I've been working on a bunch of dinosaurs over the years in 3DSMAX probably very similar to what has already been done. I've been referencing a lot of the common appearances of dinosaurs from cinema though do intent to uniquely add my own flavor to them. Maybe even some feathers for some.
Just got to work on the teeth, claws
My main concern will be the textures. As having just a blanket texture of scales isn't going to do it for me. I'm incredibly obsessed with detail and I think the texturing process be the most challenging. Even more then the animation stage. May need to throw the mesh into Mudbox and practice painting directly on the mesh. We'll see!
I am estimating the total poly count will be around 1200.
With Placeholder Texture
Developing claws
As addition to modeling the dinos, I've been working with a lot of audio. Mixing down animal tracks, blending them to create unique sounds for each creature. May need to revisit the local zoo when the weather gets better.
In FPS Creator, I originally nabbed a free 3D model off the net and re-rigged it and animated it as well as scripted it to work in game. I unfortunately dont have any screenshots or videos its use in the engine. It did work out quite well, especially when using the DarkAI commands with teams allowing it to hunt down prey and attack the player. Only video I have of it was back in 2013 when testing out the animations in 3DsMax:
3D Model from the Internet (2013)
Custom 3D Model (2013) - early early tests without completed mesh
With this new model im working on now for Game Guru, I'm starting out completely from scratch creating the mesh and textures and sounds so it can be used in your commercial games completely license free!