Sorry I’ve been away, I took a week off of blogging for an extended birthday!

Next up, Acrocanthosaurus! Acro is best known for the row of neural spines along his back, which most likely supported musculature. It has been surmised, however, that the ridge on his back may have been used for display or possibly heat regulation.

Acrocanthosaurus is most closely related to Allosaurus, though some have speculated it is in fact a carcharodontosaurid, a family that includes Giganotosaurus.

In any case, at 40 feet long and with power exuding from every limb of his body, there is no question that the Acrocanthosaurus was a lean, mean killing machine.

Parasaurolophus is the “cow” of Dinosauria. As a mid-sized (for a dinosaur), meaty, somewhat defenseless beast, he roams the forests in search of leafy grub. There are many theories as to what Parasaurolophus used it’s hollow nasal ridge for, including vocalization and increased smell capabilities.

Next dino: Ornithomimus!  Ornithomimus is closesly related to Gallimimus, the flocking dinosaur seen in Jurassic Park.  It was slightly taller than a human, and could probably run very fast.  Ornithomimus was most likely an omnivore, eating small plants and creatures.

As one of the smaller dinosaurs in the game, Ornithomimus mostly forages from the ground and makes a tasty snack for anyone who can catch this fast, ostrich-like dinosaur.

12 dinosaur species, 12 days of terrible lizardly fun!  Next up, Sauroposeidon.

Sauroposeidon was possibly the tallest animal to ever live, stretching to almost 60 feet high. While most of the huge cretaceous sauropods lived in South America, some have been discovered in North America.

Today’s dinosaur is the fearsome Utahraptor:

(click to see a larger image)

Jurassic Park’s Velociraptor was actually based on a fictional “giant” velociraptor, the realistic versions of which were only the size of a turkey. But during the production of the movie, a giant raptor was found: Utahraptor, lending some credibility to the blind specualtion.

At 6 meters long, 2 meters tall, and weighing in at 1,500 lbs, Utahraptor would have been a force to be reckoned with, especially if the animal was as smart as has been suggested.

Out version, pictured above, gets its patterns from the modern leopard lizard.

All of the dinosaurs from Venture Dinosauria lived during the cretaceous period in North America. The cretaceous spanned 80 million years and not all of these dinosaurs lived in tandem, but they do represent a fairly broad cross section of the larger creatures that lived during this period.

Yesterday we kicked things off with Deinonychus. Next up, Quetzalcoatlus:

(click to see a larger image)

Quetzalcoatlus was the largest flying creature to ever live. It had a wingspan of over 30 feet. Recent research suggests that Quetzalcoatlus was not a fisher or wader, but in fact roamed the prairies like a giraffe, catching small prey in his beak.

Time to announce the 12 dinosaurs in the game!  First up, Deinonychus:

(click to see a larger image)

Deinonychus, an 11 foot long, roughly 5 foot tall dinosaur, may have been able to run up the sides of trees using their powerful legs and claws, and possibly assisted by lift generated by feathered forearms.  They likely ate a whole range of prey: from insects and small reptiles to much larger prey.  They may have hunted in packs, having been found in close proximity to (and with teeth marks on) Tenontosaurus.

Feathers on deinonychus are not just a theory: quill knobs have been discovered on the closely related Velociraptor’s skeleton.

A quick glance at our first dinosaur model for Dinosauria, the lone Jurassic dinosaur of the bunch, Stegosaurus! (for full size images, click on the thumbnails)

First, we conceptualize the shape and colors:

After iterating on the concept image, we model the high-poly version, which we will use to create a normal map:

Then we break that down to the low-poly version:

Then we paint the texture and apply the normal map. The Stegosaurus is ready for the game! (at 2177 tris):

Last week Dinosauria hit its first milestone!  That puts us at 13% done. It’s also why I haven’t been blogging for the past week… I’ve been trying to get some R&R so my trapezius stops spouting obscenities at my desk chair.

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As part of my dinosaur research, I’ve been speaking with Adam Britton, a real-world crocodile handler and researcher.  He keeps a fantastic Crocodile blog and founded Crocodilian.com.  He also has numerous TV and movie credits.

The first dinosaur we are modeling is the classic Tyrannosaurus Rex.  We’re taking a bit of an *ahem* creative approach to the coloration of all the dinosaurs in our game, and I wanted to make sure the creativity didn’t conflict with the (perceived) reality of TRex.

The following is a bit of concept art from our artists at Liberum Donum and the conversation with Adam that ensued.

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