and I adjust the opacity to give the impression of a RWBY-like appearance.

Hair shading gets additional attention because they are usually softer. If you look at screenshots or scenes of RWBY, you might notice that the shading for clothing and skin have defined hard edges, while the same cannot usually be said for the hair. To imitate hair shading, I use erasers of large sizes to remove excess colours and create a softer appearance for the shading.

I may add additional shading to the irises and the white (sclera) of the eye depending on whether I feel like it or not. This sort of shading is usually not present with characters in the main RWBY series, while in the Justice League x RWBY movies, the eyes have additional shading.

Background

I may use Blender to create a 3D background for my art. If I finish the character art first, which is often what happens, I will set up lighting in my environment based on how I shaded the character. The settings I use vary often (e.g. rendering with Eevee vs. rendering with Cycles), but what I did for my Weiss art was to use Cycle rendering for my scene, plus denoising with at least 120 samples, for RWBY-like quality. It should be noted that I have a slow computer, so too many samples will not only slow rendering down but will also be unnecessary for my needs.

(Technically Blender could be used create character models themselves. However, I draw the characters out still because I find it enjoyable, and it also gives me more control over some colours and features.)

Putting it all together

Once everything is done, I move towards compositing and I prepare to put both the character art and background together. If the background involves environmental lighting, I will adjust the colours of the character art to reflect the lighting. For example, in my Weiss art, I adjusted the overall hue of Weiss to reflect the bluish lighting and atmosphere within the Schnee Manor.

I use paint(dot)net to put everything together, since it's a little easier to create a final composite image and make specific final adjustments that way. I also blur the background slightly to give the impression of distance/depth and direct a little more attention to the character.

[alln64games]

Legend of the River King 64

JP release: 27th November 1998

PAL release: N/A

NA release: N/A

Developer: Pack-In-Video

Publisher: Victor Interactive

Original Name: Nushi Tsuri 64

N64 Magazine Score: 56%

Nushi Tsuri is a series of fishing RPGs that were released between 1990 and 2007. A few games have received western releases under the name Legend of the River King on the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour. Some of the later games were called River King in North America, but Harvest Fishing in Europe, to try and market it as a Harvest Moon spin-off (the mainline games of both franchises were made by Marvelous, but River King was first).

While the N64 version of Legend of the River King was marketed for a western release at some point, it ended up getting cancelled, so we’re left with a Japan-only game, which heavily relies on Japanese text. Google Lens is fine for rough translations, but is unfortunately not quite up to the task for specifics like translating fish names and other technical things like baits and lures. Still, I tried out what I could.

The game is presented as a top down 2D RPG and it looks lovely in motion, especially the water. Movement is surprisingly unrestrictive as it seems you can climb up any surface and swim through the water – there is one section where you’re blocked that’s part of a lengthy quest to reach the main objectives. The setting seems to be based on the British countryside (my girlfriend even commented on the look without seeing the red post box or football field), but with Japanese buildings.

The game stars a large family, and you get to choose which one to play as. While most of the game is the same for each, they have their own end goals. The girl I picked wanted to find a rare fish that uses a nest because it’s something her fiancé wanted to see. Along the way, you need to hone your skills by catching fish in order to get better equipment and win tournaments.

While the game is pretended in a cure and lovely 2D format, it changes completely once you get a bite on your rod. You are presented with a 3D view of the very nicely detailed fish. You need to use the analogue stick to make the fish think that the bait is real (it’s very difficult to figure out the tight motion) and use the a button to reel in. If the rod starts to strain, you’ll feel a rumble and you’ll need to let go until you see enough slack on the line to start reeling in again.

I found the fishing to be very difficult, even after reading tips online, and still struggled with the little indoor fishing that lets you fish as much as you want without using resources. You need to keep your eye on both your supplies and the quality of your rod.

Exploring the areas of the game (that I could access to – I never got the bridge repaired to access the blocked off areas), I did manage to find an old man that talked about the fish my character was after, as he laments that the species is now incredibly rare due to pollution. I did attempt to fish in this area on the off chance that I would find one, but I couldn’t even get bite, even trying lots of different bait.

I imagine that the information needed to figure out what kinds of rods, lures and baits you need to use in different locations is somewhere, but as Google isn’t great at translating those kinds of things, it’s lost on me, so this was kind of the end of my adventure. I did manage to catch a few fish, and you fill out an encyclopaedia with information – and you can make the model of the fish move its mouth by pressing A, so I had fun making it sing along to the tune of the music.

There is also more than just fishing. Wildlife will also attack you, either form you walking into them on the map or random encounters. Everything – seagulls, mice, eagles, cats, starfish – is out to get you, and you have three options: placate them with food, attack them or run away.

On top of catching fish, you also collect bugs and flowers. With bugs, you find them on the map and use your net to start the “battle” phase where you use a net or your bare hands to collect the bugs in a first person view. Cutting flowers is a bit more simple.

Legend of the River King seems like a nice and relaxing game, and it’s a shame that the language barrier makes it difficult to fully play and enjoy. I do really like this kind of RPG where the “combat” is something that isn’t a battle system, such as the handheld Mario Golf and Tennis games.

Even though I couldn’t get very far in the game, I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

It’s almost impossible to get a decent way into it if you’re not even slightly conversant in Japanese, such is the option-heavy nature of the text – but we did have a fair amount of fun once we discovered how to fish.

- Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #26

Remake or remaster?

It would be nice to see an English translation of this game – and perhaps a Story of Seasons fishing game.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Legend of the River King 64