Golaem 6 for Autodesk Maya

Artikel Animation, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Golaem, Artikel Golaem Crowd, Artikel Maya,

[ #Maya #Crowd #Golaem ]Golaem announces Golaem 6, giving Crowd TDs more access, under the hood of the simulation engine. You can now customize the way your characters perceive and react to their environment, giving them custom Artificial Intelligence capabilities. Other additions include an Emit/Kill behavior, a behavior for Traffic Simulation as well as some improvements on the acclaimed Golaem Layout Tool.

These new features are based on user feedback and requests, Golaem is being used by renowned studios on more and more demanding projects such as Pirates of the Caribbean by Atomic Fiction, Halo Wars 2 by Blur, Hacksaw Ridge by Slate VFX, Captain Underpants by Mikros Image, Game of Thrones... Talk about Stadiums, city streets, battles, creatures, forests, cars... Golaem helps you to populate all your projects!

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd tutorial: Populating a stadium

New Features
•Perception: Customize the way characters are aware of each other
•Channel Operators: Give a brain to your characters
•Customizable Transitions: Build animation state machines
•Emit / Kill behaviors: Summon or dismiss characters at will
•Traffic Behaviors: Add traffic to your virtual cities
•Layout Tool Improvements: Layout or retake your scenes
•Extensibility: Integrate Golaem in your pipeline or build tools around it
•Added a Freeze On Collided mode in the MasterSlave Behavior (eg sticky arrows)
•Added collision support of Apex Cloth Behavior and Crowd Rigid Bodies (max 32 spheres and 32 planes)

Some Improvements
•Support of non-triangulated geometry in the Character Geometry File (gcg)
•Simulation Cache file quantization format attribute in the CrowdManager Node
•Improved performances when using a MEL expression in an Input Channel Operator
•Conversion Factor can be set for Spine / Limbs / Effector nodes in the Character Maker
•New Export Animation In One File Per Entity FBX Mode in the Simulation Exporter
•New Export Animation In One File FBX Mode in the Simulation Exporter
•Added Expression as Target Mode in the Steer and GoTo Behaviors
•Added a Use Kinematic Target option in the Physicalize Behavior
•Added a Use Kinematic Target option in the Crowd Rigid Body node

Some Bug Fixes
•Fixed blendshape deformation computation when controlled by a distant bone
•Fixed mirror animations looks awkward in some specific cases
•Fixed wrong ground adaptation when playing mirror animations
•Fixed the crash that occurs when baking sparse Simulation Caches in FBX or Alembic
•Fixed the crash that occurs when using the Emit and Perception Behaviors


PERCEPTION: CUSTOMIZE THE WAY CHARACTERS ARE AWARE OF EACH OTHER'S

CHANNEL OPERATORS: GIVE A BRAIN TO YOUR CHARACTERS

CUSTOMIZABLE TRANSITIONS: BUILD ANIMATION STATE MACHINES

EMIT / KILL BEHAVIORS: SUMMON OR DISMISS CHARACTERS AT WILL

TRAFFIC BEHAVIORS: ADD TRAFFIC TO YOUR VIRTUAL CITIES

LAYOUT TOOL IMPROVEMENTS: LAYOUT OR RETAKE YOUR SCENES

Check out the documentation release.

Availability

The complete scene population solution Including the Layout Tool cost 7000 € for Permanent License and Support & Upgrade 1750 € per year. There is also a range of rental options.
Visit Golaem's Website for different options.

  More Golaem Plugin [post_ad]

[ #Maya #Crowd #Golaem ]Golaem announces Golaem 6, giving Crowd TDs more access, under the hood of the simulation engine. You can now customize the way your characters perceive and react to their environment, giving them custom Artificial Intelligence capabilities. Other additions include an Emit/Kill behavior, a behavior for Traffic Simulation as well as some improvements on the acclaimed Golaem Layout Tool.

These new features are based on user feedback and requests, Golaem is being used by renowned studios on more and more demanding projects such as Pirates of the Caribbean by Atomic Fiction, Halo Wars 2 by Blur, Hacksaw Ridge by Slate VFX, Captain Underpants by Mikros Image, Game of Thrones... Talk about Stadiums, city streets, battles, creatures, forests, cars... Golaem helps you to populate all your projects!

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd tutorial: Populating a stadium

New Features
•Perception: Customize the way characters are aware of each other
•Channel Operators: Give a brain to your characters
•Customizable Transitions: Build animation state machines
•Emit / Kill behaviors: Summon or dismiss characters at will
•Traffic Behaviors: Add traffic to your virtual cities
•Layout Tool Improvements: Layout or retake your scenes
•Extensibility: Integrate Golaem in your pipeline or build tools around it
•Added a Freeze On Collided mode in the MasterSlave Behavior (eg sticky arrows)
•Added collision support of Apex Cloth Behavior and Crowd Rigid Bodies (max 32 spheres and 32 planes)

Some Improvements
•Support of non-triangulated geometry in the Character Geometry File (gcg)
•Simulation Cache file quantization format attribute in the CrowdManager Node
•Improved performances when using a MEL expression in an Input Channel Operator
•Conversion Factor can be set for Spine / Limbs / Effector nodes in the Character Maker
•New Export Animation In One File Per Entity FBX Mode in the Simulation Exporter
•New Export Animation In One File FBX Mode in the Simulation Exporter
•Added Expression as Target Mode in the Steer and GoTo Behaviors
•Added a Use Kinematic Target option in the Physicalize Behavior
•Added a Use Kinematic Target option in the Crowd Rigid Body node

Some Bug Fixes
•Fixed blendshape deformation computation when controlled by a distant bone
•Fixed mirror animations looks awkward in some specific cases
•Fixed wrong ground adaptation when playing mirror animations
•Fixed the crash that occurs when baking sparse Simulation Caches in FBX or Alembic
•Fixed the crash that occurs when using the Emit and Perception Behaviors


PERCEPTION: CUSTOMIZE THE WAY CHARACTERS ARE AWARE OF EACH OTHER'S

CHANNEL OPERATORS: GIVE A BRAIN TO YOUR CHARACTERS

CUSTOMIZABLE TRANSITIONS: BUILD ANIMATION STATE MACHINES

EMIT / KILL BEHAVIORS: SUMMON OR DISMISS CHARACTERS AT WILL

TRAFFIC BEHAVIORS: ADD TRAFFIC TO YOUR VIRTUAL CITIES

LAYOUT TOOL IMPROVEMENTS: LAYOUT OR RETAKE YOUR SCENES

Check out the documentation release.

Availability

The complete scene population solution Including the Layout Tool cost 7000 € for Permanent License and Support & Upgrade 1750 € per year. There is also a range of rental options.
Visit Golaem's Website for different options.

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Read more »

Miarmy 5.5 for Autodesk Maya

Artikel Animation, Artikel Basefount Technology, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Maya, Artikel Miarmy, Artikel Simulation,

[ #Maya #Crowd #Miarmy ] Basefount has announced its crowd-simulation system for Autodesk Maya - Miarmy 5.5 with adding a new intelligent instancing system for crowd agents, and support for the Redshift renderer.

Highlight features:

Clone Agents
Basefount introduced the Clone feature in this version of Miarmy. Clone is an intelligence instance. It not only the instance, but also it supports logic simulations. Clone allows users build a large number of simple crowds with intuitive method. Especially in stadium, square or terrain, we can fast deploy huge number of actors for simulation and rendering. For dealing with 200K agents in scene, we can get 20X faster in simulation and 100X faster for rendering (currently supports Arnold & V-Ray

​Direct Logic Engine Upgrade
In the new version of Miarmy, we finished the Direct Logic Engine and also expanded it to 3d space. With the new engine, we can skip most of the logic setup, and directly build most of logic with simple setup. For example if you want to your actors walk along the road, just tell them “follow the road”. Auto avoid and auto fight logic also added into the engine.

Faster Placement & Viewport
We improved the speed of viewport and the placement infrastructure and many related nodes. Now it can be 2-3 times faster than before verison for displaying the agents and clone agents.

Redshift Renderer Supports
Redshift Render is based on GPU and very popular nowadays, we added this renderer procedural support in this version so that we can render big number of agents in the scene

Minor New Features
• Expression can be execute after dynamics
• PP attribute in output language
• Pipeline scripts for auto action creation and build OA (for too many different
• Cache Agent Color
• Blendshape Copy to OA
• Relative speed input language
• Auto fight, meet/fight && front near stop

Improvements
• Depth first priority full tree in logic tree, more intuitive logic setup method
• 3 levels of LOD
• block some agents' RBD target (RBD target can ignore some agents randomly)
• (Direct Logic) Road rotation speed
• Lock name and proportions in place node (agent type can swap order)
• Arnold Opaque fix
• RBD collide debug nodes
• Arnold render catalog file
• Auto avoid (block push left/right)
• Noise id based on agent id instead of scene index

Visit Basefount's website for full list of new features in Miarmy 5.5

>> See Also: Creating Crowd tutorial

Availability

A node-locked licence costing $2,850 and a site licence $5,250.
The price for Rental is $1,450/quarter for a node-locked licence or $2,450/quarter for a site licence.
See the full range of options here.
Miarmy 5.5 is available for Maya 2014+ on Windows XP+, Linux and Mac OS X 10.6+..

