The growing popularity of Massive Software is sure to continue with the release of Massive for Windows. The Massive 3.0 release has a slightly redesigned UI to make it easier for Windows users. As artists have continued to leverage Massive in new and innovative ways, some not even envisioned by the company’s founder Stephen Regelous, we can expect this to increase exponentially now that it is on Windows and can be combined with a virtually unlimited amount of other apps.

The other welcomed bit off news is support for Mental Ray as well as the FBX format. On the latest Miller Lite spot, hightlighted here as the Top Spot of the Week (http://www.studiodaily.com/main/video/8117.html), Method Studios had to convert all their Massive data back into Maya before the final render in Mental Ray. This will eliminate all that. Massive now supports Mental Ray, AIR, 3D Delight, Renderman and of course the Massive internal renderer. Next up on the list says Regelous is adding support for the Houdini renderer Mantra.

Massive 3.0 also carries a number of new features. “My favorite new feature is the dynamic hair and fur,” notes Regelous. “In Chronicles of Narnia, Rhythm & Hues used their own internal render fur for the characters and did a nice job integrating it with Massive. Now you won’t need to write your own apps for that. Plus, most all characters have hair and as we find that people are bringing their Massive characters closer and closer to camera, this is going to be a big help in allowing that.”

Lanes should also be a welcome feature. A version of this was used in King Kong to create the traffic in New York City, but it was a little clunky at that point. Now, artists can simply draw splines on the surface and color code them to essentially build a brain for the traffic. This was in fact used to simulate the Hong Kong harbor in efforts to identify the problems and provide solutions to the massive (excuse the pun) congestion problems.

Massive 3.0 also has improved dynamics allowing easy transition from motion captured and keyframed elements, so that any hiccups in the movements of Massive agents can be easily rectified.

On the workflow side, Massive took essentially the same concept it had with allowing users to build render passes and used that structure for simulation passes to separate different types of performance, characters, dynamics, hair and cloth to improve efficiency and collaboration.

In speaking with Regelous, he became most excited at the more recent use of Massive in animation. Starting with Happy Feet and more recently with Ratatouille, artists have realized Massive works just as well for animation as VFX.
“I was astounded how much Massive was used on Ratatouille,” said Regelous. “I always hoped this would be used on animation projects but was never quite sure it would. But it actually keyframing works better in Massive because then the artists can get exactly what they need from their ‘agents’ instead of attempting to approximate it with motion capture. A keyframer can build the brain they want for an ‘agent’ and that movement will never be the same no matter how many agents you add.”

Pretty impressive stuff indeed. Check back next week for an article on the creation of the Mille Lite spot mentioned above.