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Matt Dempsey
Palaeontologist, musculoskeletal biologist, sci-illustrator
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Jurassic Park VFX studies

Something a bit different from my usual stuff - my attempts to recreate the T. rex VFX from the Spielberg-directed Jurassic Park films.

Honestly, this whole project has felt like playing with really cool digital toys.

The intent here wasn't to remaster/improve, but to get as close as possible to the 90s CGI - including the slight of-the-era jank. Essentially, I treated these as master studies to help me unpick how the original shots were put together.

The T. rex was created in Blender, and composited into the original shots in Photoshop. The models are an original sculpt that skewed proportionally as close to the ILM models as possible, with details referencing the maquettes. Reshaping was carried out to make TLW's "Buck", matching the on-screen dimorphism. After retopo and normal baking, I made a crude flat lighting photobash from images of the maquettes/animatronics, projected it onto the model, and baked my sculpted details into that image to make the diffuse map. During this process, the Marco Makes Jurassic Park style guide (https://heyzine.com/flip-book/a8275e9d6d.html) was a very useful resource for sourcing images of the maquettes/animatronics and ensuring the correct colours.

See the individual image descriptions for more details!

Jurassic Park, is of course, owned by Universal, and these images represent a fan project/study made out of appreciation for those original movies.

This was the most recent of the attempts - no more hiding in shadow and haze - I wanted to see if the model looked right in a daylit shot. I did not remake the Gallimimus, so having my model share the frame with actual ILM models is an extra litmus test.

This was the most recent of the attempts - no more hiding in shadow and haze - I wanted to see if the model looked right in a daylit shot. I did not remake the Gallimimus, so having my model share the frame with actual ILM models is an extra litmus test.

The breakout shot - the first I attempted. While I like the rendering, this is perhaps the least close of the bunch to the original shot. It's missing the highlights in the eye, and the teeth and tongue could also do with much more specular detail.

The breakout shot - the first I attempted. While I like the rendering, this is perhaps the least close of the bunch to the original shot. It's missing the highlights in the eye, and the teeth and tongue could also do with much more specular detail.

This shot from The Lost World was the most difficult because of the haze and shadows (which I suspect were all originally acheived via 2D layering and airbrushing) having a distinct look. It took the longest to, but I think it's the closest of the set.

This shot from The Lost World was the most difficult because of the haze and shadows (which I suspect were all originally acheived via 2D layering and airbrushing) having a distinct look. It took the longest to, but I think it's the closest of the set.

The Buck prepares to reek havoc on San Diego. This was by far the easiest shot to recreate. A fairly basic lighting setup, strong directional shadows, but no distinct rain, fog, or haze to recreate.

The Buck prepares to reek havoc on San Diego. This was by far the easiest shot to recreate. A fairly basic lighting setup, strong directional shadows, but no distinct rain, fog, or haze to recreate.

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