Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 17, 2012. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The standalone character-animation system Massive was originally developed on behalf of Weta Digital for work on Peter Jackson’s "The Lord of the Rings." With Massive, large crowds such as armies or audiences can be calculated and displayed.
With the current release 5.0, simulations are said to run 3.9 times faster than before on average workstations due to newly developed technologies. Simulations that previously took hours are now supposed to be created in just a few minutes. According to Massive Software, scenes with several hundred agents can even be played back in real time.
These technology features include the new 3D manipulator, which is intended to enable better control over the placement of agents. Massive Software’s goal is to enable better direct interaction by artists with the simulation. A new scrubbing and transport-control interface has thus been added, with which every frame of a large simulation with several thousand agents can be viewed without images first having to be written out from a sequence. This feature is also intended to support cloth and hair simulations. In addition, for the Agent Fields function, which is suitable for interaction between neighboring agents, the parameters for group behavior were improved.
A plug-in for 3ds Max is also expected to appear soon, providing support for Massive Software. 3ds Max users are thus intended to be able to load Massive agents into their 3ds Max scene in addition to other objects.
More information and a list of films that have already been worked on with Massive software can be found here: www.massivesoftware.com
