Saurian (Game Project)

[Flaffy]

The reason why people are saying that ankylosaurus's play style will be similar to triceratops as male triceratops already fits the lone-armoured-tank play style. The ankylosaurus is just featured in too many games already, while hadrosaurs are rare and usually depicted as a defenceless chunk of meat waiting for the mighty carnivores to eat it.
The social dynamics of anatosaurus would've been so fun and unique, providing a better diversity to gameplay.
Sorry, I'm still very salty about ankylosaurus winning...

[spinosaurus1]

i feel your pain, i was team anato as well

[Flaffy]

DevLog #1: http://saurian.maxmediacorp.com/?p=1112
DevLog #2: http://saurian.maxmediacorp.com/?p=1138
DevLog #3: http://saurian.maxmediacorp.com/?p=1185
DevLog #4: http://saurian.maxmediacorp.com/?p=1214

[spinosaurus1]

the sixth saurian dev log is up. and imo, it's the best one thus far

http://saurian.maxmediacorp.com/?p=1264







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc1zlIhP2UY

[Flaffy]

Saurian Halloween Special
Link: http://saurian.maxmediacorp.com/?p=1320

[stargatedalek]

I must say I'm very disappointed in the Saurian developers of late, they've made some absolutely incredible breakthroughs with gameplay, but they've gone back and edited a lot of their deigns to make them less accurate. They're on some sort of tirade to remove cheeks from every dinosaur because of something about a claim they evolved for breastfeeding (which is clearly incorrect). Not only that, but they've been adding distinctively lizard-like facial scales to their animals lips. The Triceratops and Pachycephalosaurus are the worst offenders, they have batteries of chewing teeth that mean when trying to eat with the mouths depicted all the food would simply fall out.

I gave the them both cheeks based on macaws, and for the Triceratops I also made the tail thicker vertically and added patterns to the horns. Realistically the Pachycephalosaurus should also have facial skin instead of scales.

[Flaffy]

Don't recall any of the devs stating that breastfeeding is the reason for no cheeks...
I could be wrong though.

[Yutyrannus]

I must say I'm very disappointed in the Saurian developers of late, they've made some absolutely incredible breakthroughs with gameplay, but they've gone back and edited a lot of their deigns to make them less accurate. They're on some sort of tirade to remove cheeks from every dinosaur because of something about a claim they evolved for breastfeeding (which is clearly incorrect). Not only that, but they've been adding distinctively lizard-like facial scales to their animals lips. The Triceratops and Pachycephalosaurus are the worst offenders, they have batteries of chewing teeth that mean when trying to eat with the mouths depicted all the food would simply fall out.

I gave the them both cheeks based on macaws, and for the Triceratops I also made the tail thicker vertically and added patterns to the horns. Realistically the Pachycephalosaurus should also have facial skin instead of scales.

A) There is no real evidence for or against cheeks, it's entirely artistic license for the time being; B) cheeks are not necessary for a herbivorous animal in order to keep food in their mouths; and C) the Triceratops designs are currently being revised, the picture you posted is not the final concept for them.

[stargatedalek]

I must say I'm very disappointed in the Saurian developers of late, they've made some absolutely incredible breakthroughs with gameplay, but they've gone back and edited a lot of their deigns to make them less accurate. They're on some sort of tirade to remove cheeks from every dinosaur because of something about a claim they evolved for breastfeeding (which is clearly incorrect). Not only that, but they've been adding distinctively lizard-like facial scales to their animals lips. The Triceratops and Pachycephalosaurus are the worst offenders, they have batteries of chewing teeth that mean when trying to eat with the mouths depicted all the food would simply fall out.

I gave the them both cheeks based on macaws, and for the Triceratops I also made the tail thicker vertically and added patterns to the horns. Realistically the Pachycephalosaurus should also have facial skin instead of scales.

A) There is no real evidence for or against cheeks, it's entirely artistic license for the time being; B) cheeks are not necessary for a herbivorous animal in order to keep food in their mouths; and C) the Triceratops designs are currently being revised, the picture you posted is not the final concept for them.

Not for herbivorous animals no, but for chewing yes. And both of these species have very distinctive chewing teeth.

Modern herbivorous reptiles don't chew their food which is why they don't need cheeks, they tear off chunks of food and swallow it.

[spinosaurus1]

ceratopsian teeth are designed for slicing plant material. not grinding or chewing. their jaws cannot facilitate the type of sided to side motions that can be identified as chewing. they sliced chunks food and then swallowed it, alot more akin to herbivorous birds and reptiles ( ex: iguanas)  then to any mammals and a heavily specialized bird such as a parrots

theirs really no reason to amuse that they had such expansive cheeks. it's basically a paleomeme at this point.

as for what you brought up with patchycephalosaurus skin, they have already addressed that weeks ago

[DinoLord]

Honestly the evidence at this point isn't enough to say that either is unambiguously correct or wrong. But IIRC ornithischian jaws articulate in the sagittal plane, not the coronal plane as in mammals, so food falling out shouldn't have been an issue even in the case of chewing.

