[VIDEO] Jurassic Park - 30th anniversary - animation 3 (of 5)

We continue the series of stop-motion animations made to celebreate the 30th anniversary of the Jurassic Park movie. What should I write about one of the coolest projects I've had the opportunity to work on? :)

If you haven't read the previous posts, please read - part 1 and part 2.

Here one of the biggest challenges was the walking/running cycle of the Triceratops from LEGO set 76959. Which leg should move when? How should the legs be placed relative to each other? What should a relatively smooth, looping walking cycle look like?

Dinosaurs have been dead for a long time so I had nowhere to see them walking for reference. But I thought that a rhinoceros probably walks similarly. I found a slow motion video and studied what it looked like.

Unfortunately, like LEGO minifigures, the toy Triceratops does not have movable knees. This, combined with the lack of mobility in the ankle joint, eliminated realistic walking. The claws and part of the paw would have to go below the ground level (into LEGO plates). Or Triceratops would have to float in the air every few frames.

So I came up with a very simplified cycle, maybe a bit too fast, but possible to implement without any additions or removal of anything in post-production. I also managed to keep the dinosaur's body at a constant height, which was very characteristic of a rhinoceros.

Generally I always try to capture as many things as possible directly in the lens and to use as little processing or computer effects as possible. Firstly, the real thing always looks better, and secondly, post-production on a computer with such animation is quite tedious work.

Apart from walking, there is also a scene of the Triceratops turning around (when it runs away scared by the sound of the horn). I couldn't find any suitable footage here, so I recorded myself walking on all fours and doing a spin. It looked comical... xD

... but it was incredibly useful. It seems like it's nothing special when a quadruped turns around. Ordinary activity. But if you want to animate it it's hard to imagine which leg moves first, which one joins it, etc. That's why it's good to have such reference materials.

There are maybe 2 seconds of this walking in total, and probably no one pays attention to them. However, if I had not taken the time to examine and invent that walking cycle and had done everything without thinking it would have been immediately obvious that something was wrong.

Fun fact. For the scene where Dr. Sattler sneaks into the car on all fours I used exactly the same walking cycle as for Triceratops :) It fits perfectly in my opinion.

That's it for today, see you in the next post.

Update:
The next chapter is ready to read - check out it here.

Check out other LEGO posts!