  More Crowd Plugin [post_ad]

[ #Maya #Crowd #Miarmy ] Basefount has announced its crowd-simulation system for Autodesk Maya - Miarmy 5.5 with adding a new intelligent instancing system for crowd agents, and support for the Redshift renderer.

Highlight features:

Clone Agents
Basefount introduced the Clone feature in this version of Miarmy. Clone is an intelligence instance. It not only the instance, but also it supports logic simulations. Clone allows users build a large number of simple crowds with intuitive method. Especially in stadium, square or terrain, we can fast deploy huge number of actors for simulation and rendering. For dealing with 200K agents in scene, we can get 20X faster in simulation and 100X faster for rendering (currently supports Arnold & V-Ray

​Direct Logic Engine Upgrade
In the new version of Miarmy, we finished the Direct Logic Engine and also expanded it to 3d space. With the new engine, we can skip most of the logic setup, and directly build most of logic with simple setup. For example if you want to your actors walk along the road, just tell them “follow the road”. Auto avoid and auto fight logic also added into the engine.

Faster Placement & Viewport
We improved the speed of viewport and the placement infrastructure and many related nodes. Now it can be 2-3 times faster than before verison for displaying the agents and clone agents.

Redshift Renderer Supports
Redshift Render is based on GPU and very popular nowadays, we added this renderer procedural support in this version so that we can render big number of agents in the scene

Minor New Features
• Expression can be execute after dynamics
• PP attribute in output language
• Pipeline scripts for auto action creation and build OA (for too many different
• Cache Agent Color
• Blendshape Copy to OA
• Relative speed input language
• Auto fight, meet/fight && front near stop

Improvements
• Depth first priority full tree in logic tree, more intuitive logic setup method
• 3 levels of LOD
• block some agents' RBD target (RBD target can ignore some agents randomly)
• (Direct Logic) Road rotation speed
• Lock name and proportions in place node (agent type can swap order)
• Arnold Opaque fix
• RBD collide debug nodes
• Arnold render catalog file
• Auto avoid (block push left/right)
• Noise id based on agent id instead of scene index

Visit Basefount's website for full list of new features in Miarmy 5.5

>> See Also: Creating Crowd tutorial

Availability

A node-locked licence costing $2,850 and a site licence $5,250.
The price for Rental is $1,450/quarter for a node-locked licence or $2,450/quarter for a site licence.
See the full range of options here.
Miarmy 5.5 is available for Maya 2014+ on Windows XP+, Linux and Mac OS X 10.6+..

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Read more »

Anima 2.6 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D

Artikel 3ds Max, Artikel Anima, Artikel Animation, Artikel Architecture, Artikel AXYZ, Artikel Cinema 4D, Artikel Crowd,

[ #3dsMax #Anima #Cinema4D ] AXYZ design has released the latest update to its crowd simulation tool for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. Anima 2.6 has been designed for rapid simulation of large crowds while retaining the versatility and artistic freedom that users need. Nearly every aspect of an animation can be controlled, and for the first time it is now possible to import and use custom characters and motions.

MAIN NEW FEATURES:
FBX EXPORTER
Now available from the “Export 3D Scene” option! Presets for exporting to Autodesk 3DS Max, Autodesk Maya, Maxon Cinema 4D, Newtek Lightwave, SideFX Houdini, Blender and Epic Unreal Engine 4 have been included.

3DS MAX 2018
Added support for 3DS Max 2018 and Arnold Renderer!

Visit the released notes for more features

>> See Also: Anima 2.5 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D

Availability

Anima 2.6 is free download for Lite Version, or £249 for Pro version.
  More Anima Plugin [post_ad]

[ #3dsMax #Anima #Cinema4D ] AXYZ design has released the latest update to its crowd simulation tool for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. Anima 2.6 has been designed for rapid simulation of large crowds while retaining the versatility and artistic freedom that users need. Nearly every aspect of an animation can be controlled, and for the first time it is now possible to import and use custom characters and motions.

MAIN NEW FEATURES:
FBX EXPORTER
Now available from the “Export 3D Scene” option! Presets for exporting to Autodesk 3DS Max, Autodesk Maya, Maxon Cinema 4D, Newtek Lightwave, SideFX Houdini, Blender and Epic Unreal Engine 4 have been included.

3DS MAX 2018
Added support for 3DS Max 2018 and Arnold Renderer!

Visit the released notes for more features

>> See Also: Anima 2.5 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D

Availability

Anima 2.6 is free download for Lite Version, or £249 for Pro version.
  More Anima Plugin [post_ad]

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Anima 2.5 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D

Artikel 3ds Max, Artikel Anima, Artikel Animation, Artikel Architecture, Artikel AXYZ, Artikel Cinema 4D, Artikel Crowd,

[ #AXYZ #Anima #Architecture ]AXYZ design has released the latest update to its crowd simulation tool for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. Anima 2.5 has been designed for rapid simulation of large crowds while retaining the versatility and artistic freedom that users need. Nearly every aspect of an animation can be controlled, and for the first time it is now possible to import and use custom characters and motions.

This major update comes with lots of new features such as:
• anima: Ready-Posed Actors are now supported! Several Ready-Posed Metropoly models are now included in the default anima installation
• anima: An integrated online shop for Rigged and Ready-Posed actors is now available!
• anima: A new Export option is now available from the Scenes menu, allowing you to convert your scene into a common 3D format! The exporter module has the same limitations as the anima Plugin if no license is currently active
• anima: A fully revamped Custom Actor and Motion Clip FBX importer is now available!
• anima: The texture variation system has been upgraded! The usage of custom protection masks has been included in most of the new Ready-Posed actors. The introduction of protection masks allows you to modify variation colors at different levels, even when the material count is limited
• anima: Libraries have been updated! They have been divided into expandable groups, allowing for better filtering or visualization of the libraries depending on the current editing mode.
• anima: A first-time configuration screen has been added. Multiple configuration options such as default paths, the displayed units and the preferred 3D viewport renderer can be selected when starting the application for the first time.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Scanline materials can be applied regardless of the renderer being used. (Scanline support is dependent on the renderer)
• Cinema 4D Plugin: A Plaster material preset has been implemented.

And Bug Fixing :
• anima: *IMPORTANT* Revamped general dialog, toolbar and docking system to improve compatibility with newer systems. Fixes an issue where multiple OS bugs could be triggered by the application, like massive slowdowns due to OpenGL issues introduced in newest Windows 10 updates. If you’ve encountered such issues before, we recommend testing this new version of anima.
• anima: Fixed a rare issue where a certain type of simulation could cause different results on different systems when attempting to render it. The simulation results should now be consistent across all systems.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Increased the range of the allowed speed multiplier values.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Fixed several issues with the default scanline materials.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Fixed an issue where actor arrows would not show up at the proper scale after changing the units of the scene.
• Cinema 4D Plugin: Improved material library with Material Adapter window. From this window you can create photorealistic materials for your current renderer but also allows you to select from alternative options like Plaster or Semi Opaque materials for stylized results. To load photoreal materials leave the settings on Regular Config and click Apply Materials to import the Anima scene.
Check the Full list of new features of Anima 2.5 HERE.

>> See Also: New Collection Health Care 3D People Metropoly in AXYZ Design

Download

Anima 2.5 is free download for Lite Version, and special offers for £199 (instead of £249) for Pro version.

  More AXYZ Plugin [post_ad]

[ #AXYZ #Anima #Architecture ]AXYZ design has released the latest update to its crowd simulation tool for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. Anima 2.5 has been designed for rapid simulation of large crowds while retaining the versatility and artistic freedom that users need. Nearly every aspect of an animation can be controlled, and for the first time it is now possible to import and use custom characters and motions.

This major update comes with lots of new features such as:
• anima: Ready-Posed Actors are now supported! Several Ready-Posed Metropoly models are now included in the default anima installation
• anima: An integrated online shop for Rigged and Ready-Posed actors is now available!
• anima: A new Export option is now available from the Scenes menu, allowing you to convert your scene into a common 3D format! The exporter module has the same limitations as the anima Plugin if no license is currently active
• anima: A fully revamped Custom Actor and Motion Clip FBX importer is now available!
• anima: The texture variation system has been upgraded! The usage of custom protection masks has been included in most of the new Ready-Posed actors. The introduction of protection masks allows you to modify variation colors at different levels, even when the material count is limited
• anima: Libraries have been updated! They have been divided into expandable groups, allowing for better filtering or visualization of the libraries depending on the current editing mode.
• anima: A first-time configuration screen has been added. Multiple configuration options such as default paths, the displayed units and the preferred 3D viewport renderer can be selected when starting the application for the first time.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Scanline materials can be applied regardless of the renderer being used. (Scanline support is dependent on the renderer)
• Cinema 4D Plugin: A Plaster material preset has been implemented.

