Wednesday, May 16th, 2018 Posted by Jim Thacker

Toolchefs releases Atoms Crowd 1.15


Toolchefs has released Atoms Crowd 1.15, the latest update to its crowd-simulation system for Maya, Houdini and Katana, adding support for nCloth and XGen fur simulations in Maya.

Other new features since we last wrote about the software, back in January, include a dedicated module for flocking simulations.

A pipeline-ready, cross-platform crowd simulator aimed at VFX and feature animation
Created by former crowd tools developers at MPC and Framestore, and released late last year, Atoms Crowd is a skeleton-based simulation system that works across a range of key visual effects tools.

As well as integrating with Maya, Houdini and Katana, it supports the Arnold, RenderMan and V-Ray renderers, and workflows based around the FBX and Alembic file formats.

The software is currently in use at Emmy Award-winning effects house Base FX and Taiwanese studio Moonshine Animation.

New features: support for fur and cloth in Maya, new flocking module and Separate tool
New features in the latest releases include support for Maya’s XGen fur – dynamic fur is supported as of version 1.15; static fur since 1.14 – and nCloth cloth simulation.

Version 1.15 adds a dedicated CFX exporter for generating cloth and fur groom cache sequences.

Crowd agents can also now be scaled with the points layout tool.

Other features added since we last wrote about the software include a dedicated flocking module and a Separate tool, which enables users to split groups of crowd agents and manipulate sub-groups separately.

Pricing and Availability
Atoms Crowd 1.15 is available for Windows and Linux. The software is rental-only.

Prices start at $450/month for one licence of Atoms Crowd and five of Atoms Procedurals, required for rendering or to use viewport proxies.

The core software integrates with Maya 2015-2017, Houdini 15+ and Katana 2.6, and is compatible with Arnold 4+, RenderMan 20+ and V-Ray 3.5+. The integration plugins are free.

There is also a free, feature-limited PLE edition intended for non-commercial use.


Read a full list of new features in Atoms Crowd 1.15 in the online changelog

Read more about Atoms Crowd on Toolchefs’ website