Jen's Paleodump Blogpage

An unfamiliar land; Gojira passes through the American suburbs, seeking additional energy and resources for her growth.

The Schrader Formation is a fictional formation inspired by the Jurassic World Prologue sequence, set across a large expanse of Southern USA and Mexico. The speculative formation attempts to gather together what the Prologue presented to create a comprehensive speculative ecosystem, grounded within some reality.

Paleogeography-climatology

The Schrader Formation rests alongside the Pacific coastal regions of North America, extending far inland to mountainous, highlandic regions. A major river system and very narrow bays shape the land of the Schrader Formation, both leading directly to the sea. These wetter regions lead to more lush and occasionally, swampy lands.

The overall climate of the region is characterized by a dry-wet season cycle, resulting in dry weather and more humid weather throughout the year. Dry weather in open landscapes yields a very savanna-like appearance, whilst the wet season offers large lush fern plains.

Biotic Interchange

The southern U.S and Mexico regions were major hotspots for a real-world biotic interchange during the Maastrichtian, allowing for groups, like Titanosaurs, to cross into North America, and some other groups, potentially ceratopsians, hadrosaurs, and thyreophorans, crossing into South America. These instances of interchanges happened across the Cretaceous on rare occasions including during the Maastrichtian as well. This ultimately led to the south being populated with a mixture of two different ecologies. Real world examples of the Ojo Alamo formation, North Horn formation, etc, showcase the interchanges with Alamosaurus.

Represented Species

The represented species in the chart correlates to some species shown within the Prologue. Species such as Tyrannosaurus rex, Alamosaurus, Glyptodontopelta, Ankylosaurus, Ojoraptorsaurus, Quetzalcoatlus, and both pteranodontids were directly present themselves in the southern U.S and Mexico. The Nasutoceratopsinid, Iguanodontid, Giganotosaurus, Dawndraco-like pterosaur, Moros, and the Mongolian-inspired Oviraptorid were sourced from other locations.

Nasutoceratopsid

The depicted Nasutoceratopsid is a large, Nasutoceratops-derived species. The size and exaggerated combat features arose from the presence of Tyrannosaurus, pushing for defensive features as it did for Triceratops. While Nasutoceratops itself did not live to the end-Cretaceous, many relatives have, and speculatively, so did this species.

Nasutoceratopsids would make up a large portion of the biota mass, their high population and frequency would make them a particularly numerous species across the formation. Large migratory herds can be seen traversing between the landscape seasonally as various locations differ from eachother in response to seasonal changes.

Smaller species of Nasutoceratopsids exist to represent their ancestors more closely, though they exist in much less large predator-dominated environments, namely in mountains or on islands. Their predators in return can include species like "Moros".

Oviraptorids

Two prominent genera of oviraptorosaurs exist across the Schrader Formation, Ojoraptorsaurus and an indeterminate oviraptorosaur. Oviraptorosaur indet. The identification of what oviraptorid group it belongs to is uncertain, although it being of late-surviving Mongolian descent is a possibility, given the eggs found in the region.

Iguanodontid

Iguanodontids are seen across Laurasia, species such as Iguanocollosus, Tenotosaurus, Hippodraco, etc are seen in North America. Here, a convergently Mantellisaurus-like species of Iguanodont derived from earlier ancestors present more up North and in Europe. Itself achieves a generally larger size than its ancestorial species, namely in defense against the larger predators due to them being more solitary.

Smaller-sized populations too like the Nasutoceratopsids exist in less Tyrannosaur-dominated regions of the formation, though they are not taxonomically distinct.

Ornithocheirid

While Ornithocheirae was thought to died out in the middle-late Cretaceous, a very slight possibility of them persisting to the Maastrichtian was always theorized. The known material found within the Schrader Formation indicate a very sparse population comprised of late-surviving, derived Ornithocheirids, being the last of the toothed pterosaurs.

While being traditionally associated with Gondwanian (South America, Australia, occasionally Europe, Africa) regions, their widespread distribution as a family allowed species to exist within North America. This specific species was able to take refuge and ecologically diverse from the rest of the Maastrichtian pterosaurs. Being found in more mountainous and both inland and coastal cliffsides. Although, some material indicates major overlap with the other pterosaur species of the ecology.

Isotopic analyses indicates a heavier diet of brackish and alkaline water fishes, often much larger fish species, as opposed to the carrion/small vertabrae-heavy diet of Quetzalcoatlus and saltwater and freshwatever heavy fish diet of both Pteranodontids.

Giganotosaurus

The nonspecific Giganotosaurus is derived from a population of Northward-increasing Giganotosaurids from South America. These species would eventually reach North America across the land bridge. Its diet of namely sauropods and hadrosaurs though would yield less competition than Tyrannosaurus. While Tyrannosaurus can take down large sauropods, it would instead target much smaller individuals due to its diet consisting of mainly armored animals.

Giganotosaurus though, would be better adapted to take down these larger sauropods, allowing for some niche differentiation from the start. Territorial disputes would exist regardless between both species, though they were not due to overlapping diets and ecological competition.

Authors note - A Giganotosaurus-lineage species of Carcharodontosaurid is the least likely thing to exist in this speculative evolution, but other lines of Carcharodontosaurids surviving (such as Labocania being a Carcharodontosaur) would've been more likely. For fun, lets run with Giganotosaurus.

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Unrepresented Species

Many species were considered (and will eventually come) for the chart in the effort to help represent more southern North America species and some South American species and to flesh out the ecosystem.

Ojoceratops, Coahuilaceratops, Troodontids, Lambeosaurines, Orninthomimids, primitive Deinocheirids, Thescelosaurids, Unenlagians, Microraptorid (when Moros was intended to be a Microraptor), Tropeognathid, and many more were considered to be drawn. Eventually, they will be represented and this blog will be updated.

Standins / Representation

Glyptodontopelta is a standin for the unknown carcass the Quetzalcoatlus was feeding off. While absolutely nothing points it to the idea of being anything specific, Glyptodontopelta was chosen for nearby locality, added diversity, and obscure-species representation.

The Dawndraco-inspired smaller Pteranodontid is representative of the idea that two differently sized Pteranodon species were shown in the prologue, that being the large flock amongst the Quetzalcoatlus and the riverside. While it is either dubious CGI scaling, skewed perception of size, and camera angles, it was chosen regardless for added pterosaur diversity.

While Tlatolophus was considered regardless of the cut concepts, the Dominion prologue originally had Parasaurolophus possibly involved in art. We never see this obviously, although with the nearby Tlatolophus being near geologically, it would be fair to represent it quicker.

Microraptoridae indet. and Ornithocheirae indet. are both based off concepts for the short, where Microraptor was meant to replace Moros, and Ornithocheirus meant to replace Quetzalcoatlus.

Hope you enjoy this read! I will certainly expand upon it further.

Jurassic Park features 7 very different dinosaurs throughout the film, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Velociraptor, Brachiosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Gallimimus, and Parasaurolophus. Each animal being significantly different from the other.

What most of the animals have in common is having themselves or standin relatives (or generally standins) living in Hell Creek. For some, it's very obvious, for some, I have to take some very speculative leaps.

Homo sapiens -

No Homo sapiens in Hell Creek! I'm the reference here so, yeah. No humans. It would've been funny to include Purgatorius here but humans weren't cloned for Jurassic Park. Carry on.

Tyrannosaurus -

Tyrannosaurus rex is known from all across western North America, ranging from the south to north. It's range is especially large, and its most well known locality is Hell Creek.

The Tyrannosaurus specimen used was AMNH 5027, the same specimen Jurassic Park used for both its Tyrannosaurus design and its logo. With the in-film size being roughly around 4 meters tall and fairly large, it only somewhat outsizes the actual AMNH 5027 specimen, where the individual is rather 3.6 meters tall and 11.5 meters long.

Triceratops -

Triceratops is a very well known ceratopsian and is prominent across North America, but especially within Hell Creek. The species T. prorsus was intentionally chosen to have an emphasis on the nasal horn. The actual species basis of the film is not stated, but some can assume T. horridus was used only because of it being the type species.

Velociraptor (as Dakotaraptor) -

Dakotaraptor is a large dromaeosaur known from Hell Creek. A lot of its anatomy is highly controversial with it being a potential chimera (beyond the obvious confirmed for the mixed-in turtle material). Because of it, many things cannot be reliably inferred for how it looked and behaved. Some speculation of taking the leg and arm material seriously leads it to be a fairly tall and cursorial-built theropod, adapted for high speeds. The validity of this though is up in the air until more specimens are gathered.

Dakotaraptor was chosen as the standin for Velociraptor mongoliensis due to Jurassic Parks' interpretation of it being a human-height sprinter-type animal found within North America, similar to what potentially Dakotaraptor would've looked somewhat like and behaved.

Brachiosaurus (as Alamosaurus) -

Alamosaurus is a titanosaur that roamed across the North American Ojo Alamo Formation and some nearby locales. Its position in being a Hell Creek sauropod is disputed, with there being a megafaunal barrier between North-South, preventing sauropods like Alamosaurus venturing any further north into Hell Creek. Although some speculation of it venturing in occasionally at some point in history is somewhat likely.

Alamosaurus was chosen as the Brachiosaurus standin only due to it being the nearest North American sauropod to being a Hell Creek sauropod. Brachiosaurids died off in the middle Cretaceous as sauropods generally leaned to extremes of small or large.

Dilophosaurus (as Anzu) -

The biggest reach of this post is Dilophosaurus, since Dilophosaurus and its closest relatives died off in the early-middle Jurassic due to them being an intermediate tetanuran, rather than being part of a surviving lineage.

Anzu fills in the role of a fairly nimble yet taller-than-Dakotaraptor theropod, with a prominent facial crest and potentially predatory diet. Ironically, Anzu is known from smaller specimens and is often undersized, with there being larger specimens out there implying a near 3-metre height.

Gallimimus (as Struthiomimus) -

Struthiomimus is an orninthomimid that lived across North America, often alongside other species of itself and Orninthomimus. It is the largest of the two known orninthomimids in Hell Creek.

Like Gallimimus, Struthiomimus is a highly speedy and sizeable theropod that is a very close relative.

Parasaurolophus (as Lambeosaurinae indet.) -

While Hell Creek has Edmontosaurus annectens, potential unnamed and unpublished material exists that may likely be a Lambeosaurine, adding to the roster of Hell Creek ornithopods. Parasaurolophus itself is a Lambeosaurine and lived in other nearby formations, although earlier in time. The possibility of Parasaurolophus living to end-Maastrichtian in Hell Creek is fairly low but not impossible. Though compared to Alamosaurus, it seems less likely to happen. A safer estimate (and something that would help publicize the idea) would be using the Lambeosaurine indet. as reference.