And Bug Fixing :
• anima: *IMPORTANT* Revamped general dialog, toolbar and docking system to improve compatibility with newer systems. Fixes an issue where multiple OS bugs could be triggered by the application, like massive slowdowns due to OpenGL issues introduced in newest Windows 10 updates. If you’ve encountered such issues before, we recommend testing this new version of anima.
• anima: Fixed a rare issue where a certain type of simulation could cause different results on different systems when attempting to render it. The simulation results should now be consistent across all systems.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Increased the range of the allowed speed multiplier values.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Fixed several issues with the default scanline materials.
• 3DS Max Plugin: Fixed an issue where actor arrows would not show up at the proper scale after changing the units of the scene.
• Cinema 4D Plugin: Improved material library with Material Adapter window. From this window you can create photorealistic materials for your current renderer but also allows you to select from alternative options like Plaster or Semi Opaque materials for stylized results. To load photoreal materials leave the settings on Regular Config and click Apply Materials to import the Anima scene.
Check the Full list of new features of Anima 2.5 HERE.

>> See Also: New Collection Health Care 3D People Metropoly in AXYZ Design

Download

Anima 2.5 is free download for Lite Version, and special offers for £199 (instead of £249) for Pro version.

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Read more »

ANIMA v2.1.2 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D

Artikel 3ds Max, Artikel Anima, Artikel Animation, Artikel Architecture, Artikel AXYZ, Artikel Cinema 4D, Artikel Crowd,

[ #3dsMax #Anima ]AXYZ has announced that The Crowd Simulation Software ANIMA v2.1.2 for 3ds Max is now available and it's free update for already user.

>> See Also: Download Anima v2.1.2 for 3ds Max, Cinema 4D Demo

BUG FIXING
▪ anima: Structural changes to the application updater. A manual update to 2.1.2 will be required for future updates to appear.
▪ anima: Fixed an issue where actors below a certain height (like children) would not be properly assigned to a seat when using a sitting animation.
▪ anima Plugin: Export pack methods used by other applications will now create the directory if it does not exist.
▪ 3DS Max Plugin: Fixed a mesh corruption issue with external renderers (like VRay) on 3ds Max 2017.

Download

Free updare or Download Anima v2.1.2 for 3ds Max Demo here https://goo.gl/opmoU4

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[ #3dsMax #Anima ]AXYZ has announced that The Crowd Simulation Software ANIMA v2.1.2 for 3ds Max is now available and it's free update for already user.

>> See Also: Download Anima v2.1.2 for 3ds Max, Cinema 4D Demo

BUG FIXING
▪ anima: Structural changes to the application updater. A manual update to 2.1.2 will be required for future updates to appear.
▪ anima: Fixed an issue where actors below a certain height (like children) would not be properly assigned to a seat when using a sitting animation.
▪ anima Plugin: Export pack methods used by other applications will now create the directory if it does not exist.
▪ 3DS Max Plugin: Fixed a mesh corruption issue with external renderers (like VRay) on 3ds Max 2017.

Download

Free updare or Download Anima v2.1.2 for 3ds Max Demo here https://goo.gl/opmoU4

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Golaem 5.0 for Autodesk Maya

Artikel Animation, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Golaem Crowd, Artikel Maya, Artikel Simulation, Artikel VFX,

[ #adskMaya ]Golaem has announced that Golaem 5 for Autodesk Maya is now available with the Layout Tool, a post-simulation edition tool based on Maya manipulators

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd Workflow Overview

Layout Tool

Golaem 5 enables artists to take control of their simulations results and modify them in a post-simulation step without going back to square one.
Manipulate simulated characters
Simulated Characters can be transformed simply by using the Maya translate, rotate and scale tools and duplicate / kill functions. Artists do not need to care about snapping characters to the ground as it is still automatically done by Golaem.

Edit characters appearance or simply “be lucky”
To add variations, the characters’ props and shading can be randomized or manually hand-picked using the Character Palette.

Retime animation
Animation can be offsetted in time or have its speed increased/decreased. Artists can then easily match their characters timing with an external element or add animation variations on duplicated characters.

Manually offset or edit animation
Artists can also quickly edit postures directly from the simulation layout tool, or import a complete character skeleton to manually animate it.

Change your mind anytime
Because the Layout Tool works as a layer on top of the simulation, it is very quick and all modifications are cancellable or customizable at any time in the History Stack.

Golaem Layout

To facilitate its adoption in studios workflows, the Layout Tool is also available as a separate product called Golaem Layout. Golaem Layout is a cheaper version of Golaem, stripped of simulation capabilities, and allowing users to visualize and edit existing characters simulations results.

This new product will allow studios to envision a different work organization and workflow when dealing with digital extras.

Artists from other departments (e.g. lighting, fx…), or partner studios, can now get a full previsualization of the simulated characters directly in their viewport without the need of a full license.

Senior artists can focus on creating simulations, while new or junior artists will layout shots and perform retakes. A single walking soldier can quickly be duplicated and modified to get a full walking army in formation.

Last but not least, Golaem Layout enables studios to build a simulations library and quickly reuse them. For example, a few casual passers-by can be loaded and re-positioned to populate streets in different projects.


Check all Golaem 5.0 for Autodesk Maya Features video:
Golaem Layout Tool Introduction

Geometry and Shading Variation Introduction
The Geometry Tab in the Character Maker is an artistic nodal editor which allows to easily describe how geometry and shading variation will be applied to your Golaem Characters

Trigger Editor Introduction
The Trigger Editor is an artistic nodal editor which allows to easily describe when your Behaviors should get started or stopped in Golaem

Blind Data Introduction
Blind Data support allows to use any kind of custom animation data (such as muscle deformers, animated shader attributes...) inside Golaem

Availability

Golaem 5.0 for Autodesk Maya and Golaem Layout rental licenses are available with a 50% discount until March 21st.

Golaem (including the Layout Tool) starts from 325 EUR/month (instead of 650 EUR)
Golaem Layout starts from 65 EUR/month (instead of 130 EUR)

Get all pricing information on http://buy.golaem.com
Evaluate free for 30 days on http://evaluate.golaem.com


  More Plugin [post_ad]

[ #adskMaya ]Golaem has announced that Golaem 5 for Autodesk Maya is now available with the Layout Tool, a post-simulation edition tool based on Maya manipulators

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd Workflow Overview

Layout Tool

Golaem 5 enables artists to take control of their simulations results and modify them in a post-simulation step without going back to square one.
Manipulate simulated characters
Simulated Characters can be transformed simply by using the Maya translate, rotate and scale tools and duplicate / kill functions. Artists do not need to care about snapping characters to the ground as it is still automatically done by Golaem.

Edit characters appearance or simply “be lucky”
To add variations, the characters’ props and shading can be randomized or manually hand-picked using the Character Palette.

Retime animation
Animation can be offsetted in time or have its speed increased/decreased. Artists can then easily match their characters timing with an external element or add animation variations on duplicated characters.

Manually offset or edit animation
Artists can also quickly edit postures directly from the simulation layout tool, or import a complete character skeleton to manually animate it.

Change your mind anytime
Because the Layout Tool works as a layer on top of the simulation, it is very quick and all modifications are cancellable or customizable at any time in the History Stack.

Golaem Layout

To facilitate its adoption in studios workflows, the Layout Tool is also available as a separate product called Golaem Layout. Golaem Layout is a cheaper version of Golaem, stripped of simulation capabilities, and allowing users to visualize and edit existing characters simulations results.

This new product will allow studios to envision a different work organization and workflow when dealing with digital extras.

Artists from other departments (e.g. lighting, fx…), or partner studios, can now get a full previsualization of the simulated characters directly in their viewport without the need of a full license.

Senior artists can focus on creating simulations, while new or junior artists will layout shots and perform retakes. A single walking soldier can quickly be duplicated and modified to get a full walking army in formation.

Last but not least, Golaem Layout enables studios to build a simulations library and quickly reuse them. For example, a few casual passers-by can be loaded and re-positioned to populate streets in different projects.


Check all Golaem 5.0 for Autodesk Maya Features video:
Golaem Layout Tool Introduction

Geometry and Shading Variation Introduction
The Geometry Tab in the Character Maker is an artistic nodal editor which allows to easily describe how geometry and shading variation will be applied to your Golaem Characters

Trigger Editor Introduction
The Trigger Editor is an artistic nodal editor which allows to easily describe when your Behaviors should get started or stopped in Golaem

Blind Data Introduction
Blind Data support allows to use any kind of custom animation data (such as muscle deformers, animated shader attributes...) inside Golaem

Availability

Golaem 5.0 for Autodesk Maya and Golaem Layout rental licenses are available with a 50% discount until March 21st.

