To create a 50,000strong mob of intelligent digital warriors, massive creator stephen regelous builds each agent piece by piece, implanting a digital brain into a rendered body. Since that time, regelous has developed massive as a standalone product, but the software continues to attract a high degree of buzz harkening back to the lord of the rings days. When the software first came out in 1990, it was created to be run on the msdos platform, and this. Stephen regelouss massive autonomous crowd simulation software. Massive is a software package developed by stephen regelous for the visual effects industry. Stephen conceived of the basic concepts for the software in the early 90s after studying artificial life agent based systems, and developed massive years later for the lord of the rings trilogy, where massive transformed audience expectations for epic crowd and battle scenes in feature film and television. The company said software vendors and postproduction studios will now have the ability to place aicontrolled massive agents in renders or in software viewports. Siggraph 2017 stephen regelous massive software youtube. Thursday 19 october 2006 the producers guild of america pga and the hollywood reporter acknowledge massive software founder stephen regelous as one of the top 50 new media producers and innovators in the realm of digital storytelling. Massive is a visual effects software used to quickly and inexpensively bring to life large crowd scenes. Massives stephen regelous views on how artificial intelligence will make digital. Using massive, an animator or td designs characters with a set of reactions to what is going on around them.
Massive makes 3d crowd simulation software for professional film, broadcast and architectural design artists. Hosted by anna cicone for more coverage of siggraph 2017 and other industry insights visit our cgstv page at. At rstudio, she helps with software engineering and writes on the tensorflow for r blog, the blog about deep learning and probabilistic reasoning from r. Jacksons reluctance to be in the facility business has disappeared. In 2004, regelous received an academy award for scientific and engineering achievement. Produced and distributed by new line cinema with the coproduction of wingnut films, it is an international venture between new. Massive simplifies aicrowd simulation with new parts. During siggraph 2016, massive debuts the single most significant improvement to its aicrowd simulation software since it was first released along with. Every year we receive multiple requests to support various animation and rendering applications, said massive software ceo stephen regelous.
They had two weeks of mocap in the sound stage with giant studios. The new version of this industryleading simulation tool will add several features, including an all new universal plugin that will allow nearly any thirdparty vendor, 3d animation tool or rendering application to. Users can define an area, or field, around an agent in which another agents proximity, orientation, velocity, direction and color can. The lord of the rings is a film series of three epic fantasy adventure films directed by peter jackson, based on the novel written by j. Massive announced today that theyre shipping the new 3. Regelous has continued to build and grow massive and recently at siggraph he showed off a new parts library and the new 3ds max integration. Amapi autodesk softimage cyber studio cad 3d dynamation imagine nworld poweranimator sculpt 3d softimage 3d. Subsequently the company massive software was created to bring this technology to film and television productions around the world. The fellowship of the ring computer graphics world.
About massive massive makes 3d crowd simulation software for professional film, broadcast and architectural design artists. Every year, we receive multiple requests to support various animation and rendering applications, said massive founder and ceo stephen regelous in a prepared statement. Jackson hired pioneering visual effects engineer stephen regelous to write and create a program that would make the task of replicating giant battle scenes. Autodesk 3ds max, previously known as 3d studio or 3d studio max, is a professional 3d graphics software by autodesk for microsoft windows computers. Developed at weta digital by stephen regelous, massive then became. The return of the king 2003 cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Shifting to aidriven filmmaking would save both time and money, with potential to shave off tens of millions of dollars, from a films budget, stephen regelous, a scitech academy award. Stephen regelous founder and ceo in 2004, stephen received an academy award for scientific and engineering achievement for the design and. Massive was used in the fellowship of the ring for thousands of warriors that, once set loose on a battlefield, would find an enemy, pick a fight, and fight to the death. The films are subtitled the fellowship of the ring 2001, the two towers 2002 and the return of the king 2003.