The Lambeosaurine itself is referenced from Hypacrosaurus and Magnapaulia, two nearby lambeosaurines from very similar timeperiods too. Some adjusted anatomy was used to make it stand out more, as we do not have much of this specimen.

Thank you for reading this very nerdy paleo-blog that helps somewhat justify my chart. Science will change, so the possibilities of this blog changing too (and the artwork) is likely, or just a republished rewritten version. We'll see!!!

Skeletal Anatomy The first part I had to get through was the skeletal anatomy, which obviously would vary between various Tyrannosaurus individuals. Some are more robust, some are more gracile, some with various skull traits, etc. I instead decided to do a sort of "composite" (although one that would work realistically) between various skeletals, but still maintaining accuracy with what is possible. Various aspects of skeletals between @Tyrannoraptoran's skeletal (with the head) and some adjustments from some of Franoy's skulls and Matt Dempsey's (mainly for eye placement), a mixture of various skeletals for the body, mainly just Matt Dempsey's, and some adjustments to the limbs as needed to make it more proportional. Soft Flesh and Musculature Much of the soft flesh and musculature was based off both Tyrannoraptoran's and Matt Dempsey's musculature chart, which illustrated examples of how muscular parts of the body would be. While not 1:1 to the chart by being a trace (some parts being more muscular or slightly thinner) just because of it being a side reference rather than a direct reference in the Krita file, it falls within realism and functionality and poses no issue. Keratin and Other Display

Keratin was based off mainly the paper that describes Borealpelta's keratinous extensions, the horns being within the supposed range keratin can get. The reasoning the horns were fairly large and pointed was for two reasons, as a form of display and defense. The display is mainly because for such a large predator that preformed lots of intraspecific facebiting combat, a form of display for mates that isn't easy to break off (and if it did, easily can regrow) is needed. The sharp horns may provide defense if needed when trying to bite around the eyes or moving heads into other heads. Some of the keratinous horns besides the lacrimal and orbital extends further behind the head, but this comes from the more rugose regions directly behind the eye. The keratin around the snout would provide the same aspect. The rugose regions on the snout indicates the structure to exist, being a solid but pointed and jagged keratinous structure. Like the orbital and lacrimal brows, the purpose is for display and defense but mainly for defense against facebiting, preventing unneeded damage around where the face is. The keratin cheeks is a form of defense as well. Separate from the facial keratin, the neck possesses a sort of "pouch" that is a very desaturated red. This is less for direct display and is more used for vocal functionality and determining between male and female individuals (since it would be likely for females to possess similar levels of facial keratin if they engaged in social combats as well). Though the pouch is added because of potential skin flap materials around the throat from Tarbosaurus, which is debatable if it is indicating of a skin flap. Even if not, it remains within plausibility. The skin flap is reduced in size compared to the previous reconstruction because it would pose less of a liability issue if damaged after combat, plus would be redundant with the keratinous brows. Coloration Coloration was one big thing I changed ideas throughout various times. I originally planned for a coloration VERY similar to the original reconstruction but decided against it. When considering the niche and habitat of Tyrannosaurus rex, it lived as a megapredatory forest hunter. The previous coloration had lots of browns and a basic countershade which do work, but not as well as a striped light-dark countershade. The specific pattern was chosen because various reptiles and large mammals within forests and grasses have this pattern (crocodilians too), allowing a good blend-in to the forest background. The light represents the light breaking through the trees which a prey item would likely find as normal light, with dark being darkness that the tree is blocking. Obviously this falls mute if rex is completely concealed (somehow) or is in total darkness, which its prey items could still probably see quite well in it. This idea was chosen quickly and was kept with it. The darker striping was chosen mainly because it would act as a darker contrast to the rest of the body (plus visually making it look interesting). The yellow keratin with stripes would help make the display come off more as a display and in contrast to the rest of the body, but not such a big contrast it would potentially harm it (in the context of it being seen when stalking prey). Lips Lips! Everyone's favorite topic! This time I'll be more direct but I've stated in my Nanuqsaurus guide (located on Tumblr) all the arguments needed for why lips were chosen. I was considering on making it lipless, although this was earlier on before I went for the 100% reconstruction route rather than a more stylized route. But on the post I stated that lips are an ancestoral trait, very unlikely to be lost besides very specific events, archosaurs are basal with it, it helps protect the teeth and helps protect the enamel, etc. No need to debate at this point. The only real lip debates (in science at least) is Spinosaurids and the structure of lips. I went for a more lizard appearance for lips, stiff and covers most of the teeth when the mouth i open, as would've happened in

life. Plus visually it looks most appealing and is the least "contratarian" view of lips (since bulldog lips and the like are chosen for contratarian reasons in some cases). Hope everyone enjoyed this read! Thanks for reading and happy new years!

This post will remain stagnant, for more images of the concepts and more consistent updates to the post, check out the DeviantArt post instead; https://www.deviantart.com/bastion14/journal/Utahraptor-Design-Process-901548219

(Summary - For ArtStation and DeviantArt)

Utahraptor is a large predatory Cretaceous dromaeosaur, being the largest of the family. The design here I intended it with it being consistent in the context of Jurassic World Evolution 2, but later I would go do my own thing more than before. For those interested, I have a DeviantArt and Tumblr explaining the ENTIRE process with some concept art of the process. Feel free to check that out and enjoy!

(Overview)

The process of Utahraptor’s design from beginning to end was a fairly long process compared to most of the other designs I’ve done. A lot of concepts were made by experimenting with skull and face shape, body proportions, etc. Here we’ll get into what exactly happened in each stage throughout the entire process, from the conception to last-minute changes.

(Initial Ideas) With what was in mind, a Jurassic World Evolution 2 Utahraptor stemmed from the idea of Utahraptor being in the Early Cretaceous DLC before the full roster being announced (which excluded Utahraptor). The design since the beginning had the intention of being akin to the Jurassic Park toy-line Utahraptor with a mixture of the “Jurassic: theHunted” Utahraptor spines, both of which were given as mild reference from a user which assisted some of the design choices.

The toy itself has a very Velociraptor-like anatomy although slightly bulkier with the robust skull, mostly because it was before significant amounts of the body skeleton was discovered. I both liked and didn’t like the idea of having the body, because by itself it looks decent but in the context of the game - Jurassic World Evolution 2 - it would come off as an oversized Velociraptor clone. Even very early on before the sketches I wanted a more real world Utahraptor body, while the head would remain similar to the toy. One aspect that I wanted to have something that would help differentiate it from the Velociraptor is giving it neutral wrists which is consistent with some theropods ingame along with a single row of spines.

(Head Sculpts)

After having the original ideas in mind, I experimented with various skull shapes that felt fitting. Some of them varied a lot where I disliked a few, one of which was a fairly spikier head that felt much like a Venatosaurus (from King Kong 2005) and some of them feeling too much like the Atrociraptor design from Jurassic World Dominion. Ironically I settled with the first one I sketched which felt true to the original head overall, while having some creative design liberties such as some adjustment to the how the skull slopes, small crests, etc. Some skulls too also had more accurate shapes that were directly traced over a skeletal, but none of which turned out to be visually pleasing. More skull shapes were made for the accurate-ish side but those were deleted and not shown here. I felt that the skeletal skull tracings felt too lazy and could pass off as a re”design” of what I had originally someone would make (basically think of the Giganotosaurus “redesigns” for the Jurassic World Prologue).

Cryolophosaurus skull edit was an unused concept

The overall center head design I was happiest with since it felt unique enough, had traits of a Utahraptor, but too had traits of Velociraptor and coincidentally somewhat of Jurassic World’s Atrociraptor. It also made sense for the skull shape to a degree where it made sense that Frontier could likely design it, although I would expect the head to be closer to the real animal which lead to the creation of an alternative head shape that shifts around the skull shape to be slightly closer but still similar to the main design. Most of these changes included a slightly longer snout with a thinner snout proportionately.

As with some of my other theropod designs, I enjoy exaggerating the appearance of the orbital and antorbital fenestra, not making it shrinkwrapped but more making the brow ridge and the area in front of the eye pronounced to give it more “emotional” value, as in making it look more aggressive. Utahraptor normally has this as well in life and so do most theropods, but I wanted to keep the look with it being transferred over.

(Body, Posture and Size)

After the head was decided, next was to craft the body shape. I remained very close to Utahraptor itself but with more of an upright stance, S-shaped neck akin to Velociraptor, and some changed slightly anatomical traits. Larger hands and claws (to exaggerate strength and ferocity), a larger toe claw, and a slightly modified pelvis shape. The design was originally settled on mainly because of the similarities and consistency to Velociraptor, but after the head was drawn officially, a different posture was chosen part-way through the lineart process.

The other three postures included a S-curved hunched back, hunched-neck neutral body, and hunched-neck hunched back postures. The most appealing one and the one that made most sense was the entirely hunched posture, characteristic of Utahraptor in life, being unique from Velociraptor, and giving the animal a sense of weight. The sketches above show the size comparison to a person, being slightly oversized but still maintaining realism.

The overall sense of weight would help convey the size of the animal and also allow the height to be slightly reduced to a semi-realistic height rather than something that resembles an Indoraptor or other theropods. The only issue I had here which was minor was that Utahraptor would too much resemble Herrerasaurus in this posture within the context of the game, although the type of hunchback is different with a more straight vertebral column rather than a curved back. The neck remains in a semi-S curve even in the position which still keeps it different.

(Liplessness)

Liplessness was considered briefly after designing the skull. Jurassic World Evolution 2 theropod designs have a consistency where most theropods larger than Herrerasaurus tend to be near or complete lipless (with the exception of Carcharodontosaurus) while smaller theropods were fully lipped. The reason liplessness was considered was because of this consistency, although after some test concepts of two different exposed teeth variants, it was overruled in favor of the original face.

Main reason for this is that the lipless look gives it more of a carnosaurian or simply non-dromaeosaurine facial look . While it may be perfect for something that is larger, Utahraptor’s design has always had the maintenance of Velociraptor consistency and generally design consistency to a degree is good. It also allows the ability to snarl which personally, snarling on Jurassic Park raptors look really cool.

(Designing the Spines and other Body Features)

After concepting almost the entire animal, the rest of the back spines were needed to be added. Since the spines were inspired by the “Jurassic: theHunted” Utahraptor, they remained only in the central back column with some on the throat. The throat spines were avoided to be anywhere similar to the Liopleurodon throat spines, being smaller and more integrated into the neck rather than just protrusions. The actual back spines were inspired by other spined creatures in the game, namely Allosaurus with the spines being most prominent near the head and back. The spines were intentionally stopped from continuing onto the hip and to the tail for differentiation and to not overwhelm the design.

Some alternative spine ideas were given with smaller spikes, larger spikes, more uneven and dense spines, and event spines that altered between left-right-middle like on Godzilla (although smaller), yet the current arrangement was selected just for visual appeal.

Pronation of the wrists were considered briefly, although traditional hand posture was chosen in favor of it looking visually more appealing + it fitting with other JWE2 theropods.

(Coloration References + Concepts)

Biggest issues when encountering coloration references was to find color examples and patterns that weren’t lifeless copies of Atrociraptor and the The Lost World male Velociraptor. When thinking of coloration, initially a look similar to Echo from Jurassic World was in mind although a more vivid warm-color body was chosen, though the countershade remained similar with the similar black markings on the countershade.

The Jurassic Park Institute Utahraptor was as a reference although the thick stripes were chosen against in favor of more messier and uneven striping. The countershade and dark stripes would occasionally bleed into eachother, with the main-orange body acting as a boundary. On the orange, the body possesses yellow stripe-markings. The markings were mainly to break the more consistent and flatter orange and give more color, with the yellow markings being based partially on the yellow scales the Monsterverse Godzilla has around the neck and the iridescent blue around the Baryonyx from the Jurassic World Franchise. Also as a way to make the orange come off more realistic, a slightly dark shade of orange (seperate from shading) exists on the back of the animal to complement the lighter countershade. The dark orange exists around the lips and face in a semi-stripe fashion. Also on the face, the crest area has a somewhat red tone to give the generic “colorful crest” style most of my theropods I make have, mainly because it looks appealing.

(Consideration of Feathers and Why I Decided Against It) I considered feathers and some people requested it, but I had no interest in adding feathers with a few arguments against it in this design. Main argument was that as of now, Jurassic World Evolution 2 has no feathered animals (until the Dominion DLC), so with it being consistent it had to have none. Another thing is that drawing Dromaeosaur feathers is fairly difficult for me. I’ve dealt with some light feathers before, but I don’t want to spend the time adding wings and the tail fan. Another reason was I didn’t want to spend the time to redesign the coloration and model which was already nearly done anyways, adding feathers would spend much more time than I wanted and what I have.

Though the other reason I feel will ruffle some people’s feathers is that besides reconstructions, designs in the context of feathered dinosaurs, and occasional moments that it is required, I don’t have much interest in designing feathers. Visually I do believe that feathers can be great on a lot of designs, but adding it last minute would make it look lazy with it being applied last minute, ruin the intentions of the design, and to a degree make it less threatening. I intended to give it that reptilian feel, but the existence of feathers would look extremely off and look more comedic than cool. Simply, I don’t care about adding it and the way I’d do it, it would look off.

(Last Minute Changes)

Part-way through the coloration process, I decided to adjust the arms and wrists the design, I (and the person who was giving feedback) thought it looked too birdlike and awkward mainly because the wrists were too far rotated backward. Normally it would look appropriate with wings and feathers but as mentioned before, I didn’t care and outright ignored the idea of feathers on the design until last minute (which I ignored once again). Some other minor tweaks were done as well.

(Final Design)

With all design choices described, the final design results in what was mostly considered towards the beginning, a semi-JWE2-consistent Utahraptor that achieves to be unique yet consistent with other dinosaurs. Other sketches of the animal in action can be seen in the corners which showcases some various poses and other minor concepts with it in action.

Alternate skull shapes of the design were considered in the concept purely to please those who thought the skull was “a generic JP Velociraptor clone” or “media raptor”, but because I want to do my own thing, I decided against it for a multitude of reasons besides just that.

This entire design process was long but the result I enjoy, with it being one of my favorite designs I’ve made so far, both visually and it objectively fitting well into the context of the game (at least if you ignore Atrociraptor, but whatever). I enjoy making more of my own designs over scientific reconstructions mainly because I get a lot of creative freedom and inspiration that normally would be hard to do for reconstructions outside of coloration, behavior, and some anatomical things.

(Conclusion) Thank you for reading this entire design process, hope you found the concepts interesting and the entire process also interesting. See you around!

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I decided to do a quick mockup of a JWE2 Maiasaura redesign. Here I'll explain the choices of design here.

I've always never liked nor disliked the Maiasaura from both games. While it isn't horrendous, it doesn't look too appealing in the face. The body though I feel like is decent but the facial structure while okay visually doesn't come off as very kind, which is why I only did a head redesign.

The objective here is to make Maia visually pleasing while also keeping it in a consistent JWE2 style with other Hadrosaurs. No intentions of pure accuracy are intended, same for inaccuracy, whatever looks best.

Obviously this is the original Maiasaura, feel as you wish about it, though I do like a lot of it besides the eye and brow region which is what I feel suffers the most since it looks worried constantly. I personally do like the beak and snout structure with a semi-visible cheekbone, though this feels self-clashing with the eye.

I attempted by editing the model as a mockup of what would feel best. A blockier face with slightly more robust features, the modified crest, and smaller repositioned eye.

After this I did a real bad sketch mockup tracing over the model, I emphasized the eyebrow and "horn". I also made the beak and crest region more serrated and roughened which would later be reduced in the final concept. I increased the size and changed the shape of the eye to be somewhat more friendly-ish, although initially I wanted a more tough and threatening look rather than a kind look.

Multiple ideas were in mind to make this thing have a more reduced cheekline and while the teeth wouldn't be exposed, it would have a prominent mouth. This would feel way too out place with the other hadrosaurs ingame.

From here I would incorporate the Camp Cretaceous Maiasaura concept art into some of the design. I already somewhat did this beforehand but I applied more aspects of it into the final stages. This is mainly present in the orbital brow. What I didn't like was the more flat outward-pointing bill rather than the traditional blocky beak the original JWE design had and what I had in mind. Obviously this image isn't from myself.

I naturalized the shape of the head and refined the previous sketch into something more friendlier. Some things transferred over with the serrated beaks, but the initial beak horn was greatly reduced and I followed more of the Maiasaura skeletal references than before (ironically being much closer to the original design than the previous incarnation of my own design, the original design isn't that far off). The beak keratin was extended to be less flat and duck-like and more robust.

Here there is a clear difference with what changed. The brow generally remained the same but the crest was pushed back to be in a less crest shape and more of the traditional brow look (not the orbital brow, both are different). The other changes were a smoother beak to give it a less aggressive look. I didn't the rough beak but it wouldn't be very fitting in the context of the game since it would feel overdesigned for a hadrosaur. The beak obviously isn't perfectly smooth.

The finalization of the design most things remained consistent. The overall lineart remains the same though the neck was thickened to give it more of a realistic muscular look. The eye shape slightly changed, though it isn't a prominent change. Though at this stage I was personally happy with it and called it done. I did consider adding neural back spines that the original design has. Not spikey spines but more blocky. I do imply that the torso and base of the neck has these spines but I was thinking of if it should extend near the head. I did an alternative version for this to see if I would like it.

Which I'm not sure if I like or dislike, but I feel the entire execution of what I did here could be done a little different with larger and blockier spines rather than more osteoderm-like spines. Where later I basically did this as I imagined.

I personally like this version of the spines a lot more, with more blockier larger and taller spines rather than the osteoderms. Though these variants exist for a reason, to see what works. From an objective perspective, this works better for the redesign than the other version with the spines.

Deviantart and Artstation Description;

Thank you for reading this design breakdown and process. Hope you enjoyed the read!

This post is about future wants for the game Jurassic World Evolution 2. Essentially a wishlist.

[Sandbox]

Sandbox doesn't need much but some adjustments and additions would be greatly appreciated. Allowing multiple entrance points into a park would be one step, having for multiple points in a park that can allow guests, especially on lagoon-island maps.

For screenshots, a daylight time slider in Sandbox options would be great, not only would it be a neat quality of life function but it would be great for controlling screenshots.

While I do like the scientists mechanics, I feel that there should be a way to disable the need for scientists where it would allow instant breeding. This would tie into a possible feature where it is optional to select a number of eggs produced in sandbox and chosen, but normally it would produce the desired traits of your desired amount of animals. Alternatively, Sandbox should allow max-stat scientists to be made in some way. This would allow for much faster hatching and for the sandbox players that like creating ecosystems or wanting to save time, that would happen.

An option to disable cross-species fights, intraspecific fights, and packhunting, dinosaur hunting, and generic hunting (inclusive with terrestrial live bait) would be great for Sandbox options to allow for carnivore mixing. I would love to have Deinonychus with Brachiosaurus, but for some reason I can't along with Cryolophosaurus with Megalosaurus, etc. Mixed species enclosures would be a lot easier to deal with and make.

For mixed-era maps, the JP3 mesh Aviary should be an option. Unsure why this is not already in but it seems to be a bug or an overlook.

[Lagoon]

I love lagoons and aquatics here, a lot of people do, but Lagoons feel extremely barren. There's a lot of potential for lagoons in the future with customization and I'll simply list and cover them here.

Lagoons lack any in-water customization. What is great for potential is the option of having in-water decorations, such as rocks mainly. Rocks may not be an insanely gamechanging but it allows for more detail and depth in lagoons.

Alongside with rocks would be foliage options. A lot of underwater foliage is available; reefs, kelp, sea grass, medium height plants, paleo aquatic plants, etc etc. Not only would it be visually stunning and give more lagoon depth but overall would allow Aquatics to be more reef-focused, kelp-focused, open ocean-focused, etc. Related to foliage would be terrain types, such as sand, rock, gravel, clay, aquatic grasses, etc.

Lagoons would too benefit from shallow, medium, and deep options with in-lagoon terrain tool brushes for raising and lowering areas of the lagoon, even to have extremely shallow parts. Allows for more diverse elevation and for things to be less constantly open ocean. Of course if everything is too shallow for something that's too large, it could be invalidated if you're trying to do it under an animal, or just have it beach, who knows.

For viewing galleries, they should have the option to be connected and rotate such as in Jurassic World. Though I do wish there can be an underground tunnel or underwater tunnel viewing area where it can allow constant viewing of aquatics.

Aquatics having the ability to attack accidental cars in water or nearby helicopters, or mainly that of Mosasaurus would be cool. Unrealistic, it would at least be some visual eye candy that would be (not) a good substitute to car bouncing on water, which is funny.

