Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/65901
Bits & Pieces R What Post Readers Are Up To: Golaem ships updated crowd software ENNES, FRANCE — Golaem (www.golaem. com) has updated Golaem Crowd, its crowd simulation software for Autodesk Maya. Golaem Crowd 1.4 includes support for Mental Ray alone and Mental Ray for Maya are now supported. Golaem Crowd 1.4 offers the ability to declare characters as geometry instances in order to allow rendering of thousands of entities with performances. French visual effects studio Mikros Image used this new geometry instancing technique to fill a stadium in the last Nis- san Juke commercial. When asked about Golaem Crowd, Christophe Huchet, visual effects produc- er says, "The shots were very short, with a blurry background (because of motion blur, or just to put more emphasis on the Nissan Juke), so we had to make the sta- dium population process very simple and straightforward." Guillaume Para, VFX artist adds, "Depend- procedural rendering and geometry instancing, as well others improvements. On top of Pixar RenderMan, V-Ray and RenderMan compatible renderers, Golaem Crowd 1.4 brings its crowd rendering techniques to studios using Mental Ray, thanks to native MI files export and a dedicated procedural rendering plug-in. Both Mental Ray stand- ing on shots, we had to generate between 5,000 and 12,000 characters. I was amazed by how fast it is to render using procedural rendering, and how easy it is to set up a shot once assets are ready. I am thrilled to try next Golaem Crowd releases." Golaem Crowