Golaem Crowd

Golaem Crowd is a plug-in for Autodesk Maya that allows for the simulation of controllable characters crowds based on independent agents. It is developed by Golaem, a France-based software company (created in Rennes in 2009).

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 behaviours to make them go from A to B autonomously. It allows for automatic navigation mesh computation, Roadmap-based path planning
and configurable steering behaviours (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 behaviours 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 users to incrementally build a scene. Steps are validated one by one: assets, flows, population; behaviours; 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 3Delight.
* During SIGGRAPH 2011, Golaem and the Academy award-winning post-production studi
Mikros Images
ref name="logorama"> release
Golaem Project
a humorous short film showcasing Golaem Crowd capabilities.
* V1.2 was released in September 2011, it was the first version supporting Chaos Group's V-Ray rendering engine and using Disney's Partio particle cache.
* V1.3 was released in November 2011, this versions included new characters behaviors relying on IK. At the same time, the new pricing was announced, as well as the officia
Golaem Crowd blog

* V1.5 was released in July 2012.
* V2.0 was released in August 2012, this version introduced a graphical behavior editor, as well as Ragdoll physics and formations.
* V2.2 was released in January 2013, added support for Solid Angle's Arnold rendering engine.
* V3.0 was released in December 2013, added n-peds support, flocks behaviors and a new previsualization.
* V3.1 was released in February 2014, added visual debug and Arnold mtoa 1.x compatibility.
* V4.0 was released in March 2015, added timeline scrubbing, cache editing, cloth simulation, squash & stretch, alembic support…

In production

Some examples where Golaem Crowd was used in production includes:
*''ALÉSIA, le rêve d'un roi nu, ⁣''Alesia, le reve d'un roi nu (2011)
on IMDb.Alesia, le reve d'un roi nu (2011)
on Facebook.Bande annonce Alésia, le rêve d'un roi nu
/ref> by ''Mikros Image (post-production)''
*'' Once Upon a Time, ⁣''Once Upon a Time (TV Series 2011)
on IMDb. by ''Zoic Studios''
*''Nissan Juke commercial, ⁣''Mikros testimonial on Nissan Juke commercial.
/ref> by ''Mikros Image (post-production)''
*''Orange Sport Be Prepared commercial, ⁣''Mathematic commercials: Orange Sport Be Prepared.
/ref> by ''Mikros Image (post-production)''
*'' Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia, ⁣''Astérix et Obélix au service de Sa Majesté.
/ref> by ''Mikros Image (post-production)''
*''Warm Bodies, ⁣''The 5 step zombie plan: Warm Bodies.
/ref>How Dan Schrecker and Jonathan Levine brought the undead to life in Warm Bodies.
/ref> by ''Look Effects''
*''Nike 'Dare to be Brazilian' commercial''

ref name="Framestore - Nike 'Dare to be Brasilian'
Framestore - Nike 'Dare to be Brasilian'
/ref>Framestore Creates Brazilian Crowds for Nike Using Golaem Crowd
/ref> by ''Framestore''
*''Game of Thrones, ⁣''Golaem: la start-up rennaise s'invite dans Game of Thrones
/ref>Palme de l'animation : Golaem crée les armées de Game of Thrones
/ref> by ''Pixomondo''
*''Der Medicus, ⁣''Pixomondo : retour sur les effets du film Der Medicus
/ref> by ''Pixomondo''
*''Sky Sports 'Making Sports Better', ⁣''Sky Sports 'Making Sports Better'
/ref> by ''Framestore''
*''Hercules, ⁣'''Legend or truth: the VFX of Hercules'
/ref> by '' Milk VFX'' and '' Cinesite''
*'' Dracula Untold, ⁣'''Going full vamp: Dracula Untold'
/ref> by ''Framestore'' and '' Milk VFX''
*
Dawn of the Planet of the Zombies and the Giant Killer Planets on Some Serious Acid
','How one VFX artist made these 3 minutes of madness'
/ref> a short film by ''Alf Lovvold''
*'' Woodlawn, ⁣'''Woodlawn Vfx Breakdown'
/ref> by ''Red Sky Studios''
*''Guitar Hero Live, ⁣'''It’s Guitar Hero, but not as you know it'
/ref> by ''Framestore'' and '' FreeStyleGames''
*''Norm of the North'''Post Magazine : Artic Blast'
/ref>
*'' Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales'''Art of VFX: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN – DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES'
/ref>

Compatible renderers

* Pixar's RenderManPixar Launches RenderMan On Demand™
, on Pixar Press ReleasesPixar launches RenderMan On Demand online service
on cgchannel.com
* Chaos Group's V-RayChaos Group newsletter
/ref>Golaem newsletter
/ref>
*Guerilla Render
*Solid Angle’s Arnold
*Mental Ray
*3delight
*Redshift

See also

*Crowd simulation
* List of Maya plugins

References

{{3D software

3D graphics software
Animation software
Agent-based model
2011 software
Cinematic techniques
Visual effects software
3D computer graphics software for Linux
Proprietary commercial software for Linux