Though for more functional features to conclude with, some ambient animals as feeder fish to give more life to the lagoon would be great, possibly as food.

[Aviary]

Aviaries are more straight-forward, but taller aviaries would allow for much larger things to fly and more airtime for animals (mainly soon-to-be Quetzalcoatlus (hopefully)).

Unrelated to aviaries directly, Pterosaurs should for sure have the ability to land on rocks. While it landing on the ground and walking would be preferred as well, rock perching would be great.

Might as well mention it but pterosaurs attacking helicopters in an escape would allow for both the cool factor and some constant threat for escaped pterosaurs. Not all pterosaurs should do this but if a Pterosaur large and aggressive enough is stressed or being chased by a helicopter, might as well.

[Decoration]

Decoration is something that a lot of people can agree on. It's a great system but decoration variety is lacking (or underused). Decoration can expand into; benches, beach chairs, more lighting types, more planter types, placeable trees, Spinosaurus skeleton, trash cans, crates etc. This only scratches the surface, but it would allow for some in-depth detail for parks and give more variety than what is currently present. Additionally guests should be able to use decorations, not as big as a priority as more decorations but would it be cool? Yeah.

[Enrichment]

I feel enrichment here is the least likely to a degree but it wouldn't be much like Planet Zoo and be more for boosting ratings and allowing some cool animations I suppose.

[Foliage and Terrain Tools]

Terrain and Foliage tools I feel should be shared between all maps. While better than JWE1, it would be cool to have cactus in a temperate map for a desert enclosure, or normal forests in a jungle map. This more-so can be for Sandbox but also works upon base-game. Only additions I can think of for new foliage is more dense Redwoods option, which would be more realistic for redwood maps.

[Packhunting Balancing]

Packhunting is a great but it is severely misbalanced. I really can't explain what should be changed specifically, but sauropods shouldn't really be hunted by anything but Velociraptor, while the requirement to hunt a large sauropod would require more pack members. Packhunting should fail or pack members retreat entirely where the prey item can escape after or escape in attempt of the hunt rather than sit. It would be more realistic behavior and equalize the chances for either side to be 50:50.

I feel that other than Deinonychus and Velociraptor, the others can't packhunt. The ones able to packhunt should have a similar system though, potentially group mobbing where it is more ankle-biting and less jumping, though rarer.

[Likes and Dislikes]

Likes and dislikes should more or less reflect canonical and in-film likes and dislikes. Sauropods, Stegosaurs, and Ceratopsians should be able to coexist (as in Jurassic World). If there is no canonical basis though, adapting some paleontology would work with what animal shares a niche with. It would be good to have more specific likes and dislikes, but size tiers and clades work well at most. "Small ceratopsians", "large stegosaurids", etc.

[Attractions]

I think it comes to say that a lot of people would agree more Jurassic World-based (and Jurassic Park of course) attractions would be a great series of additions. This extends past the Tyrannosaurus Kingdom and a log viewing area, but more so into structural attractions. This ties into tours (balloons, river boat, helicopter, lagoon) overall. I would like to expand this section more but I feel there is too much and too detailed of topics to cover along with them possibly being too unrealistic (sadly).

[Combat]

More for display over functionality, I feel while combat has greatly improved from last game, there can be some extra animations for combat to give more interesting visuals and variation. Fairly straight forward, but something that feels more dynamic. Not really a needed feature but always a welcome one.

[Future DLC-Packs-Updates]

The biggest topic to cover is future DLC because this include potential and confirmed DLCs and updates. We all know a Dominion DLC will come out and we know something with feeders.

Dominion DLC A prime tier Dominion DLC would be more of a content pack rather than a traditional JWE1 DLC. A whole new Chaos Theory mode (or multiple?), multiple animals, multiple new features, multiple new redesign options, new gameplay elements, etc. This seems likely, at least the first 4. Preferably a "Prologue DLC" would come sooner but if not, Prologue animals would be good for the main Dominion DLC.

List of Animals in mind: Giganotosaurus (Biosyn), Tyrannosaurus (Cretaceous), Moros, Quetzalcoatlus, Dreadnaughtus (redesign), Ankylosaurus (Cretaceous), Oviraptor - - - Therizinosaurus, Lystrosaurus, Dimetrodon, Pyroraptor, Atrociraptor

As for actual content, something storyline related for Chaos Theory would be great as always, but we know very little of how the film will play out 1:1 so we can only speculate.

Other DLC There's multiple other DLC we all can imagine, a Camp Cretaceous one (Smilodon, Monolophosaurus, Ouranosaurus redesign, Scorpios rex, Bioluminescent Parasaurolophus cosmetic) is a commonly mentioned one. Most I can think of is some sort of tree-hotel? Though other commonly mentioned ones are a Cenozoic pack (stemmed from Smilodon's inclusion in CC) and multiple themed packs. I do wish packs or updates will include a good amount of new decoration, customization, and theming outside of just animals, but we'll see.

Animals The most I can wish for new animal DLC or updates outside of the commonly mentioned ones are things for fliers or aquatics, mainly things like turtles, sharks, other icthyosaurs and pliosaurs, etc.

[Conclusion]

[Overview] The Jurassic World Evolution 2 Carcharodontosaurus skull reconstruction. Multiple anatomical features are present here that indicate the true look in flesh (the original design). [Keratin]

The areas of large scales and spikes are highly rugose, indicating those large scales. The neck spines are modified scales, like iguanas. This includes the large cranial spike that is indicated by the rugose bone below but isn't comprised of bone itself since its a modified scale. The keratin structure on the head is more scaled as opposed to being covered by a keratinous layer, like real-world rex. The only time this is broken here is the orbital and lacrimal brows which are more keratin bosses than scales. [Lips]

The original design possesses lips, unlike most other larger theropods in JWE2. Lip structure mainly relies on the oral tissue on the jaw being thicker and allowing teeth to slide in properly, as opposed to being thinner and allowing external overlap. Some ingame theropods have an overbite, where Carcharodontosaurus has enough tissue at the jaw that it allows the teeth to not become an overbite. Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/bastion14/art/Carcharodontosaurus-Skeletal-JWE2-898652337

The London Murders of 1887-1915:

Initial Description:

The London Murders of 1887 to 1915 is a series of mass murders done by one individual. The victims comprise anyone and anything, ranging from urban street animals, children, women, and men. Each attack is described to be carefully planned, with time between each attacks ranging from 1-5 weeks.

The murderer is often described as a well built robust yet fit man with a great deal of anatomical knowledge of any animal, including humans. Their height is often sketched as slightly above average height for a male, being around 1.8 to even 2 meters with a large amount of strength in the upper body. Based off each victims bodies, multiple puncture wounds indicate a large curved dagger or small scythe around 30 to 40 meters in length made from metal with a 2-4 cm diameter of thickness at the base, used for grappling-pull techniques and general killings. A lot of the deep wounds come from the slashing and stabbing of the weapon in vital areas from the skull, neck, chest, stomach, spine, legs, and rarely groin. Each attack varies in amount of deep stabs but tend to be repetative and strong, often have anywhere from 3-7 punctures on mean average.

Based on the location of the body during attacks, the man possessed two of this weapon in each hand with a right-hand preference with an additional four daggers, two each side, creating claw-like marks with two digits. It is often found that there are bite marks across the victims body that resembles more of a canid although lacks any qualities anywhere similar to a dog, being homodontid and having much more teeth and being partially serrated, though this may be a modification to the dogs teeth.

Each victims bodies tend to be partially cannibalized with multiple missing parts that tend to be of more muscular or fleshier areas of the body with occasional bite marks on the bones, likely indicating that the killer himself was cannibalistic or simply let his dogs feed. Corpses often indicate that a great deal of force applied on the side of the body happened in a slapping motion.

Many of the killings have taken place during night, often during times of quiet hours where people are most indoors. At the sites of the murders, witnesses often do not hear or see anything that would indicate the killer's presence. Though people do report hissing-like sounds in moments around the attack, usually an hour before. Though unconfirmed, some reports have shown that a babies cry is used to attract some victims to the site of attack.

An unreliable number of victims are attributed to the killer, but the methodology of killings across locations and times are very similar and tends to progressively change to be more efficient and quicker towards the later years. Killings usually centralized in less active areas of the slums and fluctuated between areas near forests with water sources and the urban areas, with some victims being claimed in or near forests or having implications that the victims were brought there.

Despite the intensive investigation, no identity or actual visual sightings of the killer have ever been made and only suspects were brought up, but all later deconfirmed. Footprints are minimal but when documented do not resemble any normal footprint. The killer was named the Clawed Killer, Scythe-Clawed Killer, and often nicknamed from other popular London murderers or anomalies "Jack the Ripper" and "Springheeled Jack", even though Jack the Ripper and the Scythe-Clawed Killer are likely two completely different individuals.

Very similar killings were reported in the United States in the Western portion of the nation in more recent years from 2007-2011 along with a few victims in the summer months of 2009 in the UK.

2021 Description:

The Scythe-Clawed Killer or any other name has been confirmed to be a Australovenator wintonensis in 2021 through the few witness accounts later reported after the killings and the description of the attacks. The bite marks reported on victims matched perfectly with Australovenator teeth in placement, size, and serrations along with biteforce. The inflicted wounds that were initially reported as knives and a scythe were compared to models of Australovenator wounds inflicted on a test dummy of an ornithschian dinosaur, then later a human, which came to show that the size of the scythe matched the first digit of the hand as the large claw and the other two knives matching with the size of the second and third digits.

The calculated force generated on each victim was similar to the model tests done, and feeding habits closely matched possible areas of preference for feeding on the body. The consistent migration between the nearby forests and slums would indicate the need for a clean water source. The few misshapened and odd footprints sketched too matched the flesh reconstruction of an Australovenator's foot.

The overall behavior would match the predatory behaviors of a dinosaur of similar size to Australovenator, though things to note is the lack of preference for day and night hunting in forests but the preference for hunting in the slums during the night, choice of prey, and time between each kill. It is likely Australovenator waited and stalked prey to accurately strike the victim silently, though it is unconfirmed if the amount of time was because it wasn't hungry or it was stalking prey for hours on end (similar to crocodilians). The babies cry is unknown for the source.

Based on 𝕎-𝔸 𝕎𝕠𝕣𝕜𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕡's/jimmadseni challenge #DinosThroughTheDecades. Nanuqsaurus despite its fragmentary nature has had a long history of what interpretations have been accepted.