[stargatedalek]

ceratopsian teeth are designed for slicing plant material. not grinding or chewing. their jaws cannot facilitate the type of sided to side motions that can be identified as chewing. they sliced chunks food and then swallowed it, alot more akin to herbivorous birds and reptiles ( ex: iguanas)  then to any mammals and a heavily specialized bird such as a parrots

theirs really no reason to amuse that they had such expansive cheeks. it's basically a paleomeme at this point.

as for what you brought up with patchycephalosaurus skin, they have already addressed that weeks ago

I wasn't suggesting muscular cheeks, simply structures of skin designed to hold food in place while the jaws move, didn't know that had its own name at the time. Looking at birds these structures are always on the outside of the mouth, connecting the "two halves" of the head.

Lizards have teeth designed for holding food, not slicing. They bite down and pull backwards using their neck muscles and forelimbs to tear off mouth sized chunks of edible material. When you scale a lizard up to the sizes in question suddenly it's grabbing stems and bark in each bite, so this method of feeding becomes less and less viable as an animal becomes larger. I'm very curious to know how Barbaturex may have gotten around this, especially since it didn't have the advantage of extensive fern cover as a potential food source that dinosaurs did.

Parrots are not as specialized as you claim, most birds have cheeks/gape flanges, they're just hidden by the beak covering the lips and feathers changing the contours of the skull.



I went for as large as was reasonably plausible for the sake of contrast, a more conservative example would be the Favorite Kinto Triceratops, which has them only as far forward as the teeth themselves.


(Photo not mine)

[Flaffy]

The 2016 T-rex redesign has 'cheeks' like that.
So maybe the trike and pachy will have a redesign like that also?

[SpartanSquat]

I have to say I dont understand that tendence to remove cheeks in ornisthischians. I think this is just an artistic license

[spinosaurus1]

ceratopsian teeth are designed for slicing plant material. not grinding or chewing. their jaws cannot facilitate the type of sided to side motions that can be identified as chewing. they sliced chunks food and then swallowed it, alot more akin to herbivorous birds and reptiles ( ex: iguanas)  then to any mammals and a heavily specialized bird such as a parrots

theirs really no reason to amuse that they had such expansive cheeks. it's basically a paleomeme at this point.

as for what you brought up with patchycephalosaurus skin, they have already addressed that weeks ago

I wasn't suggesting muscular cheeks, simply structures of skin designed to hold food in place while the jaws move, didn't know that had its own name at the time. Looking at birds these structures are always on the outside of the mouth, connecting the "two halves" of the head.

Lizards have teeth designed for holding food, not slicing. They bite down and pull backwards using their neck muscles and forelimbs to tear off mouth sized chunks of edible material. When you scale a lizard up to the sizes in question suddenly it's grabbing stems and bark in each bite, so this method of feeding becomes less and less viable as an animal becomes larger. I'm very curious to know how Barbaturex may have gotten around this, especially since it didn't have the advantage of extensive fern cover as a potential food source that dinosaurs did.

Parrots are not as specialized as you claim, most birds have cheeks/gape flanges, they're just hidden by the beak covering the lips and feathers changing the contours of the skull.



I went for as large as was reasonably plausible for the sake of contrast, a more conservative example would be the Favorite Kinto Triceratops, which has them only as far forward as the teeth themselves.


(Photo not mine)

cheeks are not the end all be all way to assume that the structure must be present for the animal to hold food. lips can do the task just as well, and it's present in the saurian model. a large variety of herbivorous birds have very long beaks with this expansion of connective skin only being present near the jugual. and yet they can process food with little difficulty. while birds do have such expansions of skin that i am very well aware of, that doesn't mean it has to expand far up the rostrum directly at the beak. if there's any bird that triceratops skull most closely resembles imo, it would likely be examples such as turkey vultures. a bird with a comparatively diminutive beak and rather elongated rostrum and no extreme degree of double hinging of the jaws as seen in parrots and the large majority of birds. parrots are specialized because their use their skulls as what is essentially a third leg as they move through tree canopies as well as manipulating and positioning items such as tropical seeds and nuts between their massive beaks to crush them. complete opposite of triceratops skull anatomy




tbh, you are being overly generalized with this statement on a group renowned for remarkable diversity between each species. i owned green iguanas and other reptiles for over 10 years, and having fed them a large variety of foods, been bitten quite a few times, and take pleasure in just observing their actions, i feel the need to say that iguanas in specific do not eat in the way you describe. they do not rely solely on gripping their food. their dentition have specialized serrations used for the purpose of slicing leafy greens and are not afraid to work those teeth and jaw muscles in order to chew larger portion into pieces their capable of swallowing such as apples, celery, spinach stems, and carrots. plus the fact that their not afraid to just swallow food whole without the need of chewing it. they rarely use their forelimbs. iggy can bite chunks of celery and baby bananas just fine while basking stationary on her branch
they do ocationally use their necks to get better angles and leverage, as well as using them to work those teeth into it's food, i don't see why is that a lizard thing. i've personally seen birds use their necks in a manor very similarly to iguanas, as well as turtles and while i haven't seen it in person, theirs plenty of documenttion of crocodilians doing such tasks as well. i'll even be confident to say that the large majority of vertebrates use their necks to some degree when eating. triceratops wouldn't be any exception.

