Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 23, 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
With Golaem 7.0, a new version of the crowd, layout and previs tool is launching. Since the Layout toolset introduced in version 5.0, it was already possible to edit individual crowd characters without having to render the respective simulation again. Alongside various new features, these features are now also becoming a standalone application for procedural character layout: Golaem Layout.
Golaem 7 Feature Overview
All features of this new, cheaper standalone variant are, however, also included in the full version of Golaem 7. You can see a direct comparison on this page. Here is an overview of the most important new features in the update:
Golaem Character Layout
With the new Character Layout tools, you can convert character animations into so-called Population Vignettes. A Population Vignette is a kind of proxy for characters and their animations, which can now be edited non-destructively through a new Node System. In addition to distribution, positioning, rotation and scaling in a scene, this includes, among other things:
- Ground Adaptation Node for automatically adapting the feet to the ground
- FaceTo and LookAt targets for orienting the individual characters
- IK-Rig Node for reanimating characters directly.
- Animation Retiming via SetFrame Node with offset and warp cache function
- Geometry and shader variations with SetGeometry and SetShader Nodes
- You can find more possibilities here and read about them in the documentation.
And Off to Unreal Engine
Golaem now also offers a new plugin for Unreal Engine with which you can load and edit Population Vignettes in Unreal. The scenes in the game engine can be updated immediately as soon as changes are made in Maya. Conversely, changes in Unreal Engine can also be reloaded directly in Maya.
The new plugin deliberately does without formats such as Alembic for baking, instead using the Golaem C++ / Python APIs to load Golaem simulation caches and layouts.
Availability
Golaem Layout and Golaem “Crowd” 7.0 are part of the same installation and can also be loaded through the same plugin. The only difference is the license used, which determines whether all tools can be used or not. A perpetual license for Golaem Layout currently costs €1,800, while the complete Golaem tool costs €7,000 – more on that here.
Further information: Go to the Golaem website