Deviantart- https://www.deviantart.com/bastion14/art/Nanuqsaurus-Through-The-Decades-894578856?ga_submit_new=10%3A1633982548

Tumblr Reconstruction Guide- https://bastion14.tumblr.com/post/654036333730414592/reconstructing-nanuqsaurus-hoglundi

Artstation- https://www.artstation.com/artwork/R3bVrv

2000-2014 is based off of Fiorillo et al., 2000, in where only teeth were found and wasn't yet named until 2014. Originally it was classified as an Albertosaurine. Many interpretations such as the Walking With Dinosaurs 3D one lumped the teeth into Gorgosaurus or Albertosaurus.

2014-2020 is based off of Fiorillio & Tykoski, 2014. Fragmentary material was found and it was placed as a more derived member of Tyrannosauridae. The depiction here is based off of the trope of the Polar Bear Nanuqsaurus where it is overly feathered and depicted as a "dwarf tyrannosaurid"

2020-Present is based off of Voris et al., 2020 and Druckenmiller et al., 2021 where it is first placed basal to the Tyrannosaurini-Daspletosaurini lineage (but more derived than Teratophoneus and co) giving it the more Daspletosaurid look and, then it is upsized in the latter paper to be closer to Albertosaurines. This breaks the dwarf polar bear trope.

Other depictions can include other forms of Albertosaurine, lipless, featherless, or more feathered interpretations which can be found between each era.

Deinovenator nychusi (Terrible/terrorizing clawed hunter) is a large theropod of Megaraptora ancestory, possessing a height ranging from 2-2.4 meters, massive claws that outsize any other Megaraptorans proportionately, and a mixture of light fuzz and quills. Its large size allows it to take down even large armored herbivores such as Triceratops. It is rumored for their bite to be venomous to some degree, although this is unconfirmed. Their teeth though are extremely large, even with their lips, possessing pseudo-fangs.. Their claws act as grappling hooks that stab into prey and can be used to restrain or pull prey closer to Deinovenator. Alternatively, the claws can be used as a method for stabbing prey in vital areas, climbing prey, or to slice. They are often found in the plains and savanna biomes alongside other large prey items. While they aren't fast, they can run for very long distances.

Deinovenator is not set to release for a Minecraft mod as of now, but is more of a design test to try out a style of asset-making that a person online inspired this. The overall creature design is inspired off of Megaraptorans.

DevLog 1 - (11/30/20)

Development Report!

Much of this week was a bunch of testing to see if some things work, some things don't, etc. Few things have been accomplished this week. The finishing of Gigantopithecus's model and texture, implementation of multiple mobs, and some future planning.

On the 27th, Gigantopithecus was completed after being dormant in the outline concept stage. Basing off of hypothetical, realistic proportions and patterns (other than size), it is as accurate in terms of model (still being too big, though that's debatable). Gigantopithecus's concept is to be a very rare mob, solitary, and massive. Purpose of Gigantopithecus has not been decided, but will not be one of those "panda" mobs.

Other development happened through programming for once. An updated Chimpanzee, Saltwater Crocodile, Cassowary, Gigantopithecus, and a secret mob have been implemented. All of which are very basic in terms of AI. Though a few things have been learned, such as swimming AI for the Crocodilian. The secret mob though, is a testmob. If you are in other Discords, you may know it's the Prehistoric Kingdom Tyrannosaurus. Other than visually looking cool, it serves as a random testmob to apply random code to, to see if it works. This may be kept in as an Easteregg or deleted later-on.

Also, next update will be for 1.17, 1.16 is not worth it to release since it'll be outdated by the time it's out anyways.

That is this report of the recent development

DevLog 2 - (12/20/20)

Short Development Report for this week!~

Much of this time was mostly spent debugging stuff, after porting to 1.16.4 from 1.16.1. Earlier on, lots of fixes were made to have this happen, though with the expense of some code outdated and having to be entirely replaced or removed. This won't affect the final project, but porting is insanely tough. Main reason to do this was to have functional registration of Crocodile attacking, which in the end, still doesn't work (though has been found to have an easy fix, so should be good soon).

Along with that, some new things are... new!~ Capuchin Monkeys are the newest showcased mob. Small primates that function in groups and are relatively common, and well known for their status in pop-culture regarding primates in general, Capuchins would be common to see in the Jungle. Their final behavior in their functionality hasn't been decided, but they will function as an ambient+pet+functionality mob (though avoiding any similar Capuchins from other mods). Regarding that, the design also might be subject to change due to similarities to others of the same species. Either

A. The Model itself will be more proportional (with the loss of detail seen now), but the gaining of accurate proportions and size

B. A Species change, with the model being kept.

Now the design might be kept entirely, keeping the current basis of the species decided, though it is in consideration.

Also a small revamp to the roadmap and things to appear in the future has been changed, though that'll be released later! Hope you enjoyed this Development Report for the last few weeks! (stuff regarding release mobs, release content, etc)

Weekly DevLog 3 - (6/28/21)

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NxD4Ab

After some prolonged hiatus for both #jungle-talk and #simplijurassic, I will be resuming the development of both mods, even if for a short while programming won't be present with instead new or revised assets.

A few changes will come forth for both mods in terms of plans and specific concepts (once again...), some assets of both will be revised. Things, such as the Saltwater Crocodile or *Tyrannosaurus rex* will be overhauled, to name a few. Other things such as concepts will be slightly altered while keeping the original image and vision of both. Into the Jungle will keep it's focus on Jungle improvement and survival, with adding some real world concepts into it, but the restriction of only real-world creatures will drop, with some possibility of more "fantasy" Minecraft-Styled mobs mixed with the rest of the animals. Even though this was somewhat present to an extant with the Jungle variants of the Zombies, Creepers, Skeletons, and the *Gigantopthecus*, less restriction will be new.

For SimpliJurassic, a few concepts will change. Instead of focusing on the original trilogy, a mixture of both the original and new trilogy will be introduced, as seen with the Battle at Big Rock animals. While designs make lean towards one or the other with variants being held off for some time, the updates will instead focus on adding creatures of importance over creatures chronologically. Essentially, *Memenchisaurus* is a lot less likely to appear in the first few updates regarding the trilogy, and instead things such as the Indominus rex will come a lot sooner than it being further down the road.

I hope these changes and updates are pleasing to those. I very hopefully aim to keep this hiatus trend I have with these mods a lot less prevalent and impactful on development, instead hoping to learn new things and make new progress at least weekly, obviously if time is on my hands.

Hope everyone enjoyed this update! Stay tuned for some new content :wink:

Weekly Devlog 4 - (7/5/21)

The past week has mainly been focusing on creating some important assets for #simplijurassic, mainly some block, item, and mob textures/models, and some reorganization of the code structure. Today's highlight for one of the new features will include *Velociraptor*!

While not yet time to showcase, multiple block textures have been reworked, such as the *Analyzer* and *Cultivator*, with some rework of the general concepts, building off for a more complete and set roadmap and ideas in mind for the objective of **SimpliJurassic**. Other forms of assets, such as items have also been reworked, including the DNA items. Rather than vial-like items, DNA material will now use the water bottle texture with a DNA Icon to give use to the already ingame glass bottles. Other reworks are planned, especially on some of the mobs. Some new additions, mainly mobs, are also planned. There *might* be an additional species profile that may include a few beloved Hybrids.

Species Profile

For this species profile, we are focusing on ***Velociraptor***. This medium sized dromaeosaur is planned to be one of the more complex mobs ingame, with the ability to crowd and stick in a pack, climb blocks, and open doors, with multiple variants set to appear in the future. *Velociraptor* can be a dangerous mob to clone, with them having the ability to outsmart certain enclosure designs and needing special enclosures to prevent them from escaping, if you plan to have them in enclosures. They too are aggressive, likely attacking any player that gets too close.

SimpliJurassic will aim to implement in a fair portrayal, not being too complex in programming but having enough behaviors to not be stale, such as with the door interaction, aggression, packing, climbing, and two attacks if possible. Though, time will tell.

Hope everyone enjoyed this current report for this week's Development. This week will have some extra species showcases if time is on my hands.

Enjoy your week!

Weekly Devlog 5 - (7/23/21)

The past (few) weeks have been mainly focusing on the concepting process of SimpliJurassic and Into the Jungle, along with some asset creation and modification for SimpliJurassic.

Most concepts made are written concepts, as opposed to asset concepts. Much of the new end-game features planned eventually in the mod's development are being made and refined, such as the **Cloning Process**. I want SimpliJurassic to be simple rather than overcomplicated when it comes to cloning.

As of now, a few concepts exist for the stuff required for cloning. The main blocks are; Analyzer, Cultivator, Incubation, and optionally Gene Modification. Although while not final, the process mainly goes in order for the first 3 mentioned. Gene Modification though, such as hybridization or variants (which genetic variants may not be implemented, instead going for random variation) would realistically come after the Analyzing process.

Another new concept are **Fossil finding**, which mainly includes era-specific amber ore spawning at separate layers, such as **Triassic/Jurassic/Cretaceous** Amber Ore. I won't reveal much of the concept, since I would prefer to not reveal too much details that may or may not make it into the game.

For **Into the Jungle**, the previously mentioned "straying away from reality to make a more Minecraft-vanilla experience with both modern and fantasy creatures" concept is being taken. Although like again, that was mainly the original plan all the way to the mod's creation (with it being a Planet of the Apes dimension mod), I would like to add the fact that that is what the mod is going to be. I again can't reveal too many details and concepts for now, plus I'm wanting to focus on SimpliJurassic for the time being.

Species Profile

And for today's Species Profile, today we are introducing ***Tyrannosaurus rex***! A redesign of *Tyrannosaurus* was made, both a model and texture aiming to be more accurate to the in-film "Rexy" or "Roberta" coloration. *Tyrannosaurus* has some concepts in mind, mainly it being territorial to other theropods and aggressive to players. Not much has been made for the concepts for *Tyrannosaurus* other than these, it's drops, and ontogeny models (Hatchling-Adult), though it would be an animal that shouldn't be messed with at all.

Hope everyone enjoyed this week's DevLog, and stay tuned for later!