Golaem (including the Layout Tool) starts from 325 EUR/month (instead of 650 EUR)
Golaem Layout starts from 65 EUR/month (instead of 130 EUR)

Get all pricing information on http://buy.golaem.com
Evaluate free for 30 days on http://evaluate.golaem.com


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Massive 8.0 and Massive for 3ds Max

Artikel 3ds Max, Artikel Animation, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Massive, Artikel Massive for 3ds Max, Artikel Massive for Maya, Artikel Maya, Artikel Simulation, Artikel VFX,

[ #VFX #CrowdSimulation #3dsMax ]Massive is crowd simulation software which brings the ability to simulate and display 20,000 agents in real-time. According to CG Press Massive 8.0 and Massive for 3ds Max are coming soon as they have announced at Siggraph 2015 in Los Angeles

>> Crownd simulation tutorial

New features in Massive 8.0 include:

  -Ability to run real-time simulations containing 20,000+ agents at 24fps on a single PC – these are not pre-recorded simulations, and they do not use particles. An NVidia Quadro K6000 or Titan X graphics card is required to make it possible to render 20,000 agents at 24fps with sufficient detail. Now previz crowd shots can be easily created in real-time and on-set CG elements can include full, high-quality crowd elements that are truly indicative of the end result.

  -New Parts feature – allows artists to rapidly assemble agent brains by simply dropping in a few pre-made parts. This features allows for the creation of libraries of agent parts that can be reused and shared across multiple agents, and can be updated and maintained independently of the agents. This is greatly beneficial to both beginner and more experienced artists working with asset management systems in large studios.
  -Edit agents inside Maya – In 2013 they introduced Massive for Maya, which is now used around the world for setting up, running, lighting and rendering Massive simulations, all inside Maya. Now in Massive for Maya 8.0 They've added the Massive editor window that allows for editing every aspect of agent bodies. Change any piece of geometry or texture map, adjust shader parameters, adjust rigid body dynamics settings, and add variation. This is bascially the same as a full Massive Jet license, all in the familiar environment of Maya, and still only $3500.

  -Polygon placement – often it’s advantageous to use reference geometry for agent placement in the scene. The “geometry generator” placement primitive has been improved to allow for simple and powerful per-polygon agent placement. With Massive 8.0 a stadium shot of 100,000 agents can be accurately set up in seconds.
  -Generator gaps – a much requested feature is the ability to insert gaps into agent placement. So now random gaps can be introduced using a simple slider.
  -Agents as terrain – agents now have the ability to walk over other agents, as if they were terrain. This is particularly useful when there are a lot of dead bodies in the scene. Another potential use would be insects crawling over each other.
  -Parent to terrain / Lanes parented to terrain – when the terrain model is animated in multiple pieces it can be challenging to adapt agent performances to the wildly varying landscape. Massive 8.0 brings the ability to parent agents to individual pieces of terrain, providing much broader scope for compelling performances in situations in which the terrain model is animated. Parenting of lanes to terrain has also been added, for guiding agents around on the surface of the animated terrain.
  -Terrain file interpolation – when using sequences of geometry files as terrain, dynamics can become unstable. Massive 8.0 solves this by interpolating between geometry files on every step of the dynamics simulation, resulting in much more stable rigid body dynamics.
  -RenderMan RIS – completely rewritten renderer integration for PRMan 19 and onwards, taking full advantage of the new RIS rendering technology.

Availability

More details can be found here
  More Crowd Plugin [post_ad]

[ #VFX #CrowdSimulation #3dsMax ]Massive is crowd simulation software which brings the ability to simulate and display 20,000 agents in real-time. According to CG Press Massive 8.0 and Massive for 3ds Max are coming soon as they have announced at Siggraph 2015 in Los Angeles

>> Crownd simulation tutorial

New features in Massive 8.0 include:

  -Ability to run real-time simulations containing 20,000+ agents at 24fps on a single PC – these are not pre-recorded simulations, and they do not use particles. An NVidia Quadro K6000 or Titan X graphics card is required to make it possible to render 20,000 agents at 24fps with sufficient detail. Now previz crowd shots can be easily created in real-time and on-set CG elements can include full, high-quality crowd elements that are truly indicative of the end result.

  -New Parts feature – allows artists to rapidly assemble agent brains by simply dropping in a few pre-made parts. This features allows for the creation of libraries of agent parts that can be reused and shared across multiple agents, and can be updated and maintained independently of the agents. This is greatly beneficial to both beginner and more experienced artists working with asset management systems in large studios.
  -Edit agents inside Maya – In 2013 they introduced Massive for Maya, which is now used around the world for setting up, running, lighting and rendering Massive simulations, all inside Maya. Now in Massive for Maya 8.0 They've added the Massive editor window that allows for editing every aspect of agent bodies. Change any piece of geometry or texture map, adjust shader parameters, adjust rigid body dynamics settings, and add variation. This is bascially the same as a full Massive Jet license, all in the familiar environment of Maya, and still only $3500.

  -Polygon placement – often it’s advantageous to use reference geometry for agent placement in the scene. The “geometry generator” placement primitive has been improved to allow for simple and powerful per-polygon agent placement. With Massive 8.0 a stadium shot of 100,000 agents can be accurately set up in seconds.
  -Generator gaps – a much requested feature is the ability to insert gaps into agent placement. So now random gaps can be introduced using a simple slider.
  -Agents as terrain – agents now have the ability to walk over other agents, as if they were terrain. This is particularly useful when there are a lot of dead bodies in the scene. Another potential use would be insects crawling over each other.
  -Parent to terrain / Lanes parented to terrain – when the terrain model is animated in multiple pieces it can be challenging to adapt agent performances to the wildly varying landscape. Massive 8.0 brings the ability to parent agents to individual pieces of terrain, providing much broader scope for compelling performances in situations in which the terrain model is animated. Parenting of lanes to terrain has also been added, for guiding agents around on the surface of the animated terrain.
  -Terrain file interpolation – when using sequences of geometry files as terrain, dynamics can become unstable. Massive 8.0 solves this by interpolating between geometry files on every step of the dynamics simulation, resulting in much more stable rigid body dynamics.
  -RenderMan RIS – completely rewritten renderer integration for PRMan 19 and onwards, taking full advantage of the new RIS rendering technology.

Availability

More details can be found here
  More Crowd Plugin [post_ad]

Read more »

Golaem Crowd v4.0 for Autodesk Maya 2012 - 2015

Artikel Animation, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Golaem Crowd, Artikel Maya, Artikel Simulation, Artikel VFX,

[ #adskMaya #Animation #vfx ]Golaem releases Golaem Crowd 4.0, the latest version of its crowd simulation software for Maya. On top of improved animation system, Golaem Crowd 4.0 enables to create more sophisticated shots and to populate scenes even faster by providing artists full control over the simulation.

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd videos tutorial

Golaem Crowd is being used by more than hundred VFX studios worldwide. The newest releases include Dracula Untold (Framestore), Hercules (Milk VFX, Cinesite), 22 Jump Street (Pixel Magic)... Golaem Crowd helped them ramp up on crowds and deliver great projects quickly.

“Thanks to Golaem Crowd’s ease of use, artists from different disciplines such as layouts, environments and animation could be trained up very quickly and be running shots within a week or two" Ben Lambert, CG supervisor at Framestore.

Golaem Crowd 4 provides more advanced features with the same ease of use and facilitates the interaction of the crowd simulation with other elements in the shot: open access to simulation data, curve driven simulation, simulation cache scrubbing and editing… Artists can now take dailies requests into account immediately, without going back to the simulation, and get their shots validated in no time.

Watch the Golaem Crowd 4 demo video

Iterate Faster On Your Shots

Golaem Crowd artists benefit from instant previsualization of crowds geometry in the Maya viewport. Previsualization now even includes advanced animation like blend shapes and cloth simulation. The result is close enough to the final render for studios to validate the crowd simulation with playblasts before rendering.

The simulation can now be debugged by activating Visual Feedback to check which behaviors or motions are running and display debug information in the viewport.

Golaem Crowd 4.0 allows artists to cache the simulation for Interactive Replay and Timeline Scrubbing, facilitating work and validation steps. When small retakes are needed, they will enjoy the new simulation cache editing functionalities: cached characters can now be selected and directly moved, removed from simulation or imported for manual keyframe editing.

Create More Sophisticated Shots

The new Channels System gives access to a character internal states, to get information such as its type, the current Motion Clip, bones positions, orientation, color... These can be used to trigger behaviors or feed custom written scripts.

