Check out Blender crowd animation add-on Population 2
Blender tools developer Bproduction has released Population 2, the latest version of its promising lightweight Blender crowd animation system.
The add-on makes it possible to quickly add background crowds to Blender scenes for animation or visualization work, and comes with sets of stock 3D characters and animations.
New features in Population 2 include the option to paint crowd characters into the scene, and new Group and On Vertices modes for distributing characters across surfaces.
A promising lightweight tool for adding animated crowds to Blender scenes
First released last year, Population is a lightweight crowd animation add-on for Blender.
It makes it possible to add animated crowds to Blender scenes simply by drawing out paths for them to walk along, or defining areas in which they should stand.
A Stadium mode adds seated or standing crowds to stadium shots.
The add-on comes with a set of 48 photoscanned 3D characters and 55 stock animations, including walk, run, sports and idle motions, recorded by French mocap studio SolidAnim.
The characters – mostly white, to judge from the demo videos – come with up to 8K PBR texture maps, and a shader-based system for creating color variations for clothing.
Population 2: new Paint mode and updates to Follow Curve and Stadium modes
To that, Population 2 adds the option to paint characters into a scene directly.
New Group and On Vertices modes provide alternative ways to distribute crowd characters throughout regions of a scene, with more realistically uneven spacing.
The existing Follow Curve mode has been extended, with the option to have characters walk in both directions along a path, and to adjust the width of the path.
Stadium mode now provides options to create empty seats within a stadium crowd, and to have the crowd characters turn to follow a look-at target.
Price and system requirements
Population 2 is compatible with Blender 3.5+. A commercial Pro license costs $130; a 10-seat Studio license costs $282.
There is also a non-commercial Lite license, which costs $41.90, and provides access to 15 of the 3D characters, and 20 of the stock animations.
Read more about Population 2 on Blender Market
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