Please comment on that animation. Are the bodyshape, movements and position realistic?
The purpose is to make a realistic 3D animation about whale diving and feeding behavior. I have information about whale's behavior during breathtaking and near-surface-swimming and also about feeding at the deeper layers but no information about swimming during the dive. For me it looks that the whales' tale in animation is moving a little too much up and down. On videos I have seen the blue whale tale does not take so steep positions when swimming.
I don't really have much knowledge on whales' diving but I had a look at the video and it seems really nicely done to me. The motion of the tail seems to be consistent with the few videos I watched. As far as the steepness goes, instinctively I would be tempted to agree that the video seems quite steep but my instinct on the mater is not worth much. On the video posted in the previous comment, the camera seems to be somewhat tilted and the diver is takin the shot partly from the front so I am not sure that the angle of descent is so far off actually.
The thing that intrigues me on the video is the axis on the left. I would assume it represents depth and 70m means 70 meters but then, why does it appear to be moving?
In case the initial depth is 70 m, the length of the whale is 65 m. So maybe feet?
googled blue whale video and this one came up. it seems your animation is pretty is pretty good
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/whale_bluecalls?source=relatedvideo
http://natgeotv.com.au/tv/kingdom-of-the-blue-whale/videos.aspx
and from sri lanka a diving video of about 20sec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs9bZ-m19Aw
jr
Do not take the 70m too seriosly this is a work-in-progress animation :)
Judith, thank you so much for the links!
Really nice animation!!!
The muscles mainly responsible of movement in cetaceans are the dorsal ones. The power of these ones is not comparable with the ones in lower parts of the body. Hence, is during the contraction of dorsal muscles when the flukes (tail) displace water with more power, when tail is going up. The flukes in cetaceans have a connective tissue that avoids folding of the entire structure in the movement up, but allows a degree of folding toward the tips in the moving down, when the movement is less powerful.
Hence the animation seems unrealistic in this sense. First the flukes are folding too much in my opinion, and are folding in the movement up. Also, seems that tail is going up too much passing the line of the body.
Apart of this, the animation looks great!!
Cheers
Lennart, you have very good points. I would say the whales have this strong movement in the beginning of the dive, to change the direction they are swimming and give the impulse. Once they are already in the "right" direction, the moves become more gentle and slow. I would also say to take care with the movement of the pectoral fin, it's also too apparent to me. Take a look at this short movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQhJtdpQJXg
Your movie makes it seem that the pectoral fins are pulling the whale. What I think it happens is that they help at keeping the direction and the balance; the caudal fin pushes the body, being the responsible for the move. So, the general idea would be make a strong move to have the push and stop a bit, till the need of another push (usually a bit less broad than the one at the beginning of the dive, near the surface) - just as cycling. That was what I observed in the videos people posted here and some others I've searched, so I hope that helps though I'm not a whale expert. ;-)
Thank you all so far!
Here is another clip of that animation - a blue whale taking breath, more complex :)
Nice job on both animations! Only comment: the head is disproportionately large. It needs to be much more slender.
Again, this looks pretty nice to me but I have question just out of curiosity. There's the shape of a man next to heart to give an idea of the scale and I might look stupid for asking but is the heart really that big? I know that the blue whale is the largest animal on earth but that's still quite impressive to think you could fit an entire human body in their largest heart cavity!
Yes, it really is that big. Right now there's a sketch of human heart there, blue whales heart mulage you can see here: http://www.themarysue.com/blue-whale-heart/
Nice job! I agree with Armando Jaramillo about the elasticity of the flukes.
Regarding the anatomy, the head is a little large and it should be more streamlined. Finally, the flippers should be a little lower towards the belly (i.e., not aligned with the eyes).
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Cartography
- Mapping