A nCloth based Cloth Simulation behavior has been added, enabling artists to benefit from advanced cloth simulation for close-up shots.

Last but not least, the Synchronized Motion Behavior enables artists to precisely control the occurrence of an animation by placing locators in the scene. It facilitates precise interactions like climbing ladders, triggering jumps, or synchronized close combat.

Animate Smarter

Golaem Crowd 4.0 introduces new ways to get a more realistic and varied crowd at nearly no additional animation cost.

The new SetBone Behavior allows to modify the orientation of any bone with a fixed value, a noise function or any other expression. It is an efficient way to add noise when input motions are too static or even to design procedural motions without any motion capture input.

Golaem Crowd 4.0 also integrates Animation Layers, which enable to extract a pose (e.g. clasped hand) or secondary animation (e.g. breathing) from an existing motion, and add it on top of other motions. It is possible to add any number of additional motions and randomize them individually to create an infinity of new animations.

Golaem Crowd 4.0 animation engine now supports Squash & Stretch and benefits from a new ground adaptation system, more precise, and even able to adapt characters feet on other characters lying on the ground.
Extended Compatibility & Alembic Export
Golaem Crowd has been updated to support the latest releases of major renderers (V-Ray, Arnold, Renderman Studio, Mental Ray, 3Delight) and still offer compatibility with previous versions.
The Golaem Crowd Arnold procedural plugin for Arnold can also be used in SoftImage and Katana.

On top of the existing FBX export, Golaem Crowd for Maya 2015 can now export Alembic Geometry Cache including shaders name information and user attributes.

Golaem Crowd is compatible with any Maya version from 2012 to 2015 (Windows or Linux, 64 bit).

Learn More:

● Visit http://golaem.com
● Get a free 30 days evaluation: http://golaem.com/content/evaluate
● Watch an overview by Product Manager Nicolas Chaverou: http://tutorials.cgrecord.net/2015/03/golaem-crowd-workflow-overview.html

  More Maya Plugin

[ #adskMaya #Animation #vfx ]Golaem releases Golaem Crowd 4.0, the latest version of its crowd simulation software for Maya. On top of improved animation system, Golaem Crowd 4.0 enables to create more sophisticated shots and to populate scenes even faster by providing artists full control over the simulation.

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd videos tutorial

Golaem Crowd is being used by more than hundred VFX studios worldwide. The newest releases include Dracula Untold (Framestore), Hercules (Milk VFX, Cinesite), 22 Jump Street (Pixel Magic)... Golaem Crowd helped them ramp up on crowds and deliver great projects quickly.

“Thanks to Golaem Crowd’s ease of use, artists from different disciplines such as layouts, environments and animation could be trained up very quickly and be running shots within a week or two" Ben Lambert, CG supervisor at Framestore.

Golaem Crowd 4 provides more advanced features with the same ease of use and facilitates the interaction of the crowd simulation with other elements in the shot: open access to simulation data, curve driven simulation, simulation cache scrubbing and editing… Artists can now take dailies requests into account immediately, without going back to the simulation, and get their shots validated in no time.

Watch the Golaem Crowd 4 demo video

Iterate Faster On Your Shots

Golaem Crowd artists benefit from instant previsualization of crowds geometry in the Maya viewport. Previsualization now even includes advanced animation like blend shapes and cloth simulation. The result is close enough to the final render for studios to validate the crowd simulation with playblasts before rendering.

The simulation can now be debugged by activating Visual Feedback to check which behaviors or motions are running and display debug information in the viewport.

Golaem Crowd 4.0 allows artists to cache the simulation for Interactive Replay and Timeline Scrubbing, facilitating work and validation steps. When small retakes are needed, they will enjoy the new simulation cache editing functionalities: cached characters can now be selected and directly moved, removed from simulation or imported for manual keyframe editing.

Create More Sophisticated Shots

The new Channels System gives access to a character internal states, to get information such as its type, the current Motion Clip, bones positions, orientation, color... These can be used to trigger behaviors or feed custom written scripts.

A nCloth based Cloth Simulation behavior has been added, enabling artists to benefit from advanced cloth simulation for close-up shots.

Last but not least, the Synchronized Motion Behavior enables artists to precisely control the occurrence of an animation by placing locators in the scene. It facilitates precise interactions like climbing ladders, triggering jumps, or synchronized close combat.

Animate Smarter

Golaem Crowd 4.0 introduces new ways to get a more realistic and varied crowd at nearly no additional animation cost.

The new SetBone Behavior allows to modify the orientation of any bone with a fixed value, a noise function or any other expression. It is an efficient way to add noise when input motions are too static or even to design procedural motions without any motion capture input.

Golaem Crowd 4.0 also integrates Animation Layers, which enable to extract a pose (e.g. clasped hand) or secondary animation (e.g. breathing) from an existing motion, and add it on top of other motions. It is possible to add any number of additional motions and randomize them individually to create an infinity of new animations.

Golaem Crowd 4.0 animation engine now supports Squash & Stretch and benefits from a new ground adaptation system, more precise, and even able to adapt characters feet on other characters lying on the ground.
Extended Compatibility & Alembic Export
Golaem Crowd has been updated to support the latest releases of major renderers (V-Ray, Arnold, Renderman Studio, Mental Ray, 3Delight) and still offer compatibility with previous versions.
The Golaem Crowd Arnold procedural plugin for Arnold can also be used in SoftImage and Katana.

On top of the existing FBX export, Golaem Crowd for Maya 2015 can now export Alembic Geometry Cache including shaders name information and user attributes.

Golaem Crowd is compatible with any Maya version from 2012 to 2015 (Windows or Linux, 64 bit).

Learn More:

● Visit http://golaem.com
● Get a free 30 days evaluation: http://golaem.com/content/evaluate
● Watch an overview by Product Manager Nicolas Chaverou: http://tutorials.cgrecord.net/2015/03/golaem-crowd-workflow-overview.html

  More Maya Plugin

Read more »

Miarmy Crowds 3 6 for Autodesk Maya

Artikel Animation, Artikel Basefount Technology, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Maya, Artikel Miarmy, Artikel Simulation, Artikel VFX,

[ #adskMaya #Simulation #VFX #Animation ]Basefount has announced its crowd-simulation system for Autodesk Maya - Miarmy 3.6 with adding a new human-language-based logic engine and support for distributed simulation.

>> See Also: Creating Crowd tutorial

Miarmy Crowds 3 6 for Autodesk Maya is now compatible with Arnold, RenderMan, V-Ray and OctaneRender and here are the features.

Miarmy 3.6 New Features

Human Language Based Logic Engine
Since Miarmy 3.6, we have added an industrial exclusive new engine: Language Control System into our software. You can directly use natural language to control the crowds. Then you never need to recite or reference channels, no need node connection, programming, and keep all control flexible as before just work more easier.


More Interactive with Bound and Geometry
Our agents can interactive more with Geometries. They can chase the surface of geometry. And the agents can be bounded outside and totally avoid geometry, or limited inside and only move in the geometry. Additionally, we added repel geometry and more bound shapes.

Action Share and Reuse
One action node can be shared to multiple similar types of agents by name based assignment. This is able to reduce the time of creating action when you need to create another type of agent with some subtle changes.

Visibility Logic and Cache
Visibility attribute of agents can be keyframed and or controlled by the logic sentence. This allows us create some visibility animation or optimize the render for saving your render time. Also this visibility animation can be cached.

Smooth UV Pin and CCT support
Now, the agents can go to and land on mesh object surface smoothly. This allow us simulate flying agents (like insects) landing on geometry surface naturally. Also those agents can be accumulated onto geometry with CCT technology.

Direct Expression Control
We upgrade our logic engine and now we can use expression and program directly control the output sentence result. This tremendously improves the flexibility of control. For example we can easily control the wheel rotate speed with agent moving speed.

Distributed Simulation
We upgraded the agent cache system and now Miarmy support distributed simulation. We can simulate parts of the agents and make them can be interactively playback, and the rest agents continue simulate by logic system. And the simulating agents can interactive with the cached agents.

PhysX Infrastructure Upgrade
Agent physical simulation now is more stable, the joint projection mechanism can 100% prevent joint separation when fast collide and big force impact. Also the cloth simulation reset and collide object have been upgraded and faster and more stable.

More Variety Render Features
Some more render features added, like Character Cache Shave support, V-Ray Object ID and Multi-Matte, Arnold SubD surface render. And now we support Octane Render Shader Randomization. Also Arnold render shaded by texture etc.

3DS MAX Support Better
Now the new Miarmy integrates 3DS MAX more seamless, we can preview bound position in 3DS MAX, and also we can assign shaders and use vertex color and gradient ramp in 3DS Max. So, we’re able to build the entire render pipeline directly in 3DS MAX.

