Massive 3.5 debuts at SIGGRAPH 2008

Massive Software Releases New Upgrade to the Academy Award–Winning, AI Driven Animation System

Monday 11 August 2008

Massive Software today announced Massive 3.5, a new upgrade to Massive, the artificial intelligence (AI) driven animation system. Massive 3.5 follows up on Massive 3.0 with new features, including Agent Fields and improved integration and hair and fur dynamics.

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 to interpret and react autonomously to the world around them. Massive incorporates procedural animation and AI, and is used by professionals in animation, visual effects and design visualization.

"The release of Massive 3.5 improves on many of the most–requested features from Massive users, including extended support for FBX files and Python scripts," commented Massive Founder and Product Manager Stephen Regelous. "And with Agent Fields, Massive users can easily and efficiently handle local interactions between large numbers of agents. Agent Fields can be applied with the simplicity of particle based simulators, without losing the flexibility extensibility of Massive."


New Massive 3.5 Features

• Agent Fields – Handle local interactions between large numbers of agents for such things as collision avoidance, pedestrian visualization and flocking. Users can define an area, or field, around an agent in which another agent’s proximity, orientation, velocity, direction and color can be assessed. A new Viewport option allows for visualization of Agent Fields in 3D from within the Agent Fields editor.

• Extended FBX Support – Massive 3.0 provided the facility to import skeletons and motion from a wide range of animation applications via the industry standard FBX file format. In 3.5 this support has been extended to cameras, lights, geometry and skeleton and motion export, providing comprehensive facilities for integration with other applications such as SoftImage XSI, Autodesk 3ds Max, Cinema4D and MotionBuilder.

• Extended Python Support – As it becomes increasingly common for studios to implement integration of 3D applications using Python scripts, Massive 3.5 includes increased support for Python to make it easier to integrate Massive into custom studio production pipelines. Python scripting allows for action management and adds more functions for automating importing of motion.

• Maya Particle File Support – Improved integration with better support for Maya particle files. Using Maya particle files, a Massive simulation can be imported into a Maya scene as simple particles for scene integration, lighting reference and real time playback.

• Improved Dynamic Hair and Fur Support – Improved dynamics and increased control of hair with a guide hair shape constraint that can be used to get hair to keep to a user–defined shape or hairstyle. Mental Ray hair shader allows users to get high–quality hair and fur renderings without writing custom shaders.

New Ready To Run Car Agent

The latest addition to the growing library of off–the–shelf Ready To Run agents is the Car Agent. Ready to be placed into cityscapes, architectural visualizations, and anywhere there's a need for realistic traffic animation. The car agent utilizes the Lanes feature, first released in Massive 3.0. The Ready To Run agents all come complete with animation, brain, geometry, textures and shaders, and include enough variation to populate large scenes.

Pricing and Availability

Massive 3.5 is now available for Windows and Linux. Massive Jet 3.5, 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 3.5 is priced at $17,999 USD per license.

About Massive

Academy Award–winning Massive is the revolutionary 3D animation system that incorporates procedural animation and artificial intelligence. Massive is used by animation and visual effects artists to explore the new world of creative opportunities that AI–enabled characters make possible. Agents are 3D characters that have a fuzzy logic AI "brain" and the natural senses of sight, sound and touch which enables them to interpret and react autonomously to the world around them. Agents can be just about any character you can imagine from humanoids, birds, animals and insects to inanimate objects such as cars. The intuitive interface of Massive allows artists to interactively control and direct agents providing highly realistic, directable and emotive performances.

About Massive Software

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 Pixar, The Mill, Centro Digital, Digital Domain, Moving Picture Company, Rhythm & Hues and other leading digital production and effects studios. For more information, please contact Massive North America (+1 310 837 7878), New Zealand (+64 9 3030 030), Europe (+44 20 7096 1605) or visit www.massivesoftware.com.