Golaem Releases V-Ray Crowd Rendering Plugin for 3ds Max
Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - 22:44

VRayGolaem for 3ds Max Extends Production-Quality Crowd Rendering to New VFX and Game Studios; Joint Development with Chaos Group
 

Today, Golaem announces VRayGolaem for 3ds Max, a free plug-in that brings V-Ray’s production rendering power to a new set of Golaem Crowd users.

Already a fixture of the VFX scene, Golaem Crowd is known for crowd simulations that can exceed 100,000 characters, all while exhibiting high amounts of diversity. Now the same high-quality crowds that VFX and game studios create in Autodesk Maya can be rendered in 3ds Max.

Procedural Rendering

Co-developed with Chaos Group, VRayGolaem for 3ds Max’s rendering workflow hinges on a combination of Golaem’s proprietary simulation cache technology and V-Ray scene files. Unlike other solutions, character geometry is not exported, but recomputed from simulation cache before being sent to V-Ray. This process makes exporting incredibly fast and reduces the size of all exported files by 99%. All shaders and assets distribution can be tweaked at any time, removing the need for re-caching that can make the creation process slow and inconvenient.

Native V-Ray features

Designed to replicate a native V-Ray workflow, the VRayGolaem for 3ds Max plugin supports all V-Ray 3.0 features such as 3D motion blur, render elements, subdivision and more. All scenes translate as simple V-Ray proxy objects, keeping rendering speeds fast and efficient.

3ds Max Viewport Display

To further simplify layout and lighting steps, VRayGolaem for 3ds Max can display the crowd characters’ bounding box in the 3ds Max viewport without slowing it down. Additionally, thanks to a proxy node, artists will be able to control every aspect of how their crowds are rendered without having to go back into Maya.

Nicolas Chaverou, Golaem Crowd Product Manager, comments: “We are thrilled to deliver an efficient way of rendering crowds to 3ds Max users. Artists can now get the most out of V-Ray 3.0 inside their package of choice, without having to rely on heavy workarounds. We have been in touch with several first-class studios using 3ds Max and V-Ray; they are really excited!”

The VRayGolaem for 3ds Max plugin is available now, for free. Download and installation instructions can be found in Golaem’s support section: http://vray3ds.mayacrowd.com

Learn more:

About Chaos Group

Chaos Group creates physically-based rendering and simulation software for artists and designers. Founded in 1997, Chaos Group has devoted the last 18 years to helping artists advance the speed and quality of one of their most important tools. Today, Chaos Group’s photorealistic rendering software, V-Ray®, has become the rendering engine of choice for many high-profile companies and innovators in the design and visual effects industries.

Golaem Crowd, nominated for CGAwards 2015
Friday, June 26, 2015 - 14:36
We are very proud to announce that Golaem Crowd has been nominated in CGAwards 2015 Plugin Category. Please vote for us so that we can make it to the final shortlist!

Here is what the CGAwards says about Golaem Crowd:

'"If you need crowds in your production, and you want to do it with as few hassles as possible, then Golaem is what you need. It is powerful, flexible, and does what it says on the box. Support is also excellent."


(click the image to go to the CG Awards website)

 

Golaem Crowd 4.0, Take Full Control Of Your Crowds
Monday, March 23, 2015 - 15:15

In addition to an improved animation system, Golaem Crowd 4.0 enables to create more sophisticated shots and to populate scenes even faster by providing artists full control over the simulation. 

 
 
Golaem Crowd is being used by more than hundred vfx studios worldwide. The newest releases include Dracula Untold (Framestore), Hercules (Milk VFX, Cinesite), 22 Jump Street (Pixel Magic)... Golaem Crowd helped them ramp up on crowds and deliver great projects quickly.
 
Golaem Crowd 4 provides more advanced features with the same ease of use and facilitates the interaction of the crowd simulation with other elements in the shot: open access to simulation data, curve driven simulation, simulation cache scrubbing and editing… Artists can now take dailies requests into account immediately, without going back to the simulation, and get their shots validated in no time.