Weekly Devlog 6 - (8/18/21)

While a "bit" late when it comes to Devlog, the last few weeks have been fairly busy personally (mainly managing things before school begins, other science and art projects, etc), a few concepts have been made for both mods. When it comes to assets, not much has been made. Although when things for personal projects resolve, I can continue back with some new revamped assets. This will exclude a species profile or journal guide for this week. (Although these guides aren't restricted to DevLog postings only, so whenever)

**SimpliJurassic**:

Some may be questioning what animals are going to be included into the mod at which time and generally. What is going to be initially focused on for the first few updates with new animals will feature the more prominent and popular canonical creatures. This generally includes things from the first film and new trilogy (as seen with the Jurassic Park *Tyrannosaurus* and *Velociraptor* designs along with Battle at Big Rock *Allosaurus* and *Nasutoceratops*). Less canonical or important animals, such as *Corythosaurus*, *Memenchisaurus* will be held off later. Although all of the canon animals will most likely be implemented before any of the non-canonical (or soft-canonical) animals are implemented. This would include game+toy creatures. Trying to maintain focus on important animals is needed.

**Into the Jungle**:

Into the Jungle with its more fictional and reality mixed setting are now going to feature jungle enemies that are unique beyond the Jungle variants of both the Creeper and Zombie. What these enemies are going to be will mostly be kept a secret for now, although one of the enemies in mind is a Gorilla-like hostile.

To confirm, other real-world animals will stay ingame, such as the Great Apes, Capuchuin, Kakapo, Kiwi, Cassowary, *Gigantopithecus*, the Saltwater Crocodile, among others. While not currently in mind to add all of them upon the same update, most of them are likely to appear whenever the mod is set to release if things go smoothly. Though some assets of these animals such as the crocodile, *Gigantopithecus*, Kakapo, and Kiwi are set to be redesigned (the latter two mainly to update from old to new styles).

Concepts relating to the jungle itself besides the trees (Banana, Palm, potentially Kapok) haven't yet refined. Feel free to create ideaas in #jungle-talk if needed.

Thank you for reading this DevLog for this week, although bit delayed and lackluster, I hope there was something to learn!

Species Profile - (9/5/21)

Introducing Baryonyx! An aggressive yet mostly unique medium sized predator known for hunting both aquatic and terrestrial prey. It is a highly aggressive and mobile animal, often being very territorial and attacking any animal near it in defense. When enabled to naturally spawn, you can expect to find it in swamps, beaches, or near rivers. It is well known for its crocodilian-like integument that allows for higher protection.

Species Profile - (9/18/21)

Say hello to our first herbivore profile, *Gallimimus*. This fast yet large orninthomimid is well known for its speed and agility, having the ability to outrun most mobs. Despite it's thin and "weak" appearance, *Gallimimus* is a force to be reckoned with. Much like the real-world Canadian Goose, it can be highly territorial to things of smaller or larger size that are least likely to kill it. This occasional territorial aggression will cause some theropods to avoid hunting it, if speed was not an issue. Unlike some other herbivores, *Gallimimus* is more omnivorous, it may occasionally kill very small mobs and accept meats, despite it preferring plants. If wild, *Gallimimus* is expected to live in open areas like Plains or Savannas.

Developer note: If cosmetics ever come to be a thing in the far future, *Gallimimus* will lack them for the time being. Although natural texture variants will appear much sooner.

Weekly DevLog 7 - (9/20/21)

Not a lot of work but many concepts have been increasingly being fleshed out as time goes on. Whenever concepts are near complete, programming will begin. As always, a programming position is open.

For **SimpliJurassic** especially this holds true. The roster for animals has been refined to be more realistic upon release. Like previously stated, it will focus more on important animals to the franchise initially, mainly the animals from recent films like Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

One concept that has been refined many times to be more realistic for the game is cosmetics and variants. Variants simply are skin variation that may naturally spawn when cloning an animal, a simple line of code. Variants will be determined by texture files of canonical or non-canonical skins that aims to add more variety, such as the Jurassic Park 1 and Doe *Tyrannosaurus*, Camp Cretaceous *Baryonyx*, or Jurassic Park 1 and The Lost World female *Velociraptors*.

Cosmetics though is obviously very likely to be difficult in execution. It's implementation would realistically be later down the line, but a lot Cosmetics are like skin variations but naturally not accessible. This would include ***possible*** Cretaceous variants, Jurassic Park 3 *Velociraptor*, or other possible modifications. Cosmetics would be done similarly to the hybridization process, combining a genome of the base animal (represented as an item) and the cosmetic genome (also as an item) inside of the machine. Though cosmetics would realistically be a very tricky and potentially advanced concept to deal with, so I do not imply it's existence right away but hopefully eventually.

To repeat past mistakes, I'll try to keep things more simple initially and have more complicated concepts not be a priority and focus more on the baseline concepts (paleontology, the base cloning process) first.

Species Profile

[Overview]

(Coming Soon- Finished Personal Reconstruction of a Gigantopithecus male, in replacement of Skeletal front page which is outdated (refer to Skull Anatomy))

Gigantopithecus blacki (Black's Giant Ape) [von Koenigswald, 1935] is the largest known ape and generally primate to exist, although many mysteries surround it for what it looks like and how it was in life. Some of these aspects of Gigantopithecus require some filling in of details with speculation from what is known and from extant and extinct relatives. For a lot of the things that will be discussed here, there is a lot of room for speculation and other forms of decision.

In this post, we will cover multiple topics in order: Phylogenetics, skeletal anatomy, size, skull anatomy, soft tissue, musculature, posture, mobility, integument, coloration, diet, social behavior, and sexual dimorphism. Most of these sections will be accompanied by charts that represent the topics, reference images, and examples.

[Disclaimer]

As with my Nanuqsaurus post, Gigantopithecus is insanely fragmentary and much of it is open to interpretation. Some of the information here isn’t set in stone since Paleontology is an evolving field with new discoveries. Information may be eventually outdated and updated, though if anything is outdated, wrong, or not clear, feel free to point out these mistakes, this includes citations. This page will be actively updated.

People also have different interpretations of Gigantopithecus reconstructions and this page aims to help describe the core features that Gigantopithecus likely had while toying around with speculative structures, alternate hypotheses, etc in some sections.

Also as of initially publishing this, some things may be somewhat incomplete. Sections regarding the Ecology and Range of Gigantopithecus are for now missing mainly because it isn’t a high priority and some charts might be missing. This will be added later.

[Phylogenetics]

(Phylogenetic Chart(s))

Ponginae (10-15 mya split)

>Gigantopithecus (10.14 mya split, lived 2-0.3 mya)

>>Lufengpithecus (lived 6.2 mya)

>>>Ankarapithecus (lived 5-7 mya)

>>>>Sivapithecus (lived 12.5 to 8.5 mya)

>>>>Pongo

The relationship between Gigantopithecus and other primates regarding how close they are related is one of the important things to think of when reconstructing the ape, as it would be impactful to a degree to take into consideration closely related species. Throughout history, there has been debate where it should be placed. It originally was viewed as a hominid, closer to us than other primates, although that would be disproved (Broom, 1939). What would be found is that Gigantopithecus would fall under the Pongidae family, the lineage that includes the current three species of Orangutan. Ponginae overall has multiple extinct members and clades, Pongini, Sivapithecini, and Lufengpithini. The current findings indicate Gigantopithecus being more basal in the Pongine lineage, closer to Sivapithecus and Lufengpithicus. It is more specifically classified as a basal offshoot in the overall lineage (Zhang & Harrison, 2017).

Because Gigantopithecus is fairly basal in the Ponginae lineage, a lot of traits would be impacted from where it is placed. If it were directly sister to Orangutan with a more recent ancestral split, the “overgrown Orangutan” “paleomeme” would be more fair, although Gigantopithecus is fairly distant from Orangutans. Gorillas split from us the same amount of time ago as Gigantopithecus split from Orangutans (Welker et al., 2019).

“This results in a divergence time of Gigantopithecus–Pongo of 10.14 Mya (4.76-15.79 Mya, 95% HPD interval). The divergence of Gorilla from the Homo/Pan branch is estimated at 8.59 Mya (4.62-13.56 Mya, 95% HPD interval), and the divergence of Homo and Pan at 5.78 Mya (2.64-9.53 Mya, 95% HPD interval). These are largely consistent with, but somewhat younger than, previous estimates52,54, possibly due to a mutation slowdown on these lineages compared to the Pongo lineage, which is not taken into account here. However, they seem in agreement with the fossil record indicating the origin of hominins around 6-8 Mya and the dating of a possible early Gorillini (Chororapithecus) around 7-9 Mya54-58.” (Welker et al., 2019).

Gigantopithecus itself would’ve likely been more derived in its own lineage for how far it lived into the Pleistocene to when it split from the Pongine lineage. What will be covered soon in [Skeletal Anatomy], a lot of the anatomical traits Gigantopithecus had would be different and similar to many extant apes and the phylogenetic classification should be taken into consideration when reconstructing this great ape.

Note - (Welker et al., 2019) is a great source of information regarding the placement of Gigantopithecus and dives into very technical explanations which can’t be easily covered here. Feel free to give the paper a read to understand the actual reasoning behind the placement.

[Skeletal Anatomy]

(Coming soon - Chart of different body interpretations)

One heavily debated aspect of Gigantopithecus is the sort of body structure it possesses. Many reconstructions imply a more Pongine look with the long forelimbs and shortened hindlimbs, while some imply more even and equally proportioned limbs more of a Gorilla. When looking at Gigantopithecus, it is easy to take from the absolute size of the animal, even if you go with lower estimates (covered in the size section), it still outweighs the largest Gorilla species Gorilla beringei graueri (Eastern Lowland Gorilla) in mass at an male adult size of 170 kg. Combined with the fact that the diet of Gigantopithecus includes mainly ground plants (covered in the diet section), there is no doubt that the animal is terrestrial when fully grown (Zhang & Harrison, 2017). Though it being terrestrial would affect the proportions of the limbs and robustness. Arboreal animals tend to have adaptations that allow them to be more suited for their lifestyle. Orangutans spend much of their lives in the trees and have heavily disproportionate limbs, long arms and short legs. While Orangutans may be the closest living relative to Gigantopithecus, it would be overall better to take into consideration Gigantopithecus’ differences from it. Being intensely terrestrial would have arm to leg proportions more similar to a Gorilla. Considerably built and near-equal in length. For actual proportional length to torso for if the limbs were longer or shorter, there as always isn’t a true answer, though it would be most likely for the limbs to be at least the proportions of a Chimpanzee, as Gigantopithecus evolved from insanely arboreal ancestors in the Pongine lineage. The limbs being short proportionately generally wouldn’t do any good for what Gigantopithecus generally ate since it was eating foods that were close to the ground and at head level.

