Massive
Software today announced Massive 3.0, a major new upgrade to Massive, the
artificial intelligence (AI) driven animation system. Massive 3.0 delivers
more power to animators, offering improved dynamics, dynamic hair and fur,
lanes, layer simulations and more.
"The release of Massive 3.0 marks a huge milestone for the company. Not
only are we delivering a significant upgrade to the software-but releasing
it simultaneously on Linux and now Windows delivers what our customers in
the animation, visualization, and education community have been eagerly
waiting for," said Diane Holland, CEO, Massive Software.
Massive allows artists to create and direct anything from CG humanoids to
birds, animals, cars and more to deliver realistic and emotive virtual
performances. Massive 'agents' are 3D characters that use sight, sound and
touch enabling them to interpret and react autonomously to the world around
them. Massive incorporates procedural animation and AI, and is used by
animation and effects artists.
New Massive 3.0 Features
Dynamic Hair and Fur -Use texture maps to control all hair parameters.
Dynamic guide hairs can be interpolated in a render taking advantage of
various details of implementation of the hair shader for either long or
short hair.
Lanes-Lay down directional lanes in terrain and set up agents to follow
lanes with this new automated feature. Designed to simplify traffic
simulations with multiple layers, this feature is ideal for animating cars
and streets, boats in a harbor or even groups of people in a building.
Subdivision Surfaces-Interactive viewing of subdivision surfaces on
hundreds or thousands of agents is now available in the viewport via a
specially developed and highly optimized level of detail algorithm. This
feature enables users to build more high fidelity agents with a simplified
pipeline.
Simulation Passes-Built-in simulation passes allow the user to set up
multiple layers of simulation for such things as performance, dynamics,
hair and cloth more quickly and efficiently. This feature saves time,
improves workflow and allows for better collaboration between artists.
Improved Dynamics-It's now possible for agents to seamlessly transition
back from dynamics into performing motion captured or keyframed actions.
This means that an agent could be violently knocked down to the ground with
all the realism of a 'smart stunts' dynamic performance, and then get back
up to continue the fight.
FBX Support-Easily import and export skeletal data in and out of Massive
when using animation packages ranging from Autodesk Maya and Maxon Cinema
4D to Autodesk 3ds Max much more quickly and easily than before.
Massive for Windows
Massive Software today
announced availability of Massive, the artificial intelligence (AI) driven
animation system, on the Windows platform. In its newly announced Version
3.0, available both on Linux and Windows, Massive delivers more power with
dynamic hair and fur, lanes, layer simulations, subdivision surfaces,
improved dynamics and more.
"If there is one single feature that customers have been asking for over
others, it would have to be support for Windows," said Stephen Regelous,
Founder, Massive Software. "We're really pleased to make Massive 3.0
available both on Linux and Windows."
Massive allows artists to create and direct anything from CG humans to
birds, animals, planes, cars and more to deliver realistic and emotive
virtual performances. Massive 'agents' are 3D characters that use sight,
sound, touch and memory, enabling them to interpret and react autonomously
to the world around them. Massive incorporates procedural animation and
AI, and is used by animation and effects artists.
"Many schools and universities are committed to implementing Massive
courses, and have just been waiting for the software to come out in a
Windows version," explained Diane Holland, Massive CEO. "We've also had a
lot of interest from the architectural community in using Massive to
populate design visualizations. Our new FBX support and availability on
Windows is also making these companies very happy."
Massive Software And Mental Images Announce
Mental Ray Support Within Massive
Massive Software, the
leading developer of AI driven 3D animation systems, and mental images®,
the premier rendering software for entertainment, scientific and
architectural visualization, today announced native support for mental ray®
in Massive. mental ray is software for high-end, photorealistic rendering.
Massive is artificial life-based software for producing realistic
character animation with up to hundreds of thousands of autonomous
performances.
Native support for mental ray within Massive will give customers additional
options for rendering Massive scenes and allow them to optimize workflow
for applications and pipelines that rely on the quality and realism of
mental ray. mental ray support within Massive is available with mental ray
3.6 and coincides with the new Version 3.0 of Massive.
"We are excited to be working with Massive, at a time where demand for its
products is on the upswing," said Rolf Herken, the CEO and CTO of mental
images. "In mental ray 3.6 we have support for assemblies, allowing
arbitrarily large scenes such as those for which Massive is known to be
rendered utilizing the most advanced raytracing and global illumination
algorithms."
"As Rainmaker expands its capacity, we are looking to integrate Massive as
a core capability in our pipeline, providing the creative benefits of
Massive to our film and broadcast clients," commented Jason Dowdeswell,
Digital Production Supervisor at Rainmaker. "Being a mental ray facility,
the Massive/mental integration is a very important step for us."
"As the use of Massive becomes more and more prolific among facilities,
there are lot of people who would like to use the two Academy Award®
winning applications together," said Diane Holland, CEO of Massive
Software. "mental images and Massive Software are both acknowledged
technology innovators and we are delighted to be working with mental images
to bring these new capabilities to our customer base."
Pricing and Availability
Massive 3.0 is available now for Windows and Linux. Massive Jet 3.0,
delivering out-of-the-box functionality is available for $5,999 USD per
license. For ultimate customization, flexibility and the ability to
create and edit agents, Massive 3.0 is priced at $17,999 USD per license.
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