Arlo, a timid young dinosaur, is swept far from home after a tragic event. After a thunderstorm in which he lost his family, Arlo unexpectedly befriends Spot, a brave human boy that also has no family. Together they face storms, predators, and harsh landscapes as Arlo searches for the strength he never believed he had. Through their journey, Arlo overcomes fear, learns courage, and discovers what family truly means. In the end, he returns home transformed, ready to leave his mark between the ones of his parents on the family's corn silo.
"The Good Dinosaur" took place entirely outside, with clouds in almost every scene. So the team decided for the first time to create entirely volumetric clouds that were actually in the scene, making this world that much more immersive.
The clouds team built a huge library of what they called "Cloud Lego Parts." They joined these volumetric forms together to create huge clouds of every type: rain clouds, stratus clouds, and cumulus clouds. The library had 1200 cloud pieces that artists could recombine into larger and more varied shapes. To create them, they used both procedural noise, fluid simulations and satellite photography.
