Rob: Before and after Jurassic Park, ILM used two Canadian animation programs: one called Alias, which came out of Toronto, and one called Softimage, made in Montreal. I knew both Alias and Softimage when I got hired by ILM in ’93. They had built the Jurassic Park T-Rex in Alias and animated it in Softimage.
Softimage had what we call “inverse kinematics.” What that allows you to do is take a foot, keyframe it on the ground, and then the math will figure out how the leg has to move, and the foot will remain locked. Before that, the feet would
Our publication features several staff writers, allowing us to report on different events and offer expert perspectives across various subjects.