To help, technicians invented the Dinosaur Input Device, a T-rex puppet connected to a computer. Every time they moved it, the image on the computer screen moved too. When they opened the puppet's mouth to roar, the T-rex on the screen mirrored the movement, and the computer recorded it. The animators used a special scanner made by Cyberware to capture the surface dimensions for the computer-generated dinosaurs. One of the most difficult jobs was adding the skin.
Computers are good at making shiny, smooth surfaces.
But real animals are covered in varied wrinkles with shadows. The animators spent weeks determining how the skin of the T-rex should look as it moved. Two years of painstaking work resulted in a total of six minutes of computer-generated dinosaur footage in the final film. The crew made great strides, improving computer animation technology and technique. Before long, expect to see computer-generated human actors appearing at a theater near you.