Edgeloops in Dan-yr-Ogof’s dinosaurs!

They said there were dinosaurs. But I didn’t realize how MANY dinosaurs or how well they were made. Having grown up in tourist town (near Orlando, Florida), I’m used to the road-side dino attractions that are dingy, held together with duct-tape, and barely photo-worthy.

Visiting Dan-yr-Ogof in the The National Showcaves Centre for Wales was another story entirely. We were going to cave at DYO, and were warned that there would be dinosaurs at the entrance of this cave. It was a tourist thing. We’d walk past it and swim into the wild part of the cave. I expected shabby. Instead, I found something worthy of study. *Takes off caver’s helmet and puts on metaphorical Professor’s Hat.* Let’s discuss:

Edgeloops at The National Showcaves Centre for Wales Myself getting a closer look at that dino Photo from The National Showcaves Centre for Wales

When we talk about edgeloops in 3D modeling – we usually talk about articulation. We run edgeloops around joints so that when the character is rigged, it can bend well at the joints.

Edgeloop at the crux of a joint’s bend (Anatomy for Sculptors) knee edgeloop, modeled by Mia Pray for the Aang rig found on https://agora.community/content/aang

But another focus for edgeloops is along wrinkles as well. We add deformational topology to wrinkles so that when the character bends, the wrinkles…ummm, wrinkle. Note in these following images the attention to wrinkles. First in concept sketches for a character in Dreamwork’s The Bad Guys. You can see the wrinkle added to the topology of Mrs. Incredible in her grimace. In the third image you can see the wrinkles described in the topology of the pants. There is no mistaking where the pants will wrinkle when the leg is bent. It is modeled to bend in an intentional way.

Dreamwork’s Bad Guys Pixar’s Incredibles pant’s wrinkles

To see this IRL, we can study sculptures and I had 200 life-sized dinosaurs to look at. A few of them were even animated animatronics. Since these are stylized (cartoony) we can see the wrinkles both in the coloring and shape of the dinos as they flow along the skin. See images below.

The simplest way to add a wrinkle in a quad topology is with these cuts described by David Komorowski http://www.thehobbitguy.com/tutorials/polymodeling/page15.htm (I first learned the concept of edgeloops from David eons ago.)

In class, as an exercise, I have students draw over the wrinkles and plan out how the topology will be added to any of the following images (Pick a wrinkle, any wrinkle.):

Photo from The National Showcaves Centre for Wales Trunk wrinkles Look at that shoulder wrinkle

http://www.havekidscantravel.co.uk/family-attractions-in-the-brecon-beacons-dont-miss-dan-yr-ogof/

Look for the very exaggerated wrinkles and also consider how these would move:

Photo by Rebecca Smith Photo from The National Showcaves Centre for Wales WRINKLES!! Needs better edgeloops

And if dinosaurs aren’t your thing – we can use dragons too. This family was found while I was on vacation in Cardiff and I’ll include it here. I wasn’t expecting to find these while wandering ruins.

Dewi and Dwynwen (mum and dad dragons) at Cardiff Castle (construction of the castle began in 1258)

Note: photos with drawovers of topology will be added soon (after the class gets ahold of these)

Perhaps, this can boil down to one thing — you never know where you will find inspiration. And – I finally managed to combine my love of caving directly with modeling/edgelooping, even if it was by way of dinosaurs.