For overall frame such as shoulder and torso width, great apes tend to have large bodies, though they vary in width and proportions. Gorillas have larger and wide shoulders and large hips (Zihlman et al., 2011), while others tend to have narrower shoulders or hips. This correlates to the overall mobility of the animal, as Gorillas are more robust to adapt to their more terrestrial lifestyle and mobility, while Orangutans and Chimpanzees are built the way they are mainly for arboreal adaptations. Gigantopithecus probably had something more in line between a Gorilla and Orangutan build, although likely leaning to Gorillas. Larger shoulders and hips are generally better for a terrestrial lifestyle since there isn’t an evolutionary push for an orangutan build. Though this comes to say that with where Gigantopithecus is placed in classification as covered in [Phylogenetics], it is safe to conclude that while there would be some convergent traits and shared traits between the great apes Gigantopithecus would stand out differently drastically. Most of its anatomy would be adapted for what it ate, what it had to deal with in life, sexual dimorphism, and its terrestrial adaptations. When reconstructed in flesh, Gigantopithecus would be noticeably distinct and this should be done when reconstructing it. While stylistically in a fictional sense creative liberties can be taken if wanted, scientifically it shouldn’t just be an overgrown Orangutan, but inspiration can be taken from Orangutans.

[Size]

(Coming soon - Size Charts of minimum, conservative, maximum sizes)

One of the more controversial topics regarding Gigantopithecus, many options are available for size. Many people tend to downsize Gigantopithecus to an extreme and many people upsize it to an extreme. It is difficult to pinpoint which size Gigantopithecus would’ve had because of the lack of material outside of teeth and mandibles. It depends on the scaling of the mandible to the skull along with the scaling depending on what proportions are being used. Multiple estimates use certain models for either Gorillas or Orangutans in which both drastically differ in frame and will yield different results, though as discussed before, the frame Gigantopithecus would’ve had would be different from both.

The different sizes gathered range from 204 kg (Zhang & Harrison, 2017), 280kg (Zhang & Harrison, 2017), to 300 kg (Fleagle, 2013), Though directly quoted by the 2017 Zhang & Harrison paper, “Without postcranial remains it is simply not possible to obtain a reliable estimate of the body mass for G. blacki, but 200–300 kg does seem like a reasonable guide” (Zhang & Harrison, 2017). The paper goes on to say that the size would restrict any arboreal behaviors as discussed in [Skeletal Anatomy], though reliable size estimations can really only be gathered by postcrania since measurements based off mandibles and teeth can lead to improper results purely because of proportions. It is important to consider proportions of the primate of head to body, limbs to body, etc. A smaller head to body ratio would lead to a much larger primate, while a larger head would lead to a smaller primate, with this being amplified through measurement estimations based off Orangutans and Gorilla skeletons. Alternatively, limb proportions would also change. Longer limbs would mainly change the height of the estimations and only contribute very little to overall mass, though dimensional size is important to consider in some cases, especially for size charts.

“Without postcranial remains it is simply not possible to obtain a reliable estimate of the body mass for G. blacki, but 200–300 kg does seem like a reasonable guide. Such a size (which overlaps with the upper end of the body mass range for extant male gorillas) may have precluded or greatly restricted arboreal behaviors in G. blacki, but once again postcranial remains are needed in order to determine its inferred locomotor repertoire” (Zhang & Harrison, 2017).

[Skull Anatomy]

Disclaimer- This skeletal is slightly out of date, some aspects will soon be changed of it (lineart smoothing, orbit size, side information)

Another debated aspect of Gigantopithecus is the facial and skull structure, mainly the robustness of the skull and the overall skeletal and soft-tissue structure of the entire skull. What is important to consider is the type of diet Gigantopithecus had (which is covered in the diets section), the size and body proportions, and the phylogenetics in relation to other close species. Facial anatomy tends to vary in ape species. Things like cheekbone width and size, sagittal crest size, how prominent the brow ridge is, size of the face in relation to the braincase (essentially, how much of the front of the face is forehead), orbit size, etc.

Gigantopithecus is well known for being primarily herbivorous, chewing tough fibrous plants such as grasses, low lying plantlife, fruits, and other low plantlife (as covered in diet). The thickness of the maxilla can be found from getting the proportional thickness of any of the four mandible pieces we have. The actual robustness of the skull can be compared to both Orangutans and Gorillas. Gorillas somewhat have a similar niche, being megafaunal terrestrial herbivores and eating similar things, mainly roots and leaves, Gigantopithecus has the same overlap with their diet. Tougher plants in diets tend to select for more robust facial features to allow for more musculature for the jaw. Primates have this very prominently, the aforementioned Gorillas and multiple species of non-ape primates also have robust jaws along with Orangutans. Larger cheekbones, overall a robust facial structure, and potentially large sagittal crests would help to accomplish the stronger bite force (Balolia et al., 2017). Sagittal crests would mainly be more prominent in males than females, mainly jaw clamping and bite force would be the functional use. The existence of sagittal crests have been linked with cranial growth and individual male success, with the crests being sexually dimorphic (Balolia et al., 2017). With the reduction of canines in males indicating lower use of canine display in male-male combat (Zhang & Harrison, 2017), bite force can likely be used as a substitution against other individuals to inflict damage. This works overall as a dietary advantage for eating tough foods, like fruits and tough plantlife, and as a general defensive function against predators if needed. Though with the existence of a large sagittal crest, this would amplify the temporal muscle size (Balolia et al., 2017). The actual size of the crests would be fairly large proportionately, since larger cranial sizes correlate with sagittal crest size. Gigantopithecus with their large skulls and for males would especially have this, especially for large males (Balolia et al., 2017). The topic of sagittal crests is further covered in the [Dimorphism] for speculative comparisons between male and females.

With all of this in mind, Gigantopithecus' face would’ve been very robust in adaptation to what it was eating and size. Other things to consider is orbit size and while it may not fully impact external anatomy, it does still have an impact.

[Non-Musculature Soft Tissue]

Non-musculature soft tissue includes things like cheek flanges and throat pouches. While self explanatory, both structures are purely hypothetical when it comes to Gigantopithecus. The closest confirmed relatives that have this sort of structure are obviously the 3 Orangutans. Cheek flanges are dimorphic between both sexes with females lacking them and older males having them. Throat pouches exist between both genders and usually are for sound amplification and production (Utami, 2002). Since there was extreme dimorphism and competition between Gigantopithecus individuals, it would be safe to assume that there might’ve been some sort of structure, although this again is speculation with some reasonable basis. If the cheek flanges hypothesis is going to be done on Gigantopithecus, they likely would’ve had them more reduced or modified compared to Orangutans, likely more thicker, rounder, etc.

[Musculature, Posture, and Mobility]

Gigantopithecus musculature would be like that of most other great apes. The important thing to take into account for musculature is how terrestrial Gigantopithecus was, and since Gigantopithecus has been concluded as being extremely terrestrial as opposed to being arboreal like Orangutans, musculature will likely differ from what would be normally expected from arboreal apes. While muscle groups would be most similar in structure to Orangutans, distribution would mostly likely be like Gorillas. Gorillas have higher hindlimb muscle composition compared to their forelimbs, while Orangutans are the opposite for different reasons. Gorillas bear much of their weight constantly on the ground being terrestrial creatures (while also being occasionally arboreal). Orangutans spend most of their times living an arboreal life, lifting their body weight up mainly with their arms (Zihlman et al., 2011).

The rest of this section will be written and covered later.

[Integument]

Existence of hair on Gigantopithecus is not up for debate, it does exist on it. Though the main question is the length and distribution of hair on Gigantopithecus. Many other primates, as in almost all, tend to lack hair around their faces, hands, feet, and occasionally their back thighs and chests. Multiple primates and especially Orangutans possess beard and mustache hair structures. As discussed in [Social Behavior and Dimorphism], beards and mustaches is often used as a sign of maturity, especially in males. It is impossible to rule out the existence of such facial hair structures as it is still highly unknown what Gigantopithecus would’ve had, although it is likely that it did appear.

Other forms of hair “display” or functionality structures are common, such as a hypothetical sort of “mane” around the head, which some primates do feature. What would’ve been likely to appear in life is the existence of long hair on the arms and legs, and potentially sides of the torso. Orangutans and Gorillas often have this shaggy hair structure on their lower half of their bodies, which is too also entirely plausible for Gigantopithecus.

Though what would be highly unlikely is a low amount of hair coverage, like elephants or humans on Gigantopithecus. The notion that Gigantopithecus should be mostly hairless or hairless which has been spread around recently is mainly from the reconstruction mentality of Archosaurs. Many of these arguments applied onto Gigantopithecus are the same arguments that work for animal groups like Dinosauria as a whole. Mammals should be treated differently compared to Archosaurs when it comes to reconstructions. The other issue that comes into play even for mammals is size. As discussed in the [Size] chapter, even the largest possible size estimation would still do very little to impacting fur distribution as many mammals of that size still possess a fair bit of hair. To conclude, Gigantopithecus despite its size would’ve maintained a similar or the same amount of hair density and thickness as whatever is being modeled, from Orangutans, to Gorillas, to Chimpanzees.

[Coloration]

The coloration debate is as always with any animal we don’t have any preservation or records for. We can really only infer based on habitat, ecology, and anatomy. Animals that tend to live in tropical environments, like Gigantopithecus, have more varied coloration. Plenty of non-avian reptilians, aves, mammalians, amphibians all are often varied for different reasons. Primates too are often varied. Animals like Orangutans have orange coloration mainly for camouflage and a result of how their skin absorbs color. Orangutans tend to live in canopy trees and reside in more brown surroundings, like peat-colored landscapes, dead leaves, branches, etc. It is important to consider that both non-human mostly terrestrial apes, Gorillas and Chimpanzees, have black fur. This too mostly comes in use for camouflage blending in the forest floor.

Because Gigantopithecus is a terrestrial species with limited arboreality, it would be safe to infer that it had coloration more suited for a forest floor ecosystem. Darker coloration on the body fur, probably some countershade, etc.

Though coloration will always remain a debate and up for speculation, especially considering potential patches of display, like lightened shoulder fur being white. It is highly important to consider the habitat of Gigantopithecus so anything that would help for forest camouflage would be beneficial to survival.

[Ecology]

This section is a Work in Progress, it will feature its ecological role and the range of where it lived.

