This article focuses on computer animation. By incorporating the basic laws of friction, gravity, momentum, drag, pressure, physically based computer animations walk like dinosaurs, jump like acrobats, flow like water, crack like glass, swirl like mist, even grow and evolve like a tree. These animations are finding a commercial role in industrial simulations and remote sensing and climate modeling, as well as in their most recognizable and popular application entertainment, from feature films to special effects, to video games, to television commercials and programming, to museum exhibits. In some cases, animated characters are even beginning to plan their own physical and sensing actions, escaping trouble and avoiding physical burden. Their survival strategies can be based on knowledge acquired from their experience in their virtual domains. The most popular and lucrative application to date of all these technologies is in entertainment media, especially, it seems, for generating photo-realistic 3D digital dinosaurs on a grand scale in intricate detail.