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| How do Changewings blend in with their surroundings? | |
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| Topic Started: 24 Jun 2014, 10:42 (6173 Views) | |
| Toothless123 | 24 Jun 2014, 10:42 Post #1 |
Night Fury
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I was hoping that there was an actual scientific explanation for this...  Although... dragons and science don't really mix. :{
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| Denumerable | 24 Jun 2014, 11:53 Post #2 |
Dragon Egg
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This is an interesting question, although perhaps one without a satisfying answer. The problem of invisibility can be divided into roughly two domains: seeing what is behind you, and then changing your skin to match. (There are other ways in theory, but all real visual-spectrum cloaking devices both natural and man-made approach it that way.) The "Changing your skin" part is the easiest, and there are already a number of real-life animals that are very good at it. Cuttlefish are one example - like many other skin changing animals they can control the color of their skin by expanding and contracting millions of tiny colored specks embedded in their skin. Interestingly enough, humans have been exploring this for use in color-changing clothing. (We are trying implement it in a different way though, with dielectric elastomers.) Now, the "seeing" part is much harder. They aren't covered in eyes, so somehow the skin itself needs some way to sense color. While that might sound impossible, remember that cuttlefish are colorblind! Somehow, they can sense the color of what is underneath them, and change their skin to match it - even if it has a complex pattern. The mechanism behind this is not currently known to science, but we know it happens somehow. Of course, the extent of the camouflage they have in the TV show would be something of a nanoengineering miracle if it were to somehow be brought into existence. Not impossible, but very hard. Like toothless' time-delayed fireballs and for that matter his ability to fly, (also, the glide ratio of hiccups wingsuit) everything in the dragons world is close to real-life parameters, but bent slightly. Personally, I go by the eye-head ratio rule: Any apparently impossible mechanism should not be considered impossible unless it is numerically further from realness than the size of the cartoon character's eyes. In other words, if you bent the world of HTTYD enough to make hiccup look like a real person, pretty much everything else would also transfer (except for the bewilderbeasts, no way around that.  )So, by that metric, I give it the thumbs up. |
| Toothless123 | 24 Jun 2014, 11:56 Post #3 |
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Night Fury
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Wow, an extremely detailed answer...
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| nissi4eva | 28 Sep 2014, 03:13 Post #4 |
Baby terror
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I think its kinda the same way chameleons do it. (remembering Pascal. Tee Hee.) 
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KEEP CALM AND CUDDLE THAT NIGHT FURY!
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