Massive Software ships Massive for Max

Massive Software has released Massive for Max, the long-awaited 3ds Max integration of its Academy Award-winning AI-driven crowd simulation software.

The software, originally developed for use in Weta Digital’s battle sequences from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has since been used on numberous movies, commercials and TV series including Game of Thrones.

The new 3ds Max edition was released at Siggraph 2016.

Access all of Massive’s key features directly inside 3ds Max
First unveiled at Siggraph last year, Massive for Max enables users to access “all the key features” of Massive directly through the 3ds Max user interface.

You don’t need separate licences of the software for render nodes, so renders “can easily be executed on render farms” using any renderer 3ds Max supports – including V-Ray, as shown in this video.

Below, you can read the full text of Massive’s press release announcing Massive for Max, while videos of its features can be found on the developer’s Vimeo channel.

Pricing and Availability
Massive for Max is available today for “all 3ds Max platforms”. Like 3ds Max itself, the software is rental-only, with subscriptions costing $595/quartewr, or $1,995/year.

All Massive for Max users will also receive a complimentary ‘Ambient Agent‘, normally priced at $3,000.

Read more about Massive for Max on Massive Software’s website

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Today at SIGGRAPH 2016, Massive releases Massive for Max™, a seamless integration of its Academy Award-winning crowd simulation software into Autodesk’s 3ds Max™. Creating film-quality 3D scenes with thousands of characters is now possible, using simple controls that can be learned in a day.

“If you know how to use 3ds Max, Massive will feel like second nature,” said Massive creator and CEO Stephen Regelous. “It is purposefully intuitive, so artists can seamlessly start putting our AI-driven Agents to work right away.”

Massive is the only crowd simulation software to feature characters controlled by artificial intelligence. These AI-driven characters can make their way through even the most arduous terrain, immediately reacting to changes within their environment. This eliminates the limitations of movement found in most other crowd simulation software using particle motion, where even minor changes in terrain can stop programmed characters and therefore derail the entire simulation.

Massive’s Ready to Run Agents™ help artists populate common scenarios like stadiums, streets and battlefields quickly, arriving with skeletons, shaders, an action library and other time-saving elements locked in. Highly editable, each Agent can then be rendered at the touch of a button, using most major renderers, including 3-Delight, V-Rayand mental ray.

The Agents ship with a large variety of geometry and texture maps to help customize their looks, as well as Massive’s industry-leading “fuzzy logic brain,” which grants Agents the ability to react naturally to their environment. All Massive for Max subscribers will also receive an Ambient Ready to Run Agent as part of their subscription. Each of these industry-leading Agents comes with hundreds of motion captured actions preloaded.

Massive for Max incorporates all the key features Massive users have put to great use in recent television shows and films like Alice Through the Looking Glass, Game of Thrones (Season 6), and Spectre. Agent groups, placement generators, lanes, and flow fields provide powerful tools for populating shots. A “record” and “scrub” button that works alongside Max’s existing time controls has also been added, making the process of scrubbing through scenes with thousands of Agents just as fast as it would be with a single character.

“Massive is the industry leader in crowd simulation software thanks to its AI-controlled software that gives anyone the ability to create film-quality crowds with ease,” said Regelous. “Now 3ds Max users can access the same tools studios all over the world have trusted for years. It should make their lives a whole lot easier.”

Massive for Max will join a growing list of products from Massive Software, including Massive Prime, Massive Jet, Massive for Maya and the Ready to Run Agents. Each program offers artists the ability to create AI-controlled crowds that can analyze their situations and react accordingly. Crowd behaviors can be customized to suit the scenario, and individual characters in the crowd can be given specific instructions. The result is the highest quality of film-ready crowd simulation available today.

Key features in Massive for Max include:

• Seamless integration
  Direct access to Massive through the 3ds Max user interface
• Massive Ready to Run Agents
  Automatically appear in preview renders as well as batch renders, alongside any other objects in the scene
• Batch rendering
  Use with all supported renderers doesn’t require a license, so renders can easily be executed on render farms

Pricing/Availability
Massive for Max is available today on all 3ds Max platforms through a subscription model. Users will be able to subscribe quarterly for USD $595, or annually for USD $1,995. All Massive for Max users will receive a complimentary “Ambient Agent,” which normally sells on its own for USD $3,000.