Academy Award winning 3D Animation Software for AI-Driven
Characters Now Includes Enhanced Agent Fields, New Terrain Nodes
and More
Auckland, New Zealand (February 17, 2010) - Massive Software,
developer of the Academy Award®-winning 3D animation software for
AI-driven characters, has released Massive 4.0. The latest release
includes support for popular V-Ray rendering, new terrain nodes,
enhanced brain nodes and agent fields, and many more features and
improvements.
Terrain nodes
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.
V-Ray
"Massive 4.0 is a major release that brings both creative and
pipeline flexibility to artists and studios, and fulfills a number
of enhancement requests from the Massive community," said Massive
Founder and CTO Stephen Regelous. "We've added Terrain nodes, V-Ray
support, Python GUI support, Hair/Fur clumping, deep shadow maps,
better placement for stadiums, and many other improvements."
V-Ray output
Feature Highlights in Massive 4.0:
- Terrain Nodes - Use an unlimited number of .obj files for
terrain geometry; not only for the ground on which Agents walk, but
also for walls of buildings, render-only geometry, collision-only
geometry and other special purposes.
- V-Ray Rendering - Supports this popular renderer, ideal for
scenes requiring highly realistic lighting, in the same
highly-efficient manner as RenderMan, 3Delight, Air and Mental Ray.
Massive generates .vrscene files for the main render files, and for
the terrain and agent archive files. It also automatically
generates shader dialog parameters for V-Ray material plug-ins and
V-Ray materials, giving users complete freedom to assign any
available default or custom plug-ins and materials.
- Enhanced Agent Fields and Variables - It is now possible to
vary each Agent's response to Agent Fields individually using scale
and offset parameters such as distance or color. A new plus button
in the variables tab makes it easier and more convenient to handle
large numbers of Agent/Group variables.
- Place Tools - Stadium placement is even easier with the
addition of rows and columns to the polygon generator, which allow
for locators to be placed in rows and columns in any shape. The
polygon generator also offers a handy stagger parameter, which can
be used to offset rows laterally.
- Hair and Fur Enhancements - Use Deep Shadow Maps to
realistically render longer hair and fur and generate high quality
self-shadowing; and Hair/Fur Clumping to generate messy, lumpy, or
even wet hair or fur.
- Brain Node Improvements - Control delay time and filter width
in the output node with other nodes in the brain, using new options
to select between "latch," "delay," and "filter" as destinations
for alternative inputs. To simplify multiple inputs to an input
node, a new feature adds values together.
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Self-shadowing
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Deep Shadow Map
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For more comprehensive Massive 4.0 features and product
information, please visit http://www.massivesoftware.com.
Pricing and Availability Massive 4.0 is now available for
Windows and Linux. Massive Jet 4.0, 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 4.0 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 http://www.massivesoftware.com.
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Massive Software, Massive Prime, and Massive Jet are trademarks
of Massive, Ltd. Academy Award is a trade or servicemark of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. All other trademarks are
the property of their respective owners.
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