Gliding skin

I have this idea for gliding skin. like a flying squirrel has! it works best from trees and you have more lift the more skin you have! in editor mode you attach it from one limb joint to another or you stretch it from one limb joint to anywhere on the body! like from the forelegs to back legs and from there to the tail, wich gives you more glide time. works best with tree-climbing organisms and it has a wind animation when gliding to make it more realistic. types come in bare, somewhat scaly, and furry. hope you like my idea!

Theslimy wrote:

I have this idea for gliding skin. like a flying squirrel has! it works best from trees and you have more lift the more skin you have! in editor mode you attach it from one limb joint to another or you stretch it from one limb joint to anywhere on the body! like from the forelegs to back legs and from there to the tail, wich gives you more glide time. works best with tree-climbing organisms and it has a wind animation when gliding to make it more realistic. types come in bare, somewhat scaly, and furry. hope you like my idea!

Welcome, Theslimy!

I remember this kind of part was suggested ages ago, probably in the old forums, and liked. It will probably be added automatically by having enough 'skin wing'/'gliding skin'/'wingy things' proportional to the weight. You've said just about everything else.

On it being scaly and furry, that will probably be inherent of making the creature scaly/furry (or inherent of a creature being already scaly/furry through auto-evo)

Actually, we need to discuss flight...

Tenebrarum wrote:

Actually, we need to discuss flight...

Perhaps we should make a thread discussing how flight has evolved the four times on Earth (insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats) and how we can incorporate it into the game? If we do, I can help a lot with the concept of feathered flight, since I'm a dinosaur freak, and birds evolved from them. I think that might help with this gliding thing too, since I know some small dinosaurs may have used their feathers simply for gliding from tree to tree.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Actually, we need to discuss flight...

We have, but it was years ago. There are three types, flapping, buzzing, and gliding.
Gliding requires no power, it's just a controlled fall.

Flapping is up and down movement of wings, which is of course powered. It must move forward constantly to keep in the air.

Buzzing is a very rapid beat of the wings in a figure eight. It is the most useful form of flight, since the animal can hover, move backwards and side to side, and accelerate and decelerate very rapidly. The caveat is that it can only work on small wings.

The efficacy of all of these will be calculated by taking into account the mass of the creature, the surface area of its ventral profile, and the density of the air surrounding.

~sciocont wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Actually, we need to discuss flight...

We have, but it was years ago. There are three types, flapping, buzzing, and gliding.
Gliding requires no power, it's just a controlled fall.

Flapping is up and down movement of wings, which is of course powered. It must move forward constantly to keep in the air.

Buzzing is a very rapid beat of the wings in a figure eight. It is the most useful form of flight, since the animal can hover, move backwards and side to side, and accelerate and decelerate very rapidly. The caveat is that it can only work on small wings.

The efficacy of all of these will be calculated by taking into account the mass of the creature, the surface area of its ventral profile, and the density of the air surrounding.

How easy will this be to animate/program?

Tenebrarum wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Actually, we need to discuss flight...

We have, but it was years ago. There are three types, flapping, buzzing, and gliding.
Gliding requires no power, it's just a controlled fall.

Flapping is up and down movement of wings, which is of course powered. It must move forward constantly to keep in the air.

Buzzing is a very rapid beat of the wings in a figure eight. It is the most useful form of flight, since the animal can hover, move backwards and side to side, and accelerate and decelerate very rapidly. The caveat is that it can only work on small wings.

The efficacy of all of these will be calculated by taking into account the mass of the creature, the surface area of its ventral profile, and the density of the air surrounding.

How easy will this be to animate/program?

Besides that, which is a major question, what will lead up to flight? We have to have something be a precursor to flight. For example, feathers evolved on dinosaurs for insulation/display, and only later were modified for flight. I don't really know how the other 3 animal groups that fly started out, but I think however they started out should be a major consideration.

Animation should be an absolute breeze. Ventral surface area is as simple as taking the silhouette from the bottom and figuring out the area. Mass is already determined as part of the creature, and air density is part of the planet.

As to the evolutionary path, the specific evolution of wings is well understood in birds, bats, and, to a lesser extent I believe, pterosaurs. It is not so well understood in insects, but there are a few theories that we can exploit, which is that they are modified wings, or that they are modified gills.