i'm have confidence in saying that Barbaturex was likely was no different and was just an iguanid of larger size. would be a beast of an animal to own though might i also add that theirs a reason why iguanodon has iguana in it's name

either way, the saurian devs have stated that their triceratops model is getting updated and they have yet to release any new images of any information on triceratops other then the sounds for it. it is likely that the triceratops would be getting these expansion of skin. just not all the way forward to the back of it's beak

[stargatedalek]

No offense but when you choose an example of an animal without gape flanges you should make sure it doesn't have them (as does the closely related black vulture). It's hard to tell but the jaws are even more elongated than they look when closed.




And superficial anatomy isn't everything, vultures are carnivores, their beaks are a lot sharper and are designed for tearing, the elongated jaws are used for holding and manipulating food. Ceratopsians have elongated jaws but they also have batteries of teeth, and we don't have any idea of how sharp their bills were or what role exactly they played in harvesting food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v064LbaRJus
Based on tooth wear and jaw musculature.

As I already said I exaggerated the connective tissue as much as possible for contrast sake, considering how far back the teeth are placed in the jaws it's unlikely the covering would have extended all the way to the beak.

[spinosaurus1]

i would like to ask when have i denied gape flanges? i recall stating the opposite.

" birds do have such expansions of skin that i am very well aware of"

what i am questioning is the extension of the gape flanges as many reconstructions have them places all the way up the the back of the beak, or completely obscuring the dental batteries when there is no evidence of such a structure to be that expansive. the dental batteries could of just been lipped area rather then an are hidden by the flanges. while the first photo has heavy perspective usage, the second photo still clearly show a very elongated rostrum with the majority of it being liped and flanges being locates close to the jugual. the only major difference that can be made is the proportionally larger raptorial beak, and that is negligible to the points that are being addressed. i do not see what difference it would make to replace the larger raptorial beak, with comparatively smaller once that could be use for striping and/or shearing plant matter

and i'm aware that superficial anatomy isn't everything, which is why i'm drawing multiple references. for example iguanas like ceratopsians, they have slicing dentition and very elongated skulls in some species. from the video you posted ( which thank you for that, it's been a while since i seen that video), and looks like lepidosaurs such as the tuatara can also be look at since their jaws facilitate near identical jaw motions and they as well have slicing dentition. a variety of references being used to come to a form of conclusion. and all the references here show that contrary to what was stated before, triceratops wouldn't need extremely extensive flanges in order to keep food in it's mouth.

i concede with what you were trying to depict with your altered photos and this quote from you here " considering how far back the teeth are placed in the jaws it's unlikely the covering would have extended all the way to the beak." is exactly what i am stating.

[Yutyrannus]

Okay, here's one Garrus said of this matter on the Saurian discord.
"It's assuming mammalian chewing, which involves horizontal movement of the lower jaw. However, archosaurs never developed this method of chewing. Instead, they used vertical motion, which, combined with the shape of their tooth batteries, served the same purpose. Ceratopsid jaws are like cutting shears, for example, while hadrosaurid jaws are more like a grinder moving first forward, vertically and then backward. And more than likely a good chunk of herbivorous dinosaurs couldn't be bothered with chewing, if the presence of gastroliths in some is any indication.(edited)
For the record, there are herbivorous lizards around today. They get along just fine without cheeks.
They're not archosaurs, true, but they're still diaspids.
Also, recent work is suggesting a distinct lack of cheeks, which is why our ornithischians will effectively be cheek-less beyond muscle tissue. I forget the name, but we have a consultant we're working with on this."

The Saurian devs have been studying Hell Creek and consulting with various paleontologists on every aspect of Hell Creek and it's fauna. They know what they're doing . As for the degree of "cheeks" (if you can call them that) shown in the turkey and black vulture photos you just posted, that is already incorporated in Saurian's designs. That's just the mouth opening not going all the way back to the jaw joint.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

But hadrosaurs are widely known to have definitely possessed cheeks, and at least one ankylosaur fossil (I forget which species) has been found with cheek armor. Considering their presence in both ornithopods and thyreophoreans, it would seem reasonable to assume their presence throughout Ornithischia.

[stargatedalek]

As for the degree of "cheeks" (if you can call them that) shown in the turkey and black vulture photos you just posted, that is already incorporated in Saurian's designs. That's just the mouth opening not going all the way back to the jaw joint.

The facial tissue of birds connects the cranium and lower jaw, what's shown on the Saurian concept art (and Anatosaurus model) connects the inner surfaces of the mouth more like modified gums.