Massive Software has shipped version 2.6 of its artificial life-based 3D animation software. The advancements are on display at the Massive Software Booth #1023 at SIGGRAPH 2006.
Version 2.6 builds on Massives Academy Award-winning technology, providing increased pipeline flexibility, expanded rendering options and smarter agents that allow studios of any size and scope to create highly realistic and emotive performances using autonomously responding characters. Key features of the Massive 2.6 release include:
* Fast and efficient rendering on the GPU The new integrated Velocity renderer is able to render epic shots at film quality up to 30 times faster than supported software renderers. Massive 2.6 also lets customers use their own custom shaders.
* Render Passes enables flexible pipeline integration Now Massive agents can be assigned render attributes and shader visibility on a per-render basis, allowing customization of how Massive handles render attributes such as ambient occlusion, shadow pass, depth pass, etc.
* More detailed characters Support for sub-division geometry allows higher-quality geometry so that characters close to the camera can be rendered in greater detail.
* Smarter Agents _ Enhancements to Massive Smart Stunts expand whats possible in a digital stunt. Artists can now create hybrid stunts with increased realism by applying Smarts Stunts to specific parts of a Massive agent. With the new grab constraint agents can grab objects, other agents and even climb rope.
Our goal is to give customers the ability to create characters and shots quickly and easily, and within the scope of their resources, said Diane Holland, ceo, Massive Software. In addition to being able to do more detailed characters and use them closer to camera, users of Massive 2.6 will enjoy a greater amount of flexibility and freedom for rendering their Massive scenes.
At SIGGRAPH 2006, Massive is also expanding its Ready-to-Run Massive Agent Library with mayhem and ambient agents. Ready-to-Run Agents make it easy to almost immediately simulate scenes with characters pre-built with all of the attributes needed for locomotion, combat, spectators and other typical crowd scenarios.
Massive Software is the leading creator of artificial intelligence-based 3D animation systems. Massive was founded when Stephen Regelous programmed a unique piece of software for director Peter Jackson to make creation of complicated visual effects scenes involving hundreds of thousands of digital characters a practical reality. Regelous garnered a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2004.
Today, Massive Software develops a family of standalone, commercially available products, with customers including The Mill, Centro Digital, Digital Domain, CFC Framestore CFC, Rhythm & Hues and other leading digital production and effects studios. For more information, visit www.massivesoftware.com.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