Thanks to Golaem Crowd’s ease of use, artists from different disciplines such as layouts, environments and animation could be trained up very quickly and be running shots within a week or two

Ben  Lambert, CG supervisor at Framestore


Iterate Faster On Your Shots

Golaem Crowd artists benefit from instant previsualization of crowds geometry in the Maya viewport. Previsualization now even includes advanced animation like blend shapes and cloth simulation. The result is close enough to the final render for studios to validate the crowd simulation with playblasts before rendering. 
 
The simulation can now be debugged by activating the Visual Feedback to check which behaviors or motions are running and display debug information in the viewport.
 
Golaem Crowd 4.0 allows artists to cache the simulation for Interactive Replay and Timeline Scrubbing, facilitating work and validation steps. When small retakes are needed, they will enjoy the new simulation cache editing functionalities: cached characters can now be selected and directly moved, removed from simulation or imported for manual keyframe editing.
 


Create More Sophisticated Shots

The new Channels System gives access to a character internal states, to get information such as its type, the current Motion Clip, bones positions, orientation, color... These can be used to trigger behaviors or feed custom written scripts.
 
A nCloth based Cloth Simulation behavior has been added, enabling artists to benefit from advanced cloth simulation for close-up shots. 
 
Last but not least, the Synchronized Motion Behavior enables artists to precisely control the occurrence of an animation by placing locators in the scene. It facilitates precise interactions like climbing ladders, triggering jumps, or synchronized close combat.


Animate Smarter

Golaem Crowd 4.0 introduces new ways to get a more realistic and varied crowd at nearly no additional animation cost.
 
The new SetBone Behavior allows to modify the orientation of any bone with a fixed value, a noise function or any other expression. It is an efficient way to add noise when input motions are too static or even to design procedural motions without any motion capture input.
 
Golaem Crowd 4.0 also integrates Animation Layers, which enable to extract a pose (e.g. clasped hand) or secondary animation (e.g. breathing) from an existing motion, and add it on top of other motions. It is possible to add any number of additional motions and randomize them individually to create an infinity of new animations.
 
Golaem Crowd 4.0 animation engine now supports Squash & Stretch and benefits from a new ground adaptation system, more precise, and even able to adapt characters feet on other characters lying on the ground.
 

 

Extended Compatibility & Alembic Export

Golaem Crowd has been updated to support the latest releases of major renderers (V-Ray, Arnold, Renderman Studio, Mental Ray, 3Delight) and still offer compatibility with previous versions.The Golaem Crowd Arnold procedural plugin for Arnold can also be used in SoftImage and Katana.
 
On top of the existing FBX export, Golaem Crowd for Maya 2015 can now export Alembic Geometry Cache including shaders name information and user attributes. 
 
Golaem Crowd is compatible with any Maya version from 2012 to 2015 (Windows or Linux, 64 bit). 
 
Learn more:

Golaem and Framestore at Paris Image Digital Summit, January 21-22
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 - 16:29
Framestore will be giving at talk at Paris Images Digital Summit on Thursday 22nd at 5:15pm covering how Dracula Untold huge battle scenes were brought to life using Golaem Crowd.

The Golaem team will be attending the summit, ready to answer your questions about how Golaem can help bring life to your productions.

If you are still a student, ask us why Golaem is the right choice for kickstarting a student carrer, we will be happy to explain how you can find a job in crowds!

Learn more on Paris Images Digital Summit

Learn Golaem Crowd with fxphd GOL101 course!
Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - 17:35
We are very happy to announce that the new fxphd term includes a course about Golaem Crowd! Listen to Gareth Stevenson, 3D Generalist at Union VFX, and learn everything you need to create great crowd effects!

Gareth will detail every parts of the Golaem Crowd workflow: how to easily populate your scenes, create behaviors to animate any type of characters, use your own assets, render... Gareth has used Golaem Crowd for many projects, in different situations (city, audience...), and we are very happy that he now has the opportunity to share his experience with all of you.

As you probably know, fxphd is an online vfx, production, post-production training program led by professionals. It offers both application and craft-based courses, online forums for feedback, and vpn software.

Icing on the cake, fxphd offer an enrollment certificate code for people completing a course. Do not hesitate to share your Golaem Crowd projects and your certification number so that we can promote your profile in the new jobs section we are working on!

Learn more in the term overview video (Golaem Crowd part from 7:40), or on the fxphd courses page

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