Jurassic Park is one of the best VFX movies of the 90s, and a film that put CG creature effects on the map. But it's known for years, and even during production of Jurassic Park, that new scientific data showed dinosaurs were closer to birds than lizards, and were covered in colourful feathers.
The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are iconic, and have been chosen as some of the best CG creature design by those working in the film industry, but Hollywood has never rendered them with scientific accuracy.
It's taken 3D artist CoolioArt to do what Hollywood can't, and render realistic raptors. CoolioArt has released footage to YouTube, which takes the original Jurassic Park footage of the finale as the raptors circle the heroes and the famous kitchen scene, and replaced the scaly models with feathered creatures.
The raptors are modelled, animated and rendered in Blender and the final compositing has been done in After Effects, proving this level of realism can be achieved by anyone… with CoolioArt's talent.
The 3D artist has revealed there's a technicality in the reworked Jurassic Part footage beyond simply adding features; the dinosaurs in the footage are not the same Velociraptors. In the films and books the animals are oversized Deinonychus antirrhopus, misnamed in the films and actually the size of a large chicken. In CoolioArt's footage they are
"Velocjraptor was around d the size of a swan, Deinonychus, the raptors in the movie misnamed as Velociraptor, was much larger, albeit a bit smaller than this," says the artist on Twitter.
He explains the new theory of what raptors looked like: "As far as we know, all raptors were as extensively feathered as modern birds. In fact, it's theorised that large raptors are actually the descendants of small gliding or even flying more primitive paravian dinosaurs. They were extremely close to birds."
Love dino VFX? Then read our deep dive into how Jurassic Park made cinematic history, and don't forget you can explore the film's universe in the video game Jurassic World Aftermath Collection for PSVR 2.
