AXYZ Design has released a new version of Anima, its artist-friendly crowd animation software. Anima’s workflow involves creating simulations in a standalone application and then exporting the results to DCC applications via a plugin. Until recently support was available for 3DS Max and Cinema 4D, but version 3 introduces a brand new plugin to integrate Anima into Unreal, making it possible to import crowd simulations into Epic’s popular real-time engine.
Anima 3 includes several other new features including improvements to materials for V-Ray, Corona, FStorm, Redshift, Arnold, Octane, Thea and Iray including support for PBR workflows. The UI has been updated to include new drawing tools as well as improvement to viewport shaders and performance.
Anima 3 adds a new Multi-Scene feature to allow users to load and work on multiple scenes simultaneously, as well as a background model library to simplify managing and sharing geometry between projects and scenes. New free content, improved motions, and materials are also included.
A new Time Offset feature allows the user to delay the point at which a simulation starts playing back. This was developed to allow for huge scenes, where a simulation may not be visible to the viewer for some time, and saves on having to simulate crowds before they are visible. Another new playback feature enables users to control the speed of simulations to create time-lapse effects.
Anima 3 is a free upgrade for users who purchased the software within the last 12 months. New licenses cost €249 and a free lite version is available (AXYZ Design are offering a black Friday Discount of 25% until November 27). Find out more about this release on the AXYZ Design website.
