Creature Suit Analysis - Part 6 - Comparative Anatomy

[Guest rockinkt]

Good one!

[Bill]

Comparative Anatomy Revised Study

INTRODUTION

On Jan. 21, 2008, I started this thread using a digital human figure superimposed over various frames of the PG Film to experiment with comparing the human anatomy to "Patty" in the film. At the time, I was on a learning curve about many aspects of the film, including image analysis work done by other persons. Seven months have past and I can reasonably say I am far more familiar with the film than I was at that time.

In the study which started this thread, I simply started with a default proportioned Michael 3 male figure (a Poser or Daz Studio Software stock figure supplied by the DAZ Company) and I compared that figure to a few frames of the film, and found Patty's proportions dissimilar to the human, in terms of how a human could fit inside Patty if she were a fabricated fur suit worn by a human and the human had body proportions similar to the Michael 3 digital model. The major discrepancy I found at that time was the shorter human arm which did not come close to the apparent Patty hands.

To achieve a better fit, I then shortened the legs significantly, and the results were closer to Patty's general proportions. Unfolding the figure to stand straight up with arms outstretched to the sides, I could then establish a body height to armspan proportion. Measuring these proportions in Photoshop lead me to conclude that a human with an armspan 112% of the body height might fit into the Patty proportions.

But in the seven months since I did that, I have continued to study frames and animated sequences of the film, and began to suspect one shoulder is held lower than the other. To test this idea, I decided to do a new anatomical comparison study, from scratch.

THE NEW STUDY

I selected nine frames which I felt had good prospects for being studied, specifically frames which tended to have either good depictions of bent knees and soles of feet (to get a fairly precise knee to heel ratio) and frames that had fairly clear arms and hands.

I set up each chosen frame in a 1000 pixel square so the body fills the square area almost completely. Standardizing this study frame size made it easier to switch from frame to frame in the DAZ Studio software I would use to pose the human and render the figure, with the frames as backdrops for reference.

Knowing already from my previous study that only a figure with longer arms and shorter legs would have a chance to fit inside Patty, I modified the default Michael 3 digital model to reduce the upper and lower leg segments to 95% of their default heights (the Y axis, in the software) and increased the upper and lower arm segments to 104% of default (on the X Axis, because in the default pose of Michael 3, his arms are outstretched sideways, so arm length is on the X axis, while the legs are vertical and so their length is on the Y axis. it's one of the curious things about this software.) I will refer to this body model as Body Morph #1. It should be considered simply an arbitrary starting point for the study, with some expectation that I would revise the proportions in a second phase.

CAMERA SETUP AND RENDERING

That done, I began to set up the scene. Knowing the camera held by Roger was at about "eye level", and Patty was perhaps a bit taller than he, I set the camera height to about shoulder height of my digital figure. And knowing the filming was done at a distance in excess of 100 feet from camera to subject, I set the software scene camera appropriately far enough away to approximate this distance, and then zoomed in to allow the figure to fill the frame. This insured that my perspective on the body approximated the filming circumstances, and that the body's proportions (especially those closer to camera as compared to those further from camera would approximate correct proportion to each other.) I say approximately, because these measurements are somewhat debatable in their exactitude, as much as my research has determined.

The Frames I used are collected from my 8 months of research, and some are positively identified by frame number and some are not. In the accompanying chart (Body Proportions Study 2), I have identified all the specific frames I can positively identify a frame number for. Those I couldn't identify, I simply put my study frame number for reference.

With my study frame #1 loaded into DAZ Studio as a backdrop, and my camera approximating Roger's position to Patty, and my digital model (Body Morph #1) adjusted for shorter legs and longer arms, I began to pose the figure as closely as possible to the backdrop image of Patty. Once I had achieved a pose I thought was as close as I can get, I rendered out an image of the human superimposed over the backdrop image, then a human figure against a white backdrop, and in some cases for reference a true front view of the human to see the pose from a straight on reference. I did this for each of my chosen study frame images of the film.

Once done, I brought the various renders into Photoshop and copied the human figure render against white and pasted it over the original backdrop study frame of Patty, and then selected the white and deleted it, leaving the human figure over Patty as posed and positioned, but in a separate layer so I could switch it on and off as well as adjust transparency. I did this for all my study frames (9 in total).

REVIEW AND ANALYSIS

The next step was to simply review each frame, switching the human figure layer on and off, looking at how closely the human anatomy fit into the Patty pose. Two serious concerns became evident in this phase of the analysis. They are shown in the chart titled "Body Proportion Study 1 ". On this chart, the discrepancies of concern to me are diagrammed in Blue for Patty's contours, and Red for the human figure contours being compared. This chart is immediately below:

One discrepancy was the fact that in several frames, especially those nearer the film's end, where we see more of Patty's back, the right shoulder of Patty seems too low and the human shoulder seemed too high to fit into Patty's shoulder. And the far left shoulder of Patty seems quite high by comparison. This confirmed my original concern about the prospect of the shoulders not being level on Patty. I decided to retest the figure with the right shoulder drooping a bit.

The second thing I noted in this review was that while I could get the heel to knee aligned fairly well in some frames, the angle of the upper leg going into the torso was almost invariably off angle. Patty's line of her thigh was rising at a steeper angle than the thigh line of the human, suggesting two very different positions for the hip joint. As much as I tried to adjust the body pose, I couldn't get the upper legs and lower legs to overlay on Patty's body image in a way I felt confident was a good fit. Especially when the legs were split, one far forward and one far rearward, I found an alignment of the human from heel to knee almost always produced an angle for the upper legs that was off as compared to Patty. Specifically, it seemed the upper legs on the human figure were too short and the hip sockets for the femors was too low.

That was when I realized I had been assuming that the legs should be proportioned with about equal upper and lower leg length (the default reduced to 95% of both upper and lower).

Further analysis of the human superimposed over the Patty body suggested further adjustments were needed. Another solution to the discrepancies I had seen in the angle of the upper legs could be remedied by a wider hip. And the shoulder discrepancies could be remedied by a wider shoulder plus a drooping right shoulder.

ANATOMICAL ADJUSTMENTS FOR BODY MORPH #2

So I made a list of anatomical adjustments for the Body Morph #1 human model to be modified into the Body Morph #2 configuration, as follows:

1. The lower legs height was reduced to 87% of default.

2. The upper leg height was lengthened to 105.5% of default

3. Arms (upper and lower) were set at 107% of default in length.

4. The hips were widened 115.8% greater than default

5. The shoulders were widened by 113.6% wider than default

6. The right shoulder was dropped down about 2" (in proportion to a 6' tall human")

while the left shoulder was raised about the same 2" to scale.

7. The shoulder section of the torso was tilted about 3 degrees, side to side, to further lower the right shoulder and raise the left shoulder.

With these adjustments made to the human figure (Referred to as Body Morph #2), the same study reference frames were set up, one at a time, as backdrop images in DAZ Studio software and the human figure was posed to get as close to Patty's pose as possible, with emphasis on setting soles of feet, knees, and general head position as the main anchoring points and then adjusting torso twisting, head/neck twisting and tilting, and arm postures, as secondary adjustments.

Then for each reference film frame, the figure was rendered out overlaid on the frame, then against white, and in a true front view reference to show the human pose from another angle. (Note the front views are not used in this analysis, but may be included in a subsequent analysis later.

The Chart (File name "Body Proportion Study 2"), titled "Comparative Anatomy with Body Morph #2" illustrates the nine study frames and the human figure posed to match them.

FINAL FIGURE ANALYSIS

Finally, this human figure was re-posed in a straight upright posture, arms down and then arms fully out to the side, in front view, so basic body scaling could be determined, including height to armspan. The shoulders were left unbalanced (right one lower, left one higher), as I used in all the poses. Measuring bars were set up scaled to the figure and used horizontally as well as vertically to establish proportions in comparison to body height. Any body height measurement can be assigned, and then all other measurements scale proportionately. This is shown in the chart (File name "Body Proportion Study 3") shown below.

The six measurements (and their proportions) are:

A. Total body height 100%

B. Armspan 108%

C. Height to top of thigh, when upper leg is raised to full 90 bend up

and horizontal to ground 54%

D. Length of upper leg horizontally outward, measured from back

of buttocks to front of knee 36%

E. Height of knee when upper leg is bent at 90 degree angle, measured

from bottom of heel to top of kneecap. 29.6%

F. Height of fingertips from ground, when arm is relaxed

downward 37%

The two most significant revelations for me personally are as follows:

1. That the lower legs are abnormally shorter than the upper leg sections, meaning a lower knee than an average person of any given height might have. This would make me wonder if this can in any way account for the "walk" so many people study and debate.