[Diet]

The diet of Gigantopithecus is probably one of the most well understood things about the animal. With the huge collection of teeth, mandibles, and analysis and research of both. Multiple recent studies have shown that mainly leaves and occasionally fruits, overall C3 plants comprise their diet. For fruits, some indication exists for a partially fruit diet due to a Gigantopithecus population and some dissolving of enamel on found teeth. Their large and robust jaws would’ve helped to come into use for chewing through harder or more fibrous foods, a lot of which would include ground-plants like roots, stems, leaves, and grasses, especially for Bamboo. While Gigantopithecus was not strictly an eater of bamboo as originally implied, it did comprise of their diet to a significant degree. Overall, they would’ve been generalists with their food options more similar to Chimpanzees (Zhang & Harrison, 2017; Bocherens et al 2017 ).

Over the course of the Pleistocene, multiple events for forests expanding and shrinking occurred. This would directly impact Gigantopithecus feeding habits to adapt to the moment, with some evidence focusing on higher fruit consumption at certain periods of their existence.

As for meat consumption, nothing for full proof exists for the consumption of meat sources. Although what can be inferred from other primates is that insects like termites would have provided some supplementary substances when needed for extra protein. Gorillas and Orangutans often engage in termite-eating behavior despite being mainly herbivorous, Gorillas more-so herbivorous. Though carnivory of larger vertebrates or vertebrates would’ve been very low. Gorillas rarely engage in the consumption of small vertebrates like rodents compared to their termite behavior, while active hunting is practically non-existent and same goes for scavenging. Gigantopithecus would’ve likely fell into the same category and with intensive research on their diets through teeth examination and isotopic analysis, nothing comes back for intensive meat consumption. Though it is fair to speculate that very rare scavenging would’ve occurred in times in need.

To add to overall feeding behavior, tool usage would’ve likely appeared multiple times. Tool usage is a common behavior to many primates, especially great apes. As discussed with termites, “fishing” would’ve likely been used where a stick is used to gather termites and ants from bark, mounds, etc. Other tools probably came into play as well such as using rocks to smash open nuts as with Gorillas (Breuer et al., 2005). Orangutans too have been observed many times with tool use behavior as well, and tool usage tends to be very useful for diets.

[Social Behavior and Dimorphism]

(Coming soon - Size Chart of Male and Female Comparison)

The social behavior of Gigantopithecus has been debated for and against for how social the animal was in life, if it were like Orangutans with being solitary and territorial, Gorillas travelling in a male-dominated group, or Chimpanzees in a hierarchical tribe. What is true is that sexual dimorphism in Gigantopithecus exists, but enlarged canines were likely not part of the dimorphism, suggesting low usage of them in intraspecific fights and threat display (Zhang & Harrison, 2017). Likely, there would’ve been other locations for possible display dimorphic features. While what exactly is unknown, it could likely boil down to possible fur coloration, fur length, prevalence of soft tissue, a behavioral display, sagittal crests, or muscular tissue. For many animals when it comes to this, it is hard to pinpoint what exactly would be the case. Though as for primates most times it does go for the things listed. Gorillas often use physical strength against eachother while Orangutans as well but with the addition of cheek flanges to signal maturity and Chimpanzees mainly differ in size and hierarchical status. It can be speculated (within reason at least) that Gignatopithecus can use any means of methods for dimorphism, though a direct copy-paste from Orangutans would be somewhat unlikely due to how highly variable primates can be as discussed in [Non-Musculature Soft Tissue].

There is an intense size difference between both males and females based off mandible sizes and what was described as both. Male mandibles and female mandibles (III and I) differ in size with the male mandible being 40% larger (Zhang & Harrison, 2017).

Males probably were more solitary than females or at least preferred to avoid other males by having territories to themselves, as with Gorillas, Orangutans, and Chimpanzees. Such dimorphic differences would indicate the male-male competition previously mentioned with the size difference (Zhang & Harrison, 2017). For actual societal structure many things still remain a mystery. We can’t conclude if there were tribes with a leading female, female-only tribes, or all were solitary. With how different each primate is in behavior, there can be a lot of variation and differences in Gigantopithecus from other primates.

(Coming soon - Sagittal crest variation in males)

To quickly cover the concept of sagittal crests, “(sagittal) cresting in primates has been traditionally linked with the need for larger‐bodied individuals to have sufficient attachment area for the temporalis muscle (Ashton & Zuckerman, 1956; Robinson, 1958; Holloway, 1962; Hofer, 1974). The reasoning is that because increases in the size of the braincase do not keep pace with increases in body size, there would not be enough space for the temporalis muscle in larger‐bodied individuals without the additional surface area provided by sagittal crests (Robinson, 1958; Hofer, 1974) ... (the) presence of a sagittal crest increases the height of both the frontal and lateral profile of the head, and recent behavioural research suggests that the sagittal crest in G. g. gorilla males is associated with male reproductive success. Caillaud et al. (2008) found a positive relationship in breeding silverbacks between male sagittal crest size (measured as size of the adipose hump, using photographs of head profiles) and the number of females associated with that male” (Balolia et al., 2017). The role of sagittal crests would’ve played a large role in sexual dimorphism, especially in competition. Variation between males would be as described, indicating the male-male competition and reproductive success.

[Conclusion]

Gigantopithecus is overall a mysterious fossil animal. Many of it remains a secret purely because of the lack of reliable information, that being skeletal remains. Though despite its fragmentary nature, much of it can be inferred from other relatives and primates, though this has to be taken seriously to consider certain traits of the primate. It’s unreliable to directly copy off of a primate 1:1, and it is also a problem just adding random traits with little justification, some things have to have a reasoning rather than just slapping on a feature (or removing) with little justification. This will occasionally result in diving into these topics and researching them to understand.

Though I do hope many of you have learned from this reconstruction guide and found it informational. Many things of this gigantic ape is up to how you view and see it. Have fun with it.

Thanks for reading, and as always, feel free to contact or respond to this to correct, add, modify, or remove anything and what specifically. Have a great day.

[Updates]

10/10/21 - Published

DevLog 8

With concepts being completely finalized, a competent roadmap being finalized, and assets still being made for the future, SimpliJurassic is moving out of its concept stages and hopefully sometime will begin its programming stage. Some testing for programming has been made for some specific items, one of which will be covered later.

We last covered cosmetics and variants and now we'll cover AI and mob behaviors. Like previously mentioned, behaviors will not be insanely complex at least initially. A lot of it will be more based on aggression, prey preferences for predators, some unique abilities (climbing, spitting, jumping high, etc), among other things. These tend to be more simple variables rather than overly complex behaviors. For more complex behaviors like grouping, hunting timing, etc are planned but will come later. Though many mobs exhibit these behaviors already (fishes with grouping, timed hunting for Axotols, etc) which will make implementing them easier, but the focus remains on the core and basic behaviors that are simple enough to deal with upon pre-release and release but not repetitive enough that mobs come off as the same thing. Core behaviors will have higher priority.

Things like aggression tie into the previous statement. Some forms of aggression will only happen in some sort of radius, some only if provoked, some always, some never, and some if a specific event is triggered (being near a baby, etc).

This ties into as well for Into The Jungle. Many of the mobs will feature core behaviors while more complex ones will come much later, most notably grouping and efficient climbing in primates and more complex behaviors like primate-player trading. Both mods are fairly intertwined in the context of behaviors.

Species Profile

For today's species profile, we are featuring the first large herbivore, and a chubby one too! Sinoceratops. This species of ceratopsian is a fairly strong and resilient simple herbivore, able to fend off multiple species of medium carnivores. Despite its more ferocious look with its large frill horns and its large thick nasal horn, it is one of the more docile animals for its size, being entirely peaceful around players and other herbivores, even some small carnivores, if not provoked. It is a strong and defensive creature, so attacking it will make you think twice. You can often find Sinoceratops in small groups in plains, jungles, and forests.

Sinoceratops is one of the animals that will feature multiple natural variants that both can be color changes and pattern changes but lacks any cosmetics. The green variant is the most common skin you'll find in any situation. Sinoceratops and multiple other Ceratopsians and horned/spiked herbivores will have a drop that can be crafted into Ivory (horns, bones, teeth), a resilient material that can be used to be made into a variety of tools such as Ivory knives and equipment along with armor reinforcement. Alternatively, Ivory can be synthetically manufactured from a mixture of milk, sugarcane, and gunpowder. Ivory can be extracted from fossilized horns and tusks as well instead of freshly dropped ones, although the number of ivory produced will be lower through this method.

Artstation Post- https://www.artstation.com/artwork/48AKv2

[Design Theory]

Welcome to a post of an explanation for each thing done for the redesign for the Baryonyx.

The design goals for Baryonyx is to focus on empathizing the relation between the in-universe Spinosaurus and itself, while keeping itself to be different and unique. What the JW:FK design fails at is doing this, since it cannot be recognized as a Baryonyx and for it being close to Spinosaurus, one of the issues I found with the design despite me enjoying it. A more Baryonyx-ine shape and anatomy allows for better recognizability for the public eye. Although keeping to strict scientific accuracy isn’t a smart design move in most cases, as most Jurassic Park and Jurassic World designs tend to not do that, keeping stylization a priority in many cases. While the original Baryonyx design can and debatably did or didn’t work, I felt I could do my rendition of the design in my own way for fun.

As mentioned before, I wanted to keep consistency between both in-universe Spinosaurs. Two methods to do this is to add a bulkier skull. Some of the skull is somewhat modified, a thicker snout and jaw. What is unique is the combination of the crest which is spiked and the postorbital brow crests, similar to in-universe Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus brows. The body anatomy is mostly evened out rather than being more triangular.

What did remain consistent is the crocodilian style, coloration, and hypothetically sounds and behavior from the original design and interpretation. While the crocodilian features are not 1:1, the osteoderms, ragged teeth and mouth, and more pronounced bone ridges on the face are kept. Spinosaurus too had some similarities to this as well, although both original designs executed them differently. This allows for both to stand out to be unique from eachother.

Coloration was mainly kept because it itself makes sense for the animal in-universe. A mixture of a crocodilian coloration and traditional dinosaur coloration, being semi-aquatic/piscivorous and terrestrial. The greys and blues help sell this biological niche very well. This does apply to behavior, sounds, and color as well since it keeps that common theme. Plus personally I do love the coloration.

And for those who want more scientific accuracy in this design, that won't happen since at least subjectively to me, the design here is something I like while maintaining stylistic consistency from the franchise along with a few custom things. It isn’t meant to be the main focus for the design, so some aspects of the animal was sacrificed simply for both consistency and the cool factor (even though the original animal itself is cool). And I believe I have mentioned this elsewhere, but scientific accuracy shouldn’t be a standard held to the highest degree for design and to always judge against. I will eventually make a post about this idea of when to and not to include scientific accuracy and why strict beliefs on scientific accuracy in designs should be dropped.