Prior to working on lord of the rings, regelous had worked as a technical director on jacksons earlier movie, the frighteners. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe, filling the screen with fantastical cg armies that interact via artificial life. Massive simplifies aicrowd simulation with new parts library. These battles were made possible, in part, by stephen regelous s massive autonomous crowd simulation software developed at weta digital. Massive is a highend computer animation and artificial intelligence software package used. Amapi autodesk softimage cyber studio cad3d dynamation imagine nworld poweranimator sculpt 3d softimage 3d. Developed by stephen regelous for the oscarwinning lord of the rings trilogy, massive allows artists to populate complex scenes with editable agents.
Massives ceo, stephen regelous weighs in on how artificial intelligence will make digital. Creating massive ready to run agents, system of agents, and brains for complex largescaled engineering simulations. Developed at weta digital by stephen regelous, massive then became a product on its own. Since then massive has become the leading software for crowd related visual effects and autonomous character animation. Stephen regelous for developing massive, the software used to create tens of thousands of warriors for the lord of the rings battle sequences. The film unit tfu is now in the midst of constructing a large new multimilliondollar studio complex complete with sound stages, editing and effects suites, mix theaters, and film lab in the same miramar neighborhood as weta digital. The parts can even be shared across multiple studios as they are not. Auckland, nz july 31, 2007 massive software, developer of the artificial intelligencedriven animation system massive, will be hosting an exciting group of guest presenters at siggraph 2007. It helped digital doubles of the fellowship navigate a steep staircase in loth lorien and the orcs aka goblins taunt the fellowship and climb pillars in the mines of moria. Massives ceo, stephen regelous weighs in on how artificial intelligence will make digital humans hollywoods new stars. In the talk stephen explained some of the ways that massive has been utilised for character animation. New agent fields handle local interactions between large numbers of agents for such things as collision avoidance, pedestrian visualization and flocking.
Massive is on the gallop again vfx voice magazinevfx. How special effects transformed the movies techradar. Artists of any skill level can now construct complex behavioral patterns for aicontrolled agents in minutes, rather than days or even weeks. The majority of the top film, television, and games professional use massive in their visual effects studios and facilities worldwide. Sigrid is a trained psychologist who has worked in software development, database engineering, and data science machine learning. Join marc simonetti french concept artist illustrator. Best known for his work on grr martins books a song of ice and fire, and his iron throne, hes also illustrated some of the most well kno. Some may recall an earlier announcement for upcoming 3ds max support, and while the project was temporarily shelved we are now moving ahead with massive for max. The two towers 2002 cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Its flagship feature is the ability to quickly and easily create thousands or up to millions with current advances in computer processing power of agents that all act as individuals as opposed to content creators individually animating or programming the agents by hand. I was planning for it to then go on to other studios, so that was always there. As well as commercial renderers and dcc software, massive software anticipates that the plugin will be used by vfx facilities to integrate massive with their own inhouse tools. The software has moved so far since film one, says eric saindon, sequence supervisor for pelennor fields.
The massive software program developed by stephen regelous and used for the previous films handled the orcs and other warriors, the horses and horsemen, the people riding the mumakils, civilians around minas tirith, and an army of the dead. Massive software david andrade theory animation setup a meeting with me and industry legend stephen regelous, founder of massive software and the genius behind the epic lord of the rings battle scenes. Im working for a bunch of highly intelligent guys, yet even they have been blown away with what ive been able to do in such a short time with drupal and what you taught me. Overview full credits full synopsis notes music screenplay info original print info genre keywords. Anaheim, ca at siggraph 2016, massive, creator of sophisticated crowd simulation software, announced the parts library, a set of prebuilt brain parts that rapidly accelerate the process of creating realistic crowd scenes. Tools, techniques, and production examples craig xray halpern imagemovers digital, ken anjyo olm digital, mihai cioroba digital frontier inc. The rat pack in ratatouille, the armies of thousands in 300, the herds of animals in evan almighty, and before that, in 20 other feature films, all animated with massive, might lead you to believe. Stephen said that at massive user meetings theres an increasing demand for blender. Danop dharmaraksa business development outsourcing.
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