Miarmy 3.6 Demo

Download

Miarmy Crowds 3 6 for Autodesk Maya is available now for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The price of a permanent node-locked licence is down to $2,650; or a free Express edition here
  More Maya Plugin

[ #adskMaya #Simulation #VFX #Animation ]Basefount has announced its crowd-simulation system for Autodesk Maya - Miarmy 3.6 with adding a new human-language-based logic engine and support for distributed simulation.

>> See Also: Creating Crowd tutorial

Miarmy Crowds 3 6 for Autodesk Maya is now compatible with Arnold, RenderMan, V-Ray and OctaneRender and here are the features.

Miarmy 3.6 New Features

Human Language Based Logic Engine
Since Miarmy 3.6, we have added an industrial exclusive new engine: Language Control System into our software. You can directly use natural language to control the crowds. Then you never need to recite or reference channels, no need node connection, programming, and keep all control flexible as before just work more easier.


More Interactive with Bound and Geometry
Our agents can interactive more with Geometries. They can chase the surface of geometry. And the agents can be bounded outside and totally avoid geometry, or limited inside and only move in the geometry. Additionally, we added repel geometry and more bound shapes.

Action Share and Reuse
One action node can be shared to multiple similar types of agents by name based assignment. This is able to reduce the time of creating action when you need to create another type of agent with some subtle changes.

Visibility Logic and Cache
Visibility attribute of agents can be keyframed and or controlled by the logic sentence. This allows us create some visibility animation or optimize the render for saving your render time. Also this visibility animation can be cached.

Smooth UV Pin and CCT support
Now, the agents can go to and land on mesh object surface smoothly. This allow us simulate flying agents (like insects) landing on geometry surface naturally. Also those agents can be accumulated onto geometry with CCT technology.

Direct Expression Control
We upgrade our logic engine and now we can use expression and program directly control the output sentence result. This tremendously improves the flexibility of control. For example we can easily control the wheel rotate speed with agent moving speed.

Distributed Simulation
We upgraded the agent cache system and now Miarmy support distributed simulation. We can simulate parts of the agents and make them can be interactively playback, and the rest agents continue simulate by logic system. And the simulating agents can interactive with the cached agents.

PhysX Infrastructure Upgrade
Agent physical simulation now is more stable, the joint projection mechanism can 100% prevent joint separation when fast collide and big force impact. Also the cloth simulation reset and collide object have been upgraded and faster and more stable.

More Variety Render Features
Some more render features added, like Character Cache Shave support, V-Ray Object ID and Multi-Matte, Arnold SubD surface render. And now we support Octane Render Shader Randomization. Also Arnold render shaded by texture etc.

3DS MAX Support Better
Now the new Miarmy integrates 3DS MAX more seamless, we can preview bound position in 3DS MAX, and also we can assign shaders and use vertex color and gradient ramp in 3DS Max. So, we’re able to build the entire render pipeline directly in 3DS MAX.

Miarmy 3.6 Demo

Download

Miarmy Crowds 3 6 for Autodesk Maya is available now for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The price of a permanent node-locked licence is down to $2,650; or a free Express edition here
  More Maya Plugin

Read more »

Golaem Crowd 3.3

Artikel Animation, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Golaem, Artikel Golaem Crowd, Artikel Maya, Artikel Simulation, Artikel VFX,

[ #adskMaya #Animation #VFX ]Golaem Crowd 3.3 introduces blend shapes on crowd characters. This new functionality opens the way to a myriad of possibilities, including facial animation, muscles systems, corrective blend shapes...

>> See Also: Download Golaem Crowd Character Pack

Golaem Crowd skeletal animation features have been extensively used by major vfx studios to animate all sorts of characters in their feature films, including spectators, infantry and cavalry made by Milk VFX and Cinesite for Brett Ratner’s Hercules.


With crowds getting closer and closer to the camera, the ability to go beyond skeletal animation is a huge enabler to meet realism needs. Golaem Crowd builds on Maya blend shapes animation tools to let artists create their characters with the tools they know best.

Blend shapes are then read by Golaem Crowd at the same time as skeletal animation, which enables easy synchronization as well as benefiting from most of the functionalities already offered by the Golaem Crowd animation engine: motion blending, start frame and speed randomization…

Golaem in-house artist, Axel Domenger, has taken advantage of the blend shapes support to animate mouths of angry hairy blobs in this demo video


More information please go to golaem.com
  More Golaem Crowd Plugin

[ #adskMaya #Animation #VFX ]Golaem Crowd 3.3 introduces blend shapes on crowd characters. This new functionality opens the way to a myriad of possibilities, including facial animation, muscles systems, corrective blend shapes...

>> See Also: Download Golaem Crowd Character Pack

Golaem Crowd skeletal animation features have been extensively used by major vfx studios to animate all sorts of characters in their feature films, including spectators, infantry and cavalry made by Milk VFX and Cinesite for Brett Ratner’s Hercules.


With crowds getting closer and closer to the camera, the ability to go beyond skeletal animation is a huge enabler to meet realism needs. Golaem Crowd builds on Maya blend shapes animation tools to let artists create their characters with the tools they know best.

Blend shapes are then read by Golaem Crowd at the same time as skeletal animation, which enables easy synchronization as well as benefiting from most of the functionalities already offered by the Golaem Crowd animation engine: motion blending, start frame and speed randomization…

Golaem in-house artist, Axel Domenger, has taken advantage of the blend shapes support to animate mouths of angry hairy blobs in this demo video


More information please go to golaem.com
  More Golaem Crowd Plugin

Read more »

Miarmy 3.2 Released for Autodesk Maya

Artikel Animation, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Maya, Artikel Miarmy, Artikel Simulation, Artikel VFX,

[ #Simulation #adskMaya #Animation #VFX ]Basefount Technology has announced Miarmy (named "My Army") - a Human Logic Engine based Maya plugin for crowd simulation version 3.2 for Autodesk Maya is now available

>> See Also: Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya

Miarmy 3.2 Features are:

Contact and Pin Dynamics
Continue from previous pin dynamics (know more), this time we provided more advanced contact and hold tool pin dynamics for agents. With contact and hold, agents can be checked contact and hold onto anything with multiple bones or hold each other agents.

Hand in hand with dynamical simulation and controlled by keyframed kinematic box

Terrain Color Feeling
Agents now can feel and interactive with terrain color, the intensity of color and also the direction of color. That is means not only the agents can feel which color of terrain texture but also feel the gradient of terrain color. We can easily simulation agents walk in a range or some drawn roads.

Agent controlled by color gradient and will not move out from color range. Different type agents on different terrain of different colors

Terrain Color Placement
Now agents can be placed from texture with intensity (or painted texture) also adapt the mesh. Combination with UV pin tool, we can easily distribute and simulate a bunch of bugs moving on the deforming objects.

Place distribute by texture and mesh. Support paint tool control distribution

Servo force Self Restitute
With accumulated density auto distribution, agents now are able to fully control by servo force animation. When agents are took over by physical servo control, agents can perform fully restitution when hit by outer force

Walking agent collide with sphere and self restitude

Walk on Same Type Dynamical Agents
Now the CCT has height control and also it can automatically change the collide rules, then agents can walk on dead bodies of same type.

Walk on self type agents dead bodies, with CCT

Arbitrary levels Geometry Randomize Control
Now we can create unlimited sub root for geometry randomization. With this tool, we can easily put many different character geometries type to a single agent type. This can easily achieve for example top level randomize character geometries and sub level randomize this type character accessories.

Top level: girl/boy | Second level: detail accessories

Agent Variable Control Geometry Distribution
Geometry Randomization now can be controlled by Agent variable. We can easily assign variables to agent type or placement nodes or terrain color and make them distribute different geometry. Also combination with Arbitrary Levels geometry Randomization Tool, we can distribute different type of characters to different area, whereas only need a single agent type.

Left: with cap | Right: without cap

Phase Based Transition Control
Agent can transit in and out from action cycle based on cycle phase. Without rebuild the action node.

Action phase control panel

Misc Upgrade
  -Deforming object can be flag and rendered easily, like alembic cache driven object or blend shape driven object
  -Easily get render geometry data including with LOD and frustum culling.
  -Maximum limitation rigid body dynamics speed
  -Automatically place from selected placement node
  -Percentage based placement
  -Some bugs fixed.

  More Maya Plugin

[ #Simulation #adskMaya #Animation #VFX ]Basefount Technology has announced Miarmy (named "My Army") - a Human Logic Engine based Maya plugin for crowd simulation version 3.2 for Autodesk Maya is now available

>> See Also: Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya

Miarmy 3.2 Features are:

Contact and Pin Dynamics
Continue from previous pin dynamics (know more), this time we provided more advanced contact and hold tool pin dynamics for agents. With contact and hold, agents can be checked contact and hold onto anything with multiple bones or hold each other agents.

