Saturday, August 16th, 2014 Posted by Jim Thacker

Golaem releases Golaem Crowd 3.3

Golaem has released Golaem Crowd 3.3, the latest update to its Maya crowd-simulation system, adding the option to apply blendshapes as well as skeletal animation to the crowd characters.

The announcement was made at Siggraph 2014.

From blendshapes to “angry hairy blobs”
In the demo above, created by Golaem’s Axel Domenger, the characters were animated in a 100-frame loop, using blendshapes to drive the facial animation, then randomised, and instanced to an nParticles simulation.

The sim was then exported as a geometry cache and rendered in Arnold. The result (described as “angry hairy blobs” on Golaem’s website) is rather endearing – and oddly reminiscent of Imageworks’ first CG short.

Pricing and availability
Golaem Crowd 3.3 is available now for Maya 2012 and above, running on Windows and Linux. A permanent licence costs $6,599; three months’ rental costs $1,980.

Read more about Golaem Crowd 3.3 on Golaem’s website