K'Kree head issues

[Scarecrow]

So then, I've been feeling all Travellery since visiting TravCon and my attention has flitted butterfly-like back to some Traveller CGI. The world and his cousin appears to be making spaceships these days so I thought I'd have a crack at one of the alien races instead - if only because my skillset of late has reached a stage where I might be able to pull it off to a more satisfying degree

So then, the first brick wall I hit is the usual one: No two versions of Traveller agree on the K'Kree's appearence. In fact, no two illustrations seem to show them in quite the same way.

In the original Classic book, they appear to be part bovine, part grey alien with eyes at the front and a snout that tapers conically to a small mouth.
Then in the otherwise excellent GURPS book they are definately more bovine/equine with eyes at the side and a broad, flat snout. For what it's worth I absolutely adore GMG's more bovine take on the head but I get the feeling that that's not really how they were meant to be.

So I'm trying to do a sort of mid-way interpretation. So far I have a block mesh that gives the basic volumes but I'm not happy with it so I'm after a fresh pair of eyes to tell me what's wrong with it.

So far, I believe that the eyes are too large and that the snout isn't quite the right shape.

the head thus far:


Some selected ref images:


Crow

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Predators have their eyes at the front, prey have them on the sides.

 

[Scarecrow]

Sure, but as the GURPS book (ironically) has it:

"To search for far off targets, the eyes moved from the sides to the front of the head, providing stereoscopic vision and an ability to judge ranges."

I think that's why the classic K'Kree had a sort of distorted human, grey alien look. The two artists that worked on the GURPS book obviously missed this.

Crow

 

[aramis]

The muzzle looks too short for the width IMO.

The base of the jaw is vertical off the temples, while in most illos, it isn't, with the cross-section there being basically an irregular pentagon.

Ears are not quite right, either.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Predators have their eyes at the front, prey have them on the sides.

to elaborate:

a placing the eyes on the front of the head gives you steroscopic vision, which makes it much easier to judge distance, somthing predators need to do in they are to judge when to attack. for this, having as much overlap in views in very important, as it means you have the most points of reference for parallax. the tendancy of some animals to tilt thier head when looking that things is partly due to an attempt to increase the difference between the two eyes views and so get a better idea of the distance

eyes on the side of the head gives you a much greater field of view, which is important for herbivores, as detection of their predators is teh difference between life and death. while most herbivors have a small overlap to the front, some (bulls, i think), have no overlap, and so have a blind spot straight ahead. this leads to them tossing thier head to look at you with both eyes


I am not a biology expert, though, and am just as likey wrong as right.

 

[ravells]

Predators have their eyes at the front, prey have them on the sides.

Watch out Andrew!!!

 

[Theophilus]

I can't speak as to bovine eye's, but the horses we raise have eyes "on the sides of the head", they have limited stereo vision in front, with each eye having 240 degree fields of view. And 300 degree total vision. Horses raise their heads to see things close up and drop their heads for distance vision. I'd suggest moving the eye outward slightly, more on the side than straight ahead.

Looking at the montage image, I'd say the center column, bottom is the most "horse like", with the center top and right top images being more human-ish.

Also, while the ear placement is just weird, being too low on the head, if that's where there placed I'd adjust your design to more closely mimic "Shrek" ears.

 

[iron warrior]

Hmm, just off the top of my head, maybe the k'kree are somewhat different than terestrial creatures and have a different solution to the eye placement problem.

Suppose they have their eyes spaced widely for all around vision like a terran prey animal, BUT their eyes are capable of greater rotation in the sockets so they can both also focus straight ahead like a predator?

If the k'kreee have a narrow, tapering forward face this too might facilitate being able to see directly ahead better than a wide faced creature like a horse or bull.

The CGI I saw at the beginning of this thread suggested a tapering forward face, that could facilitate my hypothesis.

From an evolutionary POV, primitive k'kree may have began using thrown weapons, like rocks, in their very early stages of development, and perhaps evolution favored those who had good forward stereoscopic vision and the race evolved to enhance that, again explaining how they might have both wide peripheral vision from their herbivore origins and good forward vision from evolution.

 

[aramis]

The typical humanoid has eyes aimed in parallel.

The K'kree drawings tend to look like they aim (when centered in socket, essentially, when relaxed and not focused on a single object) about 45 degrees apart, while horses seem to be aimed about 120° apart. Mice seem to have about 0-15° apart, depending upon specific species.

The mesh's appear to be 0° aim separation.