Hand in hand with dynamical simulation and controlled by keyframed kinematic box

Terrain Color Feeling
Agents now can feel and interactive with terrain color, the intensity of color and also the direction of color. That is means not only the agents can feel which color of terrain texture but also feel the gradient of terrain color. We can easily simulation agents walk in a range or some drawn roads.

Agent controlled by color gradient and will not move out from color range. Different type agents on different terrain of different colors

Terrain Color Placement
Now agents can be placed from texture with intensity (or painted texture) also adapt the mesh. Combination with UV pin tool, we can easily distribute and simulate a bunch of bugs moving on the deforming objects.

Place distribute by texture and mesh. Support paint tool control distribution

Servo force Self Restitute
With accumulated density auto distribution, agents now are able to fully control by servo force animation. When agents are took over by physical servo control, agents can perform fully restitution when hit by outer force

Walking agent collide with sphere and self restitude

Walk on Same Type Dynamical Agents
Now the CCT has height control and also it can automatically change the collide rules, then agents can walk on dead bodies of same type.

Walk on self type agents dead bodies, with CCT

Arbitrary levels Geometry Randomize Control
Now we can create unlimited sub root for geometry randomization. With this tool, we can easily put many different character geometries type to a single agent type. This can easily achieve for example top level randomize character geometries and sub level randomize this type character accessories.

Top level: girl/boy | Second level: detail accessories

Agent Variable Control Geometry Distribution
Geometry Randomization now can be controlled by Agent variable. We can easily assign variables to agent type or placement nodes or terrain color and make them distribute different geometry. Also combination with Arbitrary Levels geometry Randomization Tool, we can distribute different type of characters to different area, whereas only need a single agent type.

Left: with cap | Right: without cap

Phase Based Transition Control
Agent can transit in and out from action cycle based on cycle phase. Without rebuild the action node.

Action phase control panel

Misc Upgrade
  -Deforming object can be flag and rendered easily, like alembic cache driven object or blend shape driven object
  -Easily get render geometry data including with LOD and frustum culling.
  -Maximum limitation rigid body dynamics speed
  -Automatically place from selected placement node
  -Percentage based placement
  -Some bugs fixed.

  More Maya Plugin

Read more »

Golaem Crowd 3.2

Artikel 3ds Max, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Featured, Artikel Golaem Crowd, Artikel Maya, Artikel Simulation,
[ #Maya #3dsMax #Simulation ]Golaem Crowd 3.2 introduces a Crowd Paint Tool enabling artists to place their characters and control their behaviors with a simple brush.

>> See Also: Download Golaem Crowd Character Pack

Intuitive and Powerful Paint Tool

• Placement: place characters by painting them on the ground, while controlling their density with color.
• Character Attributes: paint character attributes to control their behaviors and their appearances.
• Zone Triggers: paint color zones on your terrain to activate/deactivate behaviors on your characters.
• Navigation: control characters path-finding by painting vector fields on the ground.

Convincing Crowd Shots in a Few Days

Golaem Crowd is currently used by more than 50 studios all over the world, from one-man shops to established studios like Framestore or Cinesite. Some of their productions have been included in the new Golaem Crowd Showreel, e.g. the “Lipton, Be More Tea” commercial, featuring crowds of Muppets, made by Framestore for the opening of the Academy Awards ceremony.

Golaem Crowd 3.2 benefits from these users’ feedback and integrate lots of usability improvements as well as new behavior operators (delay, loop, script).

Golaem Crowd is more and more open. Simulation caches can be loaded directly in Maya for editing them or adding FX on top. Code samples are also provided for loading them directly inside studios proprietary tools, and the MEL/Python API is growing.

This focus on ease of use and interoperability is what enables Golaem Crowd customers to nail down pipeline integration very quickly, have their artists send shots for review in a few days and make producers & clients relax.

Download

Golaem Crowd is available either through
• rental (1500 EUR for 3 months)
• permanent license (4999 EUR including 1 year of support & upgrade)

Both are floating licenses, enable to render on an unlimited number of nodes for free, and come with a contemporary ready-to-use Character Pack. Maintenance & Support Subscription (875 EUR/year) enables permanent licensees to benefits from all upgrades including major versions.

  More Simulation Plugin

[ #Maya #3dsMax #Simulation ]Golaem Crowd 3.2 introduces a Crowd Paint Tool enabling artists to place their characters and control their behaviors with a simple brush.

>> See Also: Download Golaem Crowd Character Pack

Intuitive and Powerful Paint Tool

• Placement: place characters by painting them on the ground, while controlling their density with color.
• Character Attributes: paint character attributes to control their behaviors and their appearances.
• Zone Triggers: paint color zones on your terrain to activate/deactivate behaviors on your characters.
• Navigation: control characters path-finding by painting vector fields on the ground.

Convincing Crowd Shots in a Few Days

Golaem Crowd is currently used by more than 50 studios all over the world, from one-man shops to established studios like Framestore or Cinesite. Some of their productions have been included in the new Golaem Crowd Showreel, e.g. the “Lipton, Be More Tea” commercial, featuring crowds of Muppets, made by Framestore for the opening of the Academy Awards ceremony.

Golaem Crowd 3.2 benefits from these users’ feedback and integrate lots of usability improvements as well as new behavior operators (delay, loop, script).

Golaem Crowd is more and more open. Simulation caches can be loaded directly in Maya for editing them or adding FX on top. Code samples are also provided for loading them directly inside studios proprietary tools, and the MEL/Python API is growing.

This focus on ease of use and interoperability is what enables Golaem Crowd customers to nail down pipeline integration very quickly, have their artists send shots for review in a few days and make producers & clients relax.

Download

Golaem Crowd is available either through
• rental (1500 EUR for 3 months)
• permanent license (4999 EUR including 1 year of support & upgrade)

Both are floating licenses, enable to render on an unlimited number of nodes for free, and come with a contemporary ready-to-use Character Pack. Maintenance & Support Subscription (875 EUR/year) enables permanent licensees to benefits from all upgrades including major versions.

  More Simulation Plugin

Read more »

AXYZ An(i)ma 1.6 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D

Artikel 3ds Max, Artikel An(i)ma, Artikel Animation, Artikel AXYZ, Artikel Cinema 4D, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Featured, Artikel Simulation, Artikel VFX,
[ #3dsMax #Cinema4D #AXYZ #Crowd #Simulation #Animation ]AXYZ design announces the release of an(i)ma® 1.6, a new version of the fastest stand-alone crowd simulation software in the Archviz industry, developed especially for 3D Artists, architects and designers for quickly and easily creating stunning 3D animated characters in less time.

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd 3

In addition to the current most popular features of the software, allowing the creation of rapid crowds with hundreds of animated characters, adding stairs, escalators and moving walkways with animated people, this new version brings in new features in order to improve liveliness and dynamism to scenes.

Key Features:

  ● Revamped interface for a better user experience.
  ● New Motion Clips to add more realism to your Arch. Viz scenes.
  ● 50 Ready-to-run Actors with infinite color variation possibilities.
  ● New cloning features with improved speed allows you to create awesome crowd animations.
  ● V-Ray 3.0 Ready. Improved integration with one of the principal standards in the industry.
  ● Compatible with Autodesk 3ds Max and Maxon Cinema 4D. Import your animated characters in Maxon Cinema 4D® or Autodesk 3ds max® and start rendering with the latest an(i)ma® connectivity plugins!
  ● Rebusfarm® Ready! You can immediately start working using your free 100 render points for massive rendering power!

AXYZ An(i)ma 1.6 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D Introduction

This release is part of the company’s developing program for 2014, which started with “Asians” and “Kids”, Metropoly 3D ready pose human characters launched on Q1, and will conclude with the release of an(i)ma® 2 in the autumn.

Download

More information and download AXYZ An(i)ma 1.6 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D free trial here
  More Crowd Plugin

[ #3dsMax #Cinema4D #AXYZ #Crowd #Simulation #Animation ]AXYZ design announces the release of an(i)ma® 1.6, a new version of the fastest stand-alone crowd simulation software in the Archviz industry, developed especially for 3D Artists, architects and designers for quickly and easily creating stunning 3D animated characters in less time.

>> See Also: Golaem Crowd 3

In addition to the current most popular features of the software, allowing the creation of rapid crowds with hundreds of animated characters, adding stairs, escalators and moving walkways with animated people, this new version brings in new features in order to improve liveliness and dynamism to scenes.

Key Features:

  ● Revamped interface for a better user experience.
  ● New Motion Clips to add more realism to your Arch. Viz scenes.
  ● 50 Ready-to-run Actors with infinite color variation possibilities.
  ● New cloning features with improved speed allows you to create awesome crowd animations.
  ● V-Ray 3.0 Ready. Improved integration with one of the principal standards in the industry.
  ● Compatible with Autodesk 3ds Max and Maxon Cinema 4D. Import your animated characters in Maxon Cinema 4D® or Autodesk 3ds max® and start rendering with the latest an(i)ma® connectivity plugins!
  ● Rebusfarm® Ready! You can immediately start working using your free 100 render points for massive rendering power!

