It’s a full-featured version of the app used in recent blockbuster movies like Superman.
If you’re interested in 3D animation, Massive has released a free version of its pioneering crowd simulator created for The Lord of the Rings and used in recent blockbusters like Superman and Avatar: Fire and Ash. Called Massive 101, it’s a “completely free and fully-featured” version of the flagship Massive Prime crowd system available for personal (non-commercial) use, complete with video tutorials.
Massive software automates crowd scenes, letting you create or import characters that act as “agents” and follow a prescribed set of rules. For instance, they can follow terrain, swarm randomly or react to a hero character. You can then multiply those characters by the thousands to create a crowd that behaves realistically. Scenes can then be exported into 3D creation apps like Maya or rendered directly.
In one example for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the team needed thousands of flying demons and wanted them to react based on the movements of a hand-animated hero creature. “When it gets to crowd sizes of that many, we always need a more efficient way of dealing with these things,” said WetaFX animation supervisor Karl Rapley. An example of work from that show is shown here in a deleted scene (render not final).
To try Massive 101 for yourself, sign in to the Massive 101 forum and click on the top “Getting Started” link. Then, click on the “Start Here” thread (ignore the Video Tutorials link) and click on “Download Massive 101.” Once you agree to the terms of service, you’ll arrive at the downloads page, where you can get the massive101 file (Linux or Windows), manual, demo files and tutorial files. The tutorials contain the videos and guide you step-by-step on using the app.
Massive is a complex app, so it will require some time and patience to learn, but the tutorials are well-designed. Also, beware that it will watermark renders and limit exports. Still, it’s a free way to learn an app used in film and TV production that normally costs $3,995 for a permanent license.
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