~sciocont wrote:

Animation should be an absolute breeze. Ventral surface area is as simple as taking the silhouette from the bottom and figuring out the area. Mass is already determined as part of the creature, and air density is part of the planet.

As to the evolutionary path, the specific evolution of wings is well understood in birds, bats, and, to a lesser extent I believe, pterosaurs. It is not so well understood in insects, but there are a few theories that we can exploit, which is that they are modified wings, or that they are modified gills.

Yes, very little is known about pterosaur evolution besides the fact they shared the same ancestor as dinosaurs. What I'm trying to say though is we need to look at the actions that led to wings. Back to my dino example, larger primary wings are believed to have evolved either to help the dinosaur run faster or to climb quickly up trees away from predators by flapping their wings to speed them up. There has to be a precursor to flight and gliding, otherwise there's no possibility for the wing to evolve.

tklarenb wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Animation should be an absolute breeze. Ventral surface area is as simple as taking the silhouette from the bottom and figuring out the area. Mass is already determined as part of the creature, and air density is part of the planet.

As to the evolutionary path, the specific evolution of wings is well understood in birds, bats, and, to a lesser extent I believe, pterosaurs. It is not so well understood in insects, but there are a few theories that we can exploit, which is that they are modified wings, or that they are modified gills.

Yes, very little is known about pterosaur evolution besides the fact they shared the same ancestor as dinosaurs. What I'm trying to say though is we need to look at the actions that led to wings. Back to my dino example, larger primary wings are believed to have evolved either to help the dinosaur run faster or to climb quickly up trees away from predators by flapping their wings to speed them up. There has to be a precursor to flight and gliding, otherwise there's no possibility for the wing to evolve.

Ah. I see you are well versed in Therepod to Avialae evolutionary path. What you say is true. Feathers originally grew for insulation, were modified for display, then were repurposed once again for flight. The problem is we haven't solved the great question of ground-up or tree-down. That doesn't matter in thrive though, because either way is a plausible evolutionary path. The feathers will help stabilize a runner and help slow the descent of a falling. Again, it doesn't matter what path they take.
A higher ventral surface area to mass ratio will help both overall agility and fall speed, so it can eventually lead to gliding, then to powered flight, or straight to powered flight.

~sciocont wrote:

Ah. I see you are well versed in Therepod to Avialae evolutionary path. What you say is true. Feathers originally grew for insulation, were modified for display, then were repurposed once again for flight. The problem is we haven't solved the great question of ground-up or tree-down. That doesn't matter in thrive though, because either way is a plausible evolutionary path. The feathers will help stabilize a runner and help slow the descent of a falling. Again, it doesn't matter what path they take.
A higher ventral surface area to mass ratio will help both overall agility and fall speed, so it can eventually lead to gliding, then to powered flight, or straight to powered flight.

So I'm guessing we'll implement the two theories of therepod bird evolution to creatures that have feathers or feather-like structures?

tklarenb wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Ah. I see you are well versed in Therepod to Avialae evolutionary path. What you say is true. Feathers originally grew for insulation, were modified for display, then were repurposed once again for flight. The problem is we haven't solved the great question of ground-up or tree-down. That doesn't matter in thrive though, because either way is a plausible evolutionary path. The feathers will help stabilize a runner and help slow the descent of a falling. Again, it doesn't matter what path they take.
A higher ventral surface area to mass ratio will help both overall agility and fall speed, so it can eventually lead to gliding, then to powered flight, or straight to powered flight.

So I'm guessing we'll implement the two theories of therepod bird evolution to creatures that have feathers or feather-like structures?

Basically.

I have a question about flight. Will be able to be things like sky whales and other full time aerial animals, or would we be limited to bird like animals and gliding animals?

Mixotroph wrote:

I have a question about flight. Will be able to be things like sky whales and other full time aerial animals, or would we be limited to bird like animals and gliding animals?

depends on your atmosphere. Flying takes a lot of work, but full-time gliders and floaters are possible.

What if we combined a specific kind of gliding with claws made to puncture the bark of trees or hard rock of a cliff-side so as to gain a heightened position from which to launch off of?