AXYZ An(i)ma 1.6 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D Introduction

This release is part of the company’s developing program for 2014, which started with “Asians” and “Kids”, Metropoly 3D ready pose human characters launched on Q1, and will conclude with the release of an(i)ma® 2 in the autumn.

Download

More information and download AXYZ An(i)ma 1.6 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D free trial here
  More Crowd Plugin

Read more »

Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya

Artikel Basefount Technology, Artikel Crowd, Artikel Featured, Artikel Maya, Artikel Miarmy, Artikel Simulation,
[ #Maya #Crowd #Simulation ]Miarmy (named "My Army") is a Human Logic Engine based Maya plugin for crowd simulation, AI, behavioral animation, creature physical simulation and rendering. and Basefount Technology has announced Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya

Character Controller
PhysX Character Controller (CCT) is a concept from game engine and now Basefount integrated it into Miarmy. CCT is able to make your agents walk on other agents without any penetration. And you can adapt any deforming or moving dynamics terrain, rigid bodies, debris, shatters etc. Also CCT can simulate agent gravitational fall from high place and continue perform logic action

Agents adapt dynamics bridge and walk onto it by CCT enabled

Continuous Collision Detection
Continuous Collision Detection (CCD) can predict collision based on its own speed. With CCD technology, the fast moving rigid dynamics arrows which emitted from RBD emitter are able to prevent penetrating with the collide objects. You can use it simulate more realistic arrow hit on the wall or agents shield.

Left: without CCD Right: with CCD (no penetration)

Upgraded Servo Force System
In Miarmy 2.7, Basefount introduced the servo force. It’s able to simulate the internal forces from agents itself. Instead of simple rag-doll "dead man", servo force simulates the muscle force and it can drive your agent to target animated pose/action after the agents enabling dynamics. And it can achieve more lifelike internal/external spontaneous physical simulation, such as some agents falling and struggling from cliff, self-restitution.
Now it support with:
  -Pin Dynamics
  -Apply logic after dynamics enabled (bound, time) and the servo force can be turned on/off anytime
  -Automatically adjust damping and joint, make it better performance

Servo Force driven Kraken attacking carrier

New Cloth Simulation
Now the cloth has its own point inertia make it more realistic. And also the jitter problem of kinematic control cloth points has been totally solved. And now the simulation will be faster than before, the cloth parameters will be much less and easy to control.

New cloth simulation

Middle Dynamics and Pin Dynamics
Now any dynamical parts of agent can be fixed and controlled by the any object, You can pin the bridge agent and make it only swing in the middle. Also You can pin the hand of agents and make them struggle in lower body by Servo Force. The pin and unpin agent parts can be done at any time freely.

Agents hand been pinned and swing and controlled by the servo force

Level of Details
The Procedural Primitive DSO mode of render, Renderman, Arnold and V-Ray all support Level of Detail now. You can render the low resolution geometries if they are far from camera.

LOD controlled render result

3DS Max Render Port
Basefount made a "3DS Max – Vray" Plugin for importing procedural primitive contents from Maya to 3DS Max. This is no need any data transfer and convert, Maya and 3DS Max share the same Render Data. Now 3Ds Max can easily render tons of thousands agents “matte” for VFX production, with a tiny procedural render data

Left: 3ds Max Procedural DSO render
Right: Maya Procedural DSO render
Share same render contents and program

Upgraded RBD Emitter
RBD Indexing Upgrade, can distinguish different RBDs collide. (Channel: rbdCollide[id])
RBD Collide name check, can check which part of agent been collided in.
Channel: rbdCollide:|||...
RBD Field Feeling
RBD Kinematic Mode (Laser Simulate)
RBD Emit Bomb

Gun fight scene

Combo Agent Upgrade
With Combo Agent tools, one agent can grab/hold/throw other agents. And each type of agent has its independent logic and action tree. Now it’s able to work with auto collision detection well, also when you enable slave agent, you can inherit the correct inertia.

Agent combo gremlin + man. 2 types of agents combined, 2 totally different logics and action tracks

Real Time Display Feedback
Now agents can be real-time displayed by OpenGL and its skinning calculation is accelerated by Intel TBB Multi-threaded.

Render Upgrade
Added some upgrades in render system.
  -Arnold DSO support PhysX Cloth
  -V-Ray DSO support PhysX Cloth
  -Renderman DSO support PhysX Cloth
  -V-Ray DSO rewrote and now more faster and disk saving (more than 50%)
  -V-Ray DSO replaces shader tool (Replace Assets Shader without re-export geometry)

Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya demo:

Download

More information and download Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya here
  More Maya Plugin

[ #Maya #Crowd #Simulation ]Miarmy (named "My Army") is a Human Logic Engine based Maya plugin for crowd simulation, AI, behavioral animation, creature physical simulation and rendering. and Basefount Technology has announced Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya

Character Controller
PhysX Character Controller (CCT) is a concept from game engine and now Basefount integrated it into Miarmy. CCT is able to make your agents walk on other agents without any penetration. And you can adapt any deforming or moving dynamics terrain, rigid bodies, debris, shatters etc. Also CCT can simulate agent gravitational fall from high place and continue perform logic action

Agents adapt dynamics bridge and walk onto it by CCT enabled

Continuous Collision Detection
Continuous Collision Detection (CCD) can predict collision based on its own speed. With CCD technology, the fast moving rigid dynamics arrows which emitted from RBD emitter are able to prevent penetrating with the collide objects. You can use it simulate more realistic arrow hit on the wall or agents shield.

Left: without CCD Right: with CCD (no penetration)

Upgraded Servo Force System
In Miarmy 2.7, Basefount introduced the servo force. It’s able to simulate the internal forces from agents itself. Instead of simple rag-doll "dead man", servo force simulates the muscle force and it can drive your agent to target animated pose/action after the agents enabling dynamics. And it can achieve more lifelike internal/external spontaneous physical simulation, such as some agents falling and struggling from cliff, self-restitution.
Now it support with:
  -Pin Dynamics
  -Apply logic after dynamics enabled (bound, time) and the servo force can be turned on/off anytime
  -Automatically adjust damping and joint, make it better performance

Servo Force driven Kraken attacking carrier

New Cloth Simulation
Now the cloth has its own point inertia make it more realistic. And also the jitter problem of kinematic control cloth points has been totally solved. And now the simulation will be faster than before, the cloth parameters will be much less and easy to control.

New cloth simulation

Middle Dynamics and Pin Dynamics
Now any dynamical parts of agent can be fixed and controlled by the any object, You can pin the bridge agent and make it only swing in the middle. Also You can pin the hand of agents and make them struggle in lower body by Servo Force. The pin and unpin agent parts can be done at any time freely.

Agents hand been pinned and swing and controlled by the servo force

Level of Details
The Procedural Primitive DSO mode of render, Renderman, Arnold and V-Ray all support Level of Detail now. You can render the low resolution geometries if they are far from camera.

LOD controlled render result

3DS Max Render Port
Basefount made a "3DS Max – Vray" Plugin for importing procedural primitive contents from Maya to 3DS Max. This is no need any data transfer and convert, Maya and 3DS Max share the same Render Data. Now 3Ds Max can easily render tons of thousands agents “matte” for VFX production, with a tiny procedural render data

Left: 3ds Max Procedural DSO render
Right: Maya Procedural DSO render
Share same render contents and program

Upgraded RBD Emitter
RBD Indexing Upgrade, can distinguish different RBDs collide. (Channel: rbdCollide[id])
RBD Collide name check, can check which part of agent been collided in.
Channel: rbdCollide:|||...
RBD Field Feeling
RBD Kinematic Mode (Laser Simulate)
RBD Emit Bomb

Gun fight scene

Combo Agent Upgrade
With Combo Agent tools, one agent can grab/hold/throw other agents. And each type of agent has its independent logic and action tree. Now it’s able to work with auto collision detection well, also when you enable slave agent, you can inherit the correct inertia.

Agent combo gremlin + man. 2 types of agents combined, 2 totally different logics and action tracks

Real Time Display Feedback
Now agents can be real-time displayed by OpenGL and its skinning calculation is accelerated by Intel TBB Multi-threaded.

Render Upgrade
Added some upgrades in render system.
  -Arnold DSO support PhysX Cloth
  -V-Ray DSO support PhysX Cloth
  -Renderman DSO support PhysX Cloth
  -V-Ray DSO rewrote and now more faster and disk saving (more than 50%)
  -V-Ray DSO replaces shader tool (Replace Assets Shader without re-export geometry)

Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya demo:

Download

More information and download Miarmy 3.0 for Autodesk Maya here
  More Maya Plugin

Read more »