Golaem Crowd
Encyclopedia
Golaem Crowd is a plug-in for Autodesk Maya that allows for the simulation of controllable characters crowds based on independent agents
. It is developped by Golaem
, a France-based software company.
It is a tool to generate characters in reachable areas of the scene (e.g. to place an army in a field avoiding trees and rocks)
While animators can use Maya tools to make the crowd characters (represented as particle) move in the scene, the plugin provides navigation behaviors to make them go from A to B autonomously. It allows for automatic navigation mesh computation, Roadmap-based path planning
and configurable steering behaviors (including reactive collision avoidance).
The included animation engine enables to replay previously created motion, even on characters of different morphologies. Golaem Crowd can adapt motions to the ground and automatically compute transitions between motions, for two legged or four legged
motion. It provides: Automatic and editable skeleton mapping, biped & quadruped dedicated animation engine, automatic motion retargeting, blending & ground adaptation. Animations can be triggered and blended by defining associated behaviors with start/stop trigger conditions.
The user interface is based on Maya workaday objects (particles, fields…). Golaem Crowd is based on the standard animation workflow in CGI
, and allows to incrementally build a scene. Steps are validated one by one: assets, flows, population; behaviors; animation.
Software agent
In computer science, a software agent is a piece of software that acts for a user or other program in a relationship of agency, which derives from the Latin agere : an agreement to act on one's behalf...
. It is developped by Golaem
Golaem
Golaem is a France-based software developer of solutions dedicated to the population of 3D environments using autonomous human-like characters. Golaem was created in 2009 by researchers and engineers from INRIA, a major French research center, leveraging on 15 years of research on the modeling and...
, a France-based software company.
It is a tool to generate characters in reachable areas of the scene (e.g. to place an army in a field avoiding trees and rocks)
While animators can use Maya tools to make the crowd characters (represented as particle) move in the scene, the plugin provides navigation behaviors to make them go from A to B autonomously. It allows for automatic navigation mesh computation, Roadmap-based path planning
and configurable steering behaviors (including reactive collision avoidance).
The included animation engine enables to replay previously created motion, even on characters of different morphologies. Golaem Crowd can adapt motions to the ground and automatically compute transitions between motions, for two legged or four legged
Quadruped
Quadrupedalism is a form of land animal locomotion using four limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a quadrupedal manner is known as a quadruped, meaning "four feet"...
motion. It provides: Automatic and editable skeleton mapping, biped & quadruped dedicated animation engine, automatic motion retargeting, blending & ground adaptation. Animations can be triggered and blended by defining associated behaviors with start/stop trigger conditions.
The user interface is based on Maya workaday objects (particles, fields…). Golaem Crowd is based on the standard animation workflow in CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
, and allows to incrementally build a scene. Steps are validated one by one: assets, flows, population; behaviors; animation.
History
- The first public version of the software was presented and released in May 2011 at the 16th annual FMX conference in Stuttgart .
- V1.1 was released in June 2011 with the added support of 3Delight3Delight3Delight is a proprietary, photorealistic, RenderMan-compliant offline renderer.It is developed by DNA Research, or DNA in short, a subsidiary of Taarna Studios.-Features:...
. - During SIGGRAPH 2011SIGGRAPHSIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
, Golaem and the Academy award winning post production studio Mikros Images released Golaem Project a humourous short film showcasing Golaem Crowd capabilities. - V1.2 was released in September 2011, it was the first version supporting Chaos Group's V-RayV-RayV-Ray is a rendering engine that is used as an extension of certain 3D computer graphics software.The core developers of V-Ray are Vladimir Koylazov and Peter Mitev of Chaos Software production studio established in 1997, based in Sofia, Bulgaria....
rendering engine and using Disney's Partio particle cache. - V1.3 was released in November 2011, this versions included new characters behaviors relying on IKInverse kinematicsInverse kinematics is a subdomain of kinematics, which is of particular interest in robotics and computer animation. In contrast to forward kinematics, which calculates the position of a body after a series of motions, inverse kinematics calculates the motions necessary to achieve a desired...
. At the same time, the new pricing was announced as well as the official Golaem Crowd blog.