 

[Scarecrow]

I'm not sure I'm following the point of the eye placement debate. I understand it and I agree with it wholeheartedly, but, rightly or wrongly, the K'Kree (according to the GURPS book - see my second post) have front facing eyes with stereoscopic vision.
Are y'all suggesting I drop canon in favour of a general perception of what they should have. I'm all in favour of side mounted eyes, I think it looks more convincing, but that's not what the K'Kree have.

I am, however interested in the idea that there are different angles of front-facing. That said, unless the eyes are parked parallel with zero degree seperation they're not going to have stereoscopic vision either - not focussed anyway. That said, maybe there's a central overlap that is sterescopic with a broad peripheral vision that's not.

As to your other points, Aramis about the jaw. It's difficult to tell from the images but I'd have said the jaw was the same width as the temple in the pictures that aren't in profile. It's a good point though and I'll try some variations. The snout length - in fact, the whole profile - is based on the image in the top left of the ref pics. I really like this profile but unfortunately, this has a side-mounted eye and is making the positioning of a front mounted eye quite surreal

Crow

 

[iron warrior]

Well, it may look surreal, but not as strange as the occular placement of some earth creatures, nor as strange as the eyes of some earth creatures. (Ever look mat a chameleon?)

I see little reason why a creature that evolved on another planet would have to meet human criteria for appearance. The same laws of physics, yes, but not the same aethestics.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Are y'all suggesting I drop canon in favour of a general perception of what they should have. I'm all in favour of side mounted eyes, I think it looks more convincing, but that's not what the K'Kree have.

Somewhere in the middle - forward enough to given stereo vision, but still a little out to the sides.

Big lips, too.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Watch out Andrew!!!

Aw, look at the cute little - AARGH!

 

[Scarecrow]

Somewhere in the middle - forward enough to given stereo vision, but still a little out to the sides.

Big lips, too.

Yeah, big lips, definately. I think that's my favourite version.
Looking at the images I posted, no two are the same. I think the only way through this is to pick a version and go with it. The version I pick is GMG's version because when I think of K'Kree, that's what I think of (big lips)

Crow

 

[aramis]

I'm not sure I'm following the point of the eye placement debate. I understand it and I agree with it wholeheartedly, but, rightly or wrongly, the K'Kree (according to the GURPS book - see my second post) have front facing eyes with stereoscopic vision.
Are y'all suggesting I drop canon in favour of a general perception of what they should have. I'm all in favour of side mounted eyes, I think it looks more convincing, but that's not what the K'Kree have.

I am, however interested in the idea that there are different angles of front-facing. That said, unless the eyes are parked parallel with zero degree seperation they're not going to have stereoscopic vision either - not focussed anyway. That said, maybe there's a central overlap that is sterescopic with a broad peripheral vision that's not.

As to your other points, Aramis about the jaw. It's difficult to tell from the images but I'd have said the jaw was the same width as the temple in the pictures that aren't in profile. It's a good point though and I'll try some variations. The snout length - in fact, the whole profile - is based on the image in the top left of the ref pics. I really like this profile but unfortunately, this has a side-mounted eye and is making the positioning of a front mounted eye quite surreal

Crow

1) GT isn't Canon for anything but GT - it's not the OTU
2) GT has lots of these little changes.

 

[Scarecrow]

Fair enough. I guess only the classic K'Kree are canon then and they are actually drawn with front facing eyes. As I mentioned in my previous post, if I'm honest, I prefer GMG's take in the GURPS book, so if I can't make my compromise version work, I may just go with that anyway.

Crow

 

[aramis]

Crow, the eyes on the CT module's cover are pretty much on the sides. The sockets appear to be aimed 45° to 60° from forward.

GT's illos simply are in error on it.

 

[Scarecrow]

The GURPS illustrations show them side mounted like the CT cover. It's the GURPS text that disagrees - but then maybe they don't necessarily mean directly frontal and parallel like a human.
The frustrating thing is that they seem to vary in every single image but I agree, despite what the physiology description says, they do all appear to have around a 45 degree outward turn - CT and GURPS alike. The only images that do appear to have parallel eyes are the anatomical illustration from the CT book and the back cover illustration (top right and bottom centre respectively in the montage I posted) but even then it's arguable they have a very slight outward turn.

Well, I can work with that. I'll reshape the mesh and you can see what you think.

