Chaos releases Anima 6.2 with extended traffic simulation
Chaos has released Anima 6.2, the latest version of its crowd animation software.
The update extends Anima’s new traffic simulation system, with vehicles now featuring drivers and passengers by default, and coming with animated brake and indicator lights.
An intuitive tool for less demanding crowd animation jobs
Originally developed by AXYZ Design and acquired by Chaos in 2023, Anima is a crowd tool intended for architectural visualisation and less demanding animation work.
It enables users to add animated characters to a scene without the complexity of a traditional 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.
Integration plugins are available for 3ds Max, Cinema 4D and Unreal Engine, and animated scenes can also be exported in FBX, OpenCollada or V-Ray’s .vrscene format.
Anima 6.2: updates to the new traffic simulation system
Anima 6.2 extends the new traffic simulation system introduced in Anima 6.0 in April.
Vehicles now come with drivers and passengers by default, and Anima now automatically animates their brake and indicator lights as cars change speed or approach intersections.
It is also now possible to bake simulation data for vehicle motion.
Generate crowds along 4D paths or using text tags
In the core crowd animation toolset, it is now possible to generate crowds along 4D Paths.
4D Paths are designed for close-ups and mid-range shots, and use Anima’s 4D Digital Humans, which have facial animation and more detailed clothing. They were previously limited to individual actors.
It is also now possible to generate crowds using tags to control attributes like the gender, ethnicity, and clothing worn by the crowd actors.
Other new features since Anima 6.0
Other changes include support for video preview capture from within the UI, and a number of performance improvements, particularly to material generation in 3ds Max.
Since we last wrote about the software, the Anima 6.1 update added support for depth of field in the viewport for the active camera.
Price and system requirements
Anima 6.2 is available for 64-bit Windows 7+. The integration plugins are available for 3ds Max 2023+, Cinema 4D R26+ and Unreal Engine 5.4+.
The software is now available rental-only, Chaos having discontinued perpetual licenses last year. Subscriptions cost $121.80/month or $717.60/year.
There old free, feature-limited edition, Anima Lite, seems no longer to be available, with the download link going to a 14-day trial.
Read an overview of the new features in Anima 6.2 on Chaos’s blog
Read a full list of new features in Anima 6.2 in the online release notes
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