Starfish Development

Development of an indirect developing sea star that passes through planktotrophic feeding and swimming larval stages (based on Asterina miniata).

Note: details are not 100% scientifically accurate. This is intended to give an artistic overview of the general process of starfish development.

Note: The details of the metamorphosis of the starfish rudiment into a juvenile are definitely a little wrong. Once I learn more I may revise this animation.

Modeled, animated, and rendered with the free, opensource Blender software (http://blender.org).

Animation by Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D.
http://biochemicalsoul.com

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Starfish
• Sea Star
• Development
• blender
• biology
• echinoderm
• asterina
• binpinnaria
• 3d
• computer animation

[thirdender]

Nice! Wish I was as talented using Blender... btw, have been a fan of your "Moonbeam Death Ray" video for some time.

[Irradiatus]

thanks thirdender. That was a fun one to make... Wow - that was a long time ago now. Glad you kept me linked!

[rafaelnfig]

@Irradiatus How did you manage to make the cells dividing at the beggining? Metaballs?

[Irradiatus]

@rafaelnfig It's been a long time since I made this, but yeah I'm pretty certain I used metaballs at the beginning and then transitioned to a mesh shortly thereafter.

[rafaelnfig]

@Irradiatus And do you remember if it's possible to convert metaballs into meshes on the timeline? Or is it two animation sequences that you put together?

[Irradiatus]

@rafaelnfig I definitely had to use 2 sequences. But if I recall correctly I was able to convert the last frame of the metaballs animation to a separate mesh to begin the second animation. I could be misremembering but I think that's what I did.

[Datsyukfan123]

Thanks, helped a lot

[tariqari]

really cool

[Irradiatus]

Note: The details of the metamorphosis of the starfish rudiment into a juvenile are definitely a little wrong. Once I learn a little more I may revise this animation.