AXYZ design ships anima 3
AXYZ design has released anima 3, the latest update to its crowd animation tool for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D, adding a new Unreal Engine plugin, a new physically based render engine, and a multi-scene loader.
An intuitive tool for less demanding crowd animation jobs
Intended for visualisation and less demanding animation work, anima enables users to add animated characters to a scene without the complexity of an AI- or particle-driven crowd simulation system.
Users draw paths for crowd characters directly in the viewport, and place scene objects like furniture and traffic lights, along with areas for animated characters to avoid.
The software is tailored for use with AXYZ design’s own Metropoly range of stock rigged characters, but users can also import their own characters and motion clips.
Once created, animated scenes can be exported in FBX, OpenCollada or V-Ray’s .vrscene format, or via the integration plugins for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. Output is compatible with most third-party renderers.
New integration plugin for UE4, physically based shading, new multi-scene workflow
To that, anima 3 adds a new Unreal Engine plugin, developed in collaboration with Epic Games.
The plugin, which supports “most of” the same features as the 3ds Max and Cinema 4D intgrations, enables scenes to be viewed in real time in the game engine, for look development or real-time projects.
Anima’s own viewport rendering has also been improved with support for physically based shading.
UI and workflow updates include new drawing tools for placing chairs, squares, elevators, traffic lights and avoid areas, replacing the old object templates; and better control of the viewport camera.
There is also a new multi-scene loader, enabling users to load multiple scenes simultaneously and tab between them; and background can now be shared between scenes without having to reimport them.
There is also a long list of smaller changes and bugfixes, which you can find in the release notes.
Pricing and availability
Anima 3 is available for 64-bit Windows 7+. The integration plugins are available for 3ds Max 2011+ and Cinema 4D R14+. The MSRP is €249 (around $297), although it’s currently available at a launch discount.
The update is free to anyone who purchased the software in the past year.
There is also a free Lite edition, which can be used for commercial work, but which limits output to four seconds of animation. Still renders are unrestricted. See a comparison table of the two editions here.
Read a full list of new features in anima 3 in the online release notes