Monday, January 24th, 2011 Posted by Jim Thacker

Could you help develop a 3ds Max crowd simulator?

Last Friday, we ran a story on Agent, developer Geoff Samuel’s new crowd simulation system for 3ds Max. At the time, no pricing information was available on his website, so we contacted Geoff for more details.

Today, he confirmed that, as with many of his previous tools, he expects the software to be released for free – and that the user interest Agent has been generating has prompted him to call for co-developers.

If you think you could be one of them, you can contact Geoff through his website: www.geoffsamuel.com

MORE DETAILS FROM GEOFF’S EMAIL (Excerpts)
“I hope for Agent to be released for free, with the option to donate should users choose to do so. The idea is to develop a strong community element around Agent, with people sharing assets, animations and add-ons.

“As for dates, because of the large-scale interest I have been receiving, I am now in the process of looking for people to help me develop the project – though I cannot see it being released to the public before the Autumn as it is just a part-time project for me, in addition to my PhD, and I want to include polished features such as:

  • IK bone support for collision with the ground plane
  • Ragdoll and physics-driven animation
  • RenderMan render support
  • Traffic support
  • A method of converting from Biped to Agent for animations