Watch the Fabulous Stop Motion Used in the Classic Primal Rage

The release of Mortal Kombat in 1992 completely revolutionized the fighting game genre, and wrote new rules for capturing movement. As expected, the market entered a deep "me too" phase, and several companies rushed to release similar titles. Primal Rage was one of the few that managed to stand out thanks to the design and animation of its exotic characters, neo-dinosaurs full of fury and violence. How did they make them move? Pure stop motion, and sculptures that demanded weeks of work.

The story of Primal Rage tells us that an asteroid hits Earth, destroying modern civilization and throwing the few survivors into a new Stone Age. Seven gigantic creatures emerge from the crust, interrupting their millions of years of sleep to become new gods, each with their territory and followers. The objective is obvious: Defeat all the gods, conquer the world, and defeat them again in a final gauntlet.

Both the original arcade build and the main ports of Primal Rage were very well received, but the available information suggests that the developer Atari Games (Time Warner handled distribution) earned more money through official merchandising. Of course, that doesn't diminish the game, quite the opposite: Beyond certain character balance issues, its graphics and movement were impressive for 1994. What was the key to its development?

The Stop Motion Process

Two words: Stop motion. Every bite, tail whip, and tear was the product of minimal and precise steps, accompanied by hundreds of frames that compose the combat sequences. First, the dinosaur models were created, sculptures with a great level of detail for later use in making the molds. Each sculpture took about three weeks to produce.

In addition to preparing the molds, the experts behind Primal Rage also built small "skeletons", frames with their corresponding joints, ensuring rigidity and flexibility for the final versions of the sculptures. The skeletons were placed inside the molds, injected with latex, and baked. The last phase was left to the artists, focused on giving color and texture to the dinosaurs, and eliminating imperfections.

In summary, the combination of models, stop motion, photography, and CGI made Primal Rage something very different from the rest. And to think that today we can reproduce all that work with a single workstation. We have come a long way.

Source: Kotaku