Avatar's Hexapodal Anatomy

[Mask_Salesman]

Hey does anyone know any resources on the anatomy of the hexapod's in avatar? Or closely related others; such has humanoid concepts with four arms or wings.

Feel free to speculate, I was wondering about the skeletal structure the most. One clavicle, two clavicles? A combined one? or maybe some weird pelvis/scapula combo. And If so do the muscle layers just overlap in those circumstances.

A typical Goro (MK) concept surely wouldn't work as only the top pair could extend upward.

[BigJohn]

Yeah.... I dunno man. That 6-legged anatomy feature didn't make sense to me. And it seemed like all the animals had it too, except for the Navi for some reason.

I don't know that it would work in reality. I don't know of any animal whose anatomy does that. It always seems weird to me too, when people paint dragons and they give them 4 legs AND wings. That seems more like an insect feature to me rather than something an animal as big as that would have.

I think for an animal as big as a dragon, Bat anatomy makes the most sense:
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As far as I know, the early reptiles that we (and most other non-insect animals) evolved from were tetrapods (4 limbs), so most animals that we're familiar with are also 4-limbed. Insects can be 6-limbed, and all sorts of spiders are 8-limbed, but those don't have skeletons for the most part (or maybe always? not sure). So I think when designing creatures, it'd be pretty safe to stay with 4 limbs, unless it's insect-based. Which is why in Avatar either the Navi should have had 6 limbs, or the animals should have had 4 since they both likely evolved from the same ancestor.

But that's waaaaaaaaay nerdy hehe. If you wanna design some actual 6-legged beasts, then I think you should look at exceptions to the rule here on earth. For instance, bovines don't have clavicles. Other animals don't have them either, mostly ones that need to run fast and/or hard. This is to give room for a larger Scapula, like this:
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So... if I had to wager a guess, I'd say that you could fit an extra pair of legs by elongating the body, stretching the ribcage, and adding another set of legs focusing mainly on the Scapula, and removing the Clavicles altogether. If it were a humanoid, I think this would work real well as you won't have to worry about another set of Clavicles.

Or just improvise it and throw something together and make it look cool. Either way works :)

[Mask_Salesman]

heh Thanks BigJohn, I think your onto something there.

I've seen alot of crazy designs of for example demons/angels and other bipeds that bring me out of the atmosphere when I think about how their are possibly built.
So far I had just been playing with if a humanoid were to have four arms could have been some crazy X shape with all sorts of issues to try and resolve >.< including making up some sort of elaborate muscle structure.
Plus if you implement an X shape the design for the legs may have to change aswell seeing as we walk through falling forwards and if the weight is distributed differently up there. Perhaps that could bring rise to elongating the neck to add that offbalance and cause the falling.

But yeah I was wondering about those types, I didn't know they had no clavicles, so they just float on a skeletal level. I just assumed everything was connected lol. I'm definitely going to play with that info, cheers.


Hmm I also noticed that Scott Eaton, aside from that awesome Death of a Centaur sculpt, he also made a Winged Lion. I bet he went crazy indepth.

Edit:
There's quite an interesting piece in his tutorials section on animal anatomy and the Winged Lion I mentioned.
Here's a link to a PDF (http://mos.futurenet.com/pdf/3dworld/TDW89_t_tips.pdf) of his that sheds light on this topic for anyone that's interested. It pretty much explains what you mentioned Bigjohn. Seems like you hit the nail on the head.

Definitely clears up a solution with hexapods. Although in regards to humanoids it differs slighty as quadrapeds don't need the upward movement a clavicle provides. And our ribcages aren't as suited to the same scapular based system due to the shape. Still open for speculation in that area I guess.

Interestingly I noticed the monkeys in avatar were different to the general hexapod as their arms split off at the elbow rather than having two separate sets of arms completely.

[Vailias]

As far as a biped with four upper limbs goes, most of the time you'll see that not all 4 have the same range of motion. Thats just self collision for you.

Also yes the overall posture and or leg design would have to change a bit with a heavier upper torso, but that doesn't mean that the walk mechanic of weight shifting would have to change all that much.

If you want a rather good reference for winged quadrupeds, find a copy of the Draconomicon. ITs a DnD sourcebook, and quite good for showing variations on an anatomical theme.

on Avatar: My biggest beef, aside from the random hexapods, was that everything was waxy/slimy skinned. Nothing had fur or feathers.
I realize the technical reasons for this, but it seems like an odd choice for ecological design.

[Blenderhead]

Yeah.... I dunno man. That 6-legged anatomy feature didn't make sense to me. And it seemed like all the animals had it too, except for the Navi for some reason.

Yeah I noticed that too...only species out of many shown with only one pair of upper limbs... frankly silly design.

[BigJohn]

Pretty cool pdf there. Thanks for sharing!

And yeah, I picked up the thing about quadrupeds having no clavicles in the last 3d mini, the creature hybrid one. The one I was doing was a bull hybrid and I was researching bovine-anatomy and found that little nugget.

[Joey Spijkers]

I was watching this (http://seqmag.com/2010/01/making-of-avatar/) making of Avatar video and remembered this thread. At 04:39, there's a short turntable of the six-legged horse, and an anatomical version next to it. I can't make out much of it, but then, I'm not familiar with regular horse anatomy. Worth a watch, anyway.

[zeke3d]

looking at the creature designs, although some where good, I liked the dragons and flying monsters, the horses looked a little throwaway. its definitely a lesson in pulling back on the amount of stuff you want to throw on a "real" creature. it would have looked just fine with the flesh skin, the weird bone mane, and the blue. it had gills, extra arms, and that weird connection thing + other stuff I cant remember. they could of cut that in half and asked themselves what really made sense... still, its their movie, and it was fun, they can push stuff however they want, my personal opinions really.

btw, thanks for posting that link!

[Mask_Salesman]

Ahh cool, shows they put some kind of thought into it lol. The DireHorse spinny looks like they have the second row slightly higher than the front. The weird thing he was sculpting just before that looked abit odd though; Almost looked like it had one joint scapular for each side.

The thing I found most amusing about Avatar was how as the dominant species, the na'vi go around 'Nerve-Raping' what ever want to put on a leash.

Think about it, it is actually rape, lol. Never thought a film promoting rape would do so well ;P

(forgive me forum deities, for I have lol'd in the face of sin)

[grimdc13]

I remember the line Grace said to Jake when he discovered the the organ that was in the ponytail, she said,"Don't play with it, it'll make you go blind!"

That was one of my beefs with avatar was the sin, there wasn't pores in the navi skin or fur marks. I saw Christmas carol there was at least one scene where I could see hairs and pores on scrooge's skin.

[Stinger88]

Not sure if its been mentioned but.

Check out The Sleipnir (http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=Sleipnir&oq=Sleipnir&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi) (Norse Myth).

[Mask_Salesman]

Ahh Odin's horse, I completely forgot... that's pretty badass. And humorous that the first thing that came to mind was "oh it's like FF's Odin's horse" and not "oh it's the Norse Mythology Odin" lol.