Crow

 

[sabredog]

So then, the first brick wall I hit is the usual one: No two versions of Traveller agree on the K'Kree's appearence. In fact, no two illustrations seem to show them in quite the same way.

Different races of people have always looked different, too, as do different people within each race. Even by using skulls and certain points in the skeletal structure race and sex and can be determined...along with a host of other things that happened to the person - its done all the time in anthropology and forensic science for identifying people. SO....no hard and fast reason the K'kree have to be made with a cookie-cutter.

In the original Classic book, they appear to be part bovine, part grey alien with eyes at the front and a snout that tapers conically to a small mouth.
Then in the otherwise excellent GURPS book they are definitely more bovine/equine with eyes at the side and a broad, flat snout. For what it's worth I absolutely adore GMG's more bovine take on the head but I get the feeling that that's not really how they were meant to be.

So I'm trying to do a sort of mid-way interpretation. So far I have a block mesh that gives the basic volumes but I'm not happy with it so I'm after a fresh pair of eyes to tell me what's wrong with it.

So far, I believe that the eyes are too large and that the snout isn't quite the right shape.

Personally I think you're on the right track, and that there is nothing wrong with a bovine kind of head - 'sides we're dealing with aliens here and there are no hard and fast rules to say that the K'kree didn't evolve that way. (caveat here is that I haven't read much about them since I don't use the house aliens but I assume they are militant vegetarians?)

Each of the ones in the illustrations share a few commonalities you should use: the eyes look kind of like they are on the side of the head but the shape of the skull and contours of the muscles underneath will still provide stereoscopic vision.....and the possibility of a wider vision to the side. Why not, they are aliens who evolved in an alien environment and I presume became tool using organized predators for defense not just because they had to better figure out how to sneak up on a bush to eat. Some side vision would provide a wide-angle field of view to both better track for prey without having to move (prey tend to key on movement, too, if any of you have ever hunted deer you know what I mean)....and....help better watch the sides to make it harder for whatever used to hunt K'kree sneak up on them.

Having spotted the prey and now needing to close the range in the chase to make the kill the range of focus in the K'kree's eyes moves to the center, perhaps aiming down the "channels" shown in pictures and as a result develops a blind spot/tunnel vision on the prey. The K'kree members on the outer sides of the group then have to keep the focus on their sides to prevent any ambush predators from hitting the lead hunter(s). Builds cooperation. Maybe it's that sort of cooperation rather than mere "herd instinct: that makes them seem so herd-like to us, but we humans misunderstand the evolutionary reasons for that social development?

Maybe K'kree used to be omnivores a long long time ago (lots o' protein helps make for big brains, but again...aliens make for different rules) and gradually evolved to be vegetarian for some reason they don't want to share with everyone else. Maybe it's religious, or taboo, or just offends them enough they get kinda stick you with a spear angry if you ask. But if you ask me they look (speaking from a degree in biology with emphasis in evolutionary biology) more like something that evolved from a predator than an herbivore. Not that they couldn't have been predator first...then omnivore...then herbivore...and various little changes along the way in their evolutionary biology.

Also...Andrew - check out the skull of a T-Rex. It had the best stereoscopic of any predator of it's time and yet it had tiny eyes located far back on the skull. But when you look at it from the front you can easily see that the contours of the skull and tissues underneath created channels that allow for the frontal vision as well as a small degree of side. Even we have surprisingly good side vision given where our eyes are.

Cheeks: vegetarians need large cheeks contain the food they eat but the jaw can still be long under them. The cheeks can expand. Cheeks also make speaking in a coherent language (caveat: maybe aliens are different but I'm speaking on what we are working with is just a pic) easier. Try talking sometime with a realllly wide smile and you'll know what I mean. Cheeks help for lips and lips help you talk, manipulate food, oh, all sorts of things.

 

[Scarecrow]

Ding! Hupdate!



I've retopologised the head to tidy the mesh up and make it animation-ready (though wether it ever gets animated is another matter) and added some detail. I've rotated the eyes out about 30 degrees. They look a lot less goofy and still look forward facing.
I'm really quite pleased with the profile and the quarter view. It feels like a fairly workable compromise between all of the various reference images. I'm not sold on the front view yet though and I just remembered that I haven't brought the jaw in as Aramis suggested - maybe that's what it is.

Obvious things that still need work: The kink in the jaw that's really obvious in the front view is the big one, also some smoothing issues along with defining the cheeks more clearly - but it's very late and I want to watch Clone Wars.

Thanks for the input everyone. Keep it coming.

Crow