AR giganotosaurus roams Trafalgar Square in LED illusion

This past summer, London, Paris and Rome each saw a lifesize Giganotosaurus tower over their historic streets demanding the attention of passers-by.

The fearsome dinosaurs formed part of an interactive installation by Territory Studio, designed to promote the cinema release of the Jurassic World Dominion film.

Territory Studio reimagined the giant CG creature, originally developed by film industry VFX company Industrial Light & Magic, in collaboration with Universal Pictures and Magic 14.

The publicity stunt played out on an 8mx8m LED screen, combining real-time and pre-rendered assets with a forced perspective illusion that gave visitors an up-close encounter with a supersized Giga.

The project involved over 200,000 frames and multiple moving parts, which required close coordination between production, design and event management teams as they unified hardware and logistics. The initial installation was launched in London’s Trafalgar Square, closely followed by Paris and Rome.

Achieving life-size accuracy
The original asset was built specifically for the film, containing large quantities of fine detail and textures. These same details were scaled up for an entirely different real-world context, whilst managing movement, interaction, light and shadows. This required extensive pre-planning to ensure the illusion worked in situ – and with limited access to the sites, or a full-size screen set-up, Territory Studio needed to adopt a range of technological solutions to stress-test the content ahead of time.

This included the creation of a working 3D model of Trafalgar Square, derived from film-quality LiDAR scans, which was then imported into VR to accurately judge alignment and viewing perspectives.

Environmental Simulation
The LiDAR scan was cleaned up in the Maya and Houdini 3D software programs to produce a photorealistic model. This model provided a fully controllable backplate and an accurate terrain for the dinosaur to walk within. In addition, HDR images captured at each location were used for precise simulation of the lighting conditions at different times of the day. While ILM’s team worked to deliver bespoke animations, Territory Studio focussed on simulating how natural light scenarios may affect the asset and the wider environment. These studies were then used to inform screen positions and visitor flows, avoiding shadows and preserving the forced-perspective illusion.

The end result
The installations were implemented seamlessly, blending entirely into their respective environments – the events themselves were a resounding success, with queues forming around the block at each location. Both London and Paris even saw members of the film’s headline cast face off with their on-screen predator in the flesh.