2. That a drooping right shoulder more closely replicates Patty's postures than level shoulders do, and that a drooping shoulder results in a change in my estimation of armspan to body height. Instead of the 112% I had estimated initially (7 months ago), this drooping shoulder posture actually shortens the arm somewhat, and the standing figure with arms outstretched now has a armspan to height ratio of 108%.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the general skeletal anatomy of Patty (or any suggested human inside a Patty costume), has clearly unusual skeletal proportions, a longer than average armspan and very unusually short lower legs in relation to the upper legs. The hips and shoulders are also quite broad boned as well. And the walking posture best matches the film when the walking subject droops the right shoulder consistently through the entire filming sequence.

Debate continues on whether the figure seen in the PG Film is a real cryptid primate species or a human wearing a fabricated fur costume. So the chart below (File name "Body Proportion Study 4") illustrates both the estimated anatomy of the human, if such is wearing a fur costume, and the anatomy of a real cryptid primate, as it might be proportioned, based on this analysis.

Interestingly, this anatomical proportion has yielded the best "fit" for Patty so far, and so I believe it represents a fairly accurate estimation of the skeleton inside Patty. Regardless of whether you believe it's a real creature or a human in a suit, it has a skeleton which must have these approximate proportions and be bending as posed to accomplish what we see in the film. Chart "Body proportion Study 5" below shows a hypothetical skeleton configured to match the body morph #2 figure.

A comment about fabricated suits displacing the apparent joints of the body - Advocates of Patty as a suit or costume have argued that devices might be incorporated into such suits or costumes to give an appearance of the body joints being displaced abnormally while the person wearing the suit actually has more normal skeletal proportions in fact. I have made suits for many years and gave extensive consideration to plans and designs which might give an appearance of displacing the joints (the purpose was to make the resulting "creature" look less humanly proportioned) so I have knowledge and experience in this subject. I have given consideration to that issue in my analysis here. And I have not seen anything in the film which would indicate that such contrived suit effects were attempted to displace joints.

As a general rule, such displaced joint effects only work with limited ranges of movement, and the extensive ranges of movement shown in the film are, in my opinion, sufficient to reveal mechanisms of displaced joints if any such suit devices were present. Seeing no indicators of such through the range of movement in the film, I conclude that the apparent skeletal structure of "Patty" does indeed approximate the skeletal structure of the posed digital model, in terms of joint positions and body proportions.

Study completed August 26, 2008 by Bill Munns

[masterbarber]

WOW Bill. That was outstanding! It's amazing to see someone who is talented with 3D modeling, go to work.

Do you plan to submit this study to any other researchers and/or scientists?

[Bill]

Masterbarber:

"Do you plan to submit this study to any other researchers and/or scientists?"

I would expect to in the future, but I've got a bit more work overall on my notes and studys, pulling things all together, before I did so.

Thanks for your comments.

Bill

[Guest]

It's great that you're taking the approach that you are in attempting to understand the subject in the film better.

Question: Does Poser allow the manipulation of muscle sizes in an 'automated' type way, in other words, to avoid needing to build them yourself? Coupled with your figure so far, a muscle size estimation would be interesting (especially for the massive flexing that seems to occur in the right calf in a few of the last frames).

[Guest]

Excellent work Bill!!!

[Bill]

Plaidlemur:

"Question: Does Poser allow the manipulation of muscle sizes in an 'automated' type way, in other words, to avoid needing to build them yourself? Coupled with your figure so far, a muscle size estimation would be interesting (especially for the massive flexing that seems to occur in the right calf in a few of the last frames). "

Poser and Daz Studio both allow for deformations of particular elements of the body, but the usual deformations are simple increase/decrease in dimensions along the XYZ axis individually. So you can select left lower leg, for example, and bulk it up.

But there are some add-on packages DAZ sells which allow the basic figure to be morphed with respect to looking more muscled or skiney, etc. so there are more options for modifying the body as desired. I haven't used them as yet, but know they exist. So there are additional potential ways to morph the body into shapes reflecting muscles bulging as if contracted, like the calf as you mention.

www.daz3d.com should be their website which has their inventory of figures and figure options.

Bill

Albertasquatch:

Guess you were posting as I was.

Thanks. Appreciated.

Bill

Edited August 27, 2008 by Bill

[Guest rolando]

Wow! It is great that you have persisted and keep developing your own study of "Patty". When I looked at what the percentages were that you have had to morph the model to, I noticed the the hips had to be widened to fit the figure. This made me recall what, for one poster on this board, was an important indicator that this is not a person in a suit. Basically, when you have to have a suit with thicker, more muscular legs, you add padding. When you have all this padding, the thighs of the suit are going to rub together and also the mime inside will develop a bit of a waddling gate to compensate for having no more room between the legs.

