Golaem is widely used in the visual effects industry for animating massive scale scenes, like tens of thousands of supporters cheering for you in Guitar Hero Live, or huge armies fighting for the control of the Seven Kingdoms in Game Of Thrones. On top of facilitating the retake workflow for this kind of scenes, the new Layout Tool helps artists to populate smaller scenes where little to no AI is needed but artistic control is key.

 

 

Golaem 5 enables artists to take control of their simulations results and modify them in a post-simulation step without going back to square one.

Manipulate simulated characters
Simulated Characters can be transformed simply by using the Maya translate, rotate and scale tools and duplicate / kill functions. Artists do not need to care about snapping characters to the ground as it is still automatically done by Golaem.

Edit characters appearance or simply “be lucky”
To add variations, the characters’ props and shading can be randomized or manually hand-picked using the Character Palette.

Retime animation
Animation can be offsetted in time or have its speed increased/decreased. Artists can then easily match their characters timing with an external element or add animation variations on duplicated characters.

Manually offset or edit animation
Artists can also quickly edit postures directly from the simulation layout tool, or import a complete character skeleton to manually animate it.

Change your mind anytime
Because the Layout Tool works as a layer on top of the simulation, it is very quick and all modifications are cancellable or customizable at any time in the History Stack.

Nicolas Chaverou, Golaem Product Manager, explains his vision about the new Golaem Layout Tool: “Getting the last 10% of a shot right can take 90% of the time. It is especially true with crowd simulation. Being able to edit simulations results is a game changer, as it enables artists to immediately answer supervisors’ or director’s requests.”

 

He adds “Before, artists had to go back to the beginning of the workflow to move a character a bit, simulate, re-export everything... All this without even being sure if the modification will be validated or not. Now they can just select a character, translate it left, and it is done! They can see the result at once thanks to Golaem advanced viewport previsualization.”

 

To facilitate its adoption in studios workflows, the Layout Tool is also available as a separate product called Golaem Layout. Golaem Layout is a cheaper version of Golaem, stripped of simulation capabilities, and allowing users to visualize and edit existing characters simulations results.

 

This new product will allow studios to envision a different work organization and workflow when dealing with digital extras.

 

Artists from other departments (e.g. lighting, fx…), or partner studios, can now get a full previsualization of the simulated characters directly in their viewport without the need of a full license.

 

Senior artists can focus on creating simulations, while new or junior artists will layout shots and perform retakes. A single walking soldier can quickly be duplicated and modified to get a full walking army in formation.

 

Last but not least, Golaem Layout enables studios to build a simulations library and quickly reuse them. For example, a few casual passers-by can be loaded and re-positioned to populate streets in different projects.

 

• Golaem (including the Layout Tool) starts from 325 EUR/month (instead of 650 EUR)
• Golaem Layout starts from 65 EUR/month (instead of 130 EUR)

 

Layout Tool
Manipulate and customize simulated characters

Assets Variations
Use the new nodal Character Maker to create characters variations

Trigger Editor
Create advanced conditions for starting/stopping behaviors

Blind Data
Attach your own data to control custom shading, muscles...