Montreal, Quebec-based SoftImage Inc, the company that wrote the software to create the dinosaurs that break out of Jurassic Park and go on the rampage, says the movie has helped recognise a breakthrough in graphic design; the company sold its three-dimensional Creative Design software package to Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects company owned by George Lucas, which used it to create what by all accounts are life-like, believable dinosaurs – although they don’t look like it in the preview clips that have been released for television; SoftImage says the contract with Lucas was worth between $250,000 ad $500,000, but that more at issue than the money is the use of breakthrough technology; Creative Environment enables the designer to build a character and direct its movements using a mouse and computer so that a group of characters – like a herd of prehistoric creatures in Jurassic Park – can be created by computer, with some minute detail in each to differentiate it from all the others Reuter says.