Also, I am wondering if the dropped shoulder is an indicator of fear or extra attentiveness to the film maker. I guess you have to put yourself in Patty's shoes for a moment as she walks away fearfully, listening carefully in the direction of Patterson and Gimlin for an sudden movement that would trigger a full blown running retreat. She only allows herself one look back to calm her fears.

[Bill]

Rolando:

"This made me recall what, for one poster on this board, was an important indicator that this is not a person in a suit. Basically, when you have to have a suit with thicker, more muscular legs, you add padding. When you have all this padding, the thighs of the suit are going to rub together and also the mime inside will develop a bit of a waddling gate to compensate for having no more room between the legs."

If I personally were building a suit where I wanted to widen the body, I'd mainly add the padding on the outsides of the hip and thigh so it wouldn't make it too difficult for the person inside to walk, plus you don't want a lot of pressure on the inner thigh because it might block circulation of the femoral arteries that feed blood to the legs.

But bulking up padding on the outside of the hip and thigh will result in a more unnatural sense of motion of the skin and fur because the padding has it's own compression characteristics and flesh and muscle don't compress in the same way or as much as padding. So I would not expect to see anything which has a realistic sense of anatomical motion in the heavily padded areas.

In that regard, I don't see anything on "Patty" which looks to me like bulky padding.

Bill

[Guest]

Excellent job Bill. I was looking forward to your take on the relative length of the legs. You've noted the short tibia. However, when I looked into the proportions of the tibia to the femur for most apes I found they were approx 1 to 1.1 (~10% variance). Humans, in particular are fairly consistent with their tibial-femural index. Whether Patty is an actor or a BF, I would expect her membral proportions to follow suit. Because you've determined that the femur is significantly longer than the tibia, I am wondering whether you've estimated the top of the femur accurately. It's the most difficult joint to determine since it's doesn't give itself away thru articulation . To me it looks a bit high in a couple of comparison frames.

My contention has been that the tibia and femur are both relatively short and the torso is longer than an avg human at Patty's height. Can you extend the torso of the Poser and shorten the femur? I'll bet you get an even better fit. Plus it would give the actor in the suit the benefit of the doubt. And regardless of which is correct, a shortened tibia would be difficult (if impossible) for an actor to simulate inside a suit. We have the bending knee to pinpoint the joint. I doubt RP would (or could) have disguised the knee joint. If it could be established, within tolerances that the legs were shorter, then we can at the very least rule out Bob H (an average proportioned individual). If someone claimed to be the person inside Patty, then their tibias must match up. So far I haven't been able to match any human up. Even when their limbs were comparably foreshortened.

Regarding your ASH ratio estimate of 1.08, it seems all your superimpositions actually fit the Poser inside the suit. Therefore your ASH ratio would apply only to the actor inside the suit. The rest of the suit is filled out with padding and material. However, if we assume that Patty is real and only hair and skin are covering the shoulder joints, then Patty's ASH ratio would be higher. If there are no shoulder pads, it looks like you could add a few more inches to the arm span. But I know your focus has been on a hypothetical actor inside the suit, so 108% is still significant. IMO, hand extensions would be evident relative to the elbow, which is another well defined joint in the PGF. Without hand extensions, an ASH ratio of 1.08 also rules out Bob H.

IMO, your analyses to establish the metrics of the "suit" has the potential to reveal the PGF's smoking gun. This one's a paper waiting for you to publish.

Keep up the great work.

Edited August 27, 2008 by Gigantofootecus

[Bill]

Gigantofooticus:

"My contention has been that the tibia and femur are both relatively short and the torso is longer than an avg human at Patty's height. Can you extend the torso of the Poser and shorten the femur? I'll bet you get an even better fit. Plus it would give the actor in the suit the benefit of the doubt. "

Actually, my Body Morph #1 was more or less equal length for femor and tibia, both short, and that's where I found the discrepacny between the human thigh and the Patty image thigh angles. And changing the leg to longer femor and shorter tibia made a better fit, curiously. And the hip/pelvis position was actually derived from the best thigh positioning.

So I agree the hip socket is a hard joint to pin down in position, buy having the thigh angles well defined at varied angles in multiple frames does does give us a better shot at finding the right pelvis position and thus finding the hip socket.

On the shoulder thing, since the arms hand down on Patty, I would agree that if her shoulders are actually wider than my digital model, then when her arms were raised fully out to the sides, the armspan should be even wider than I measured, and yes, that would up the armspan ratio back higher than 108%

Bill

[Guest]

Based on your skeleton, I did some basic research on crural indices, the ratio of tibia to femur length ({tibia X 100}/femur length). Homo sapiens, as diverse as we are, and the vast range of climates we inhabit, have a range in our crural index. Lapps and Inuit are low (they have shorter tibias), and Africans (of native decent) are high (long tibias). Lapps have an index average of about 79%, Inuit about 81%, and Africans have about 86%. To compare with me, of Irish decent, I have an index (roughly measured) of about 83-4% (which I understand to be in line with the expected average).

