Golaem is shipping Golaem Crowd 1.4, the latest release of its crowd-simulation software for Autodesk Maya.

The latest version supports Mental Ray (both standalone and Mental Ray for Maya versions) with the addition of native .mi file export and a dedicated procedural-rendering plug-in. Golaem also supports Pixar Renderman, V-Ray, and Renderman-compatible renders.

This update adds a feature that allows animators to declare characters as geometry instances, speeding the creation of thousands of characters in a single shot. French VFX studio Mikros Image used the technique to populate a stadium with as many as 12,000 figures in a single shot for the following Nissan Juke commercial.

Golaem Crowd works with Autodesk Maya 2011, 2012, and 2013 for Windows and Linux. For more information, check out the release notes or request an evaluation copy at the Golaem website.