The figure that you've created, and the skeleton that seems to closely match, is about 75% (my measurements varied, I took quite a few to get some sort of average to trust-range was from 73.7-78.1, three measurements in between). This is well off the average for even the most extreme average crural index in Homo sapiens (Lapps) and is less than even Neanderthals (about the same as Lapps, but considered a fairly remarkable trait, from the mentions that I've seen).

What strikes me (besides being fairly far outside any normal human range) is the correlation between crural index and climate in humans (strong), and the crural index you are suggesting. If this is a species that inhabits northern climes, and needs to conserve heat, this crural index would be an expected result (from what I know).

Just putting that out there.

[Bill]

Plaidlemur:

Thanks for the contribution. Wonderful info.

Bill

[Guest]

Based on your skeleton, I did some basic research on crural indices, the ratio of tibia to femur length ({tibia X 100}/femur length). Homo sapiens, as diverse as we are, and the vast range of climates we inhabit, have a range in our crural index. Lapps and Inuit are low (they have shorter tibias), and Africans (of native decent) are high (long tibias). Lapps have an index average of about 79%, Inuit about 81%, and Africans have about 86%. To compare with me, of Irish decent, I have an index (roughly measured) of about 83-4% (which I understand to be in line with the expected average).

The figure that you've created, and the skeleton that seems to closely match, is about 75% (my measurements varied, I took quite a few to get some sort of average to trust-range was from 73.7-78.1, three measurements in between). This is well off the average for even the most extreme average crural index in Homo sapiens (Lapps) and is less than even Neanderthals (about the same as Lapps, but considered a fairly remarkable trait, from the mentions that I've seen).

What strikes me (besides being fairly far outside any normal human range) is the correlation between crural index and climate in humans (strong), and the crural index you are suggesting. If this is a species that inhabits northern climes, and needs to conserve heat, this crural index would be an expected result (from what I know).

Just putting that out there.

Great info plaidlemur! The studies I found stated an average crural index for humans at 85 +/- 5%. But I didn't find any data broken down by race. Very interesting. I'm still not sure about Patty though. But I admit that Bill's Poser overlays might have matched Patty's crural index. Very significant if so, since this appears to be outside the range of almost all humans. Just as significantly, what is the range of tibia/height ratio for humans? I'll bet Patty's tibia/height index is even more "inhuman" than for the crural. In which case, both indices don't support a person in the suit.

Bill, can you position the Poser, then change the POV? If so, you pretty well have the tools that VisionRealm used to create their gait animation. If you had LOTS of time, it would be invaluable to position the Poser to match each frame, record each position, then create frames to animate the Poser from various POVs. You will have to determine a "best fit" for the dimensions of the Poser first and keep them consistent for all frames. For blurry/distorted frames you could interpolate a body position based on the prev/next good frames. The resulting Poser animation could then be reoriented to view possible anomalies in Patty's gait.

Your metrics of the "guy in the suit" using the Poser seems to imply the person inside is somewhat disproportioned. If we assume that Patty is not a human in a suit, then it would be more appropriate to use the Poser to match the strict outline of Patty, instead of attempting to fit the Poser inside the suit. The Poser's body dimensions would have to be "bulked up" accordingly. I would go this route to create a Poser animation. VisionRealm used a skeletal structure for their gait analysis and focused on matching up the joints without assuming there was a person inside. The Poser also might not be matching Patty's body width since she was travelling at an oblique angle rel to the camera. In particular, it would be interesting to see how wide the pelvis is and how far apart the legs are. I suspect Patty's legs are farther apart than average, which is not something an actor could easily simulate in a suit and could account for her long step length and compliant gait. IMO, many of these details might be revealed/confirmed via a Poser gait animation.

Just food for thought.

[Bill]

Gigantofooticus:

I am looking to expand this study, refine things, more frames, etc. It would be nice to do a full sequence animation in the future too.

I am reviewing RealVision's work, so see what discrepancies there might be between mine and theirs, and then consider what would account for the discrepancies.

I didn't bulk up the figure to Patty's exact outline as it appears, because I have to allow for fur thickness. So my estimations now are trying to factor in the fur thickness estimation as part of the equation.

But it is getting interesting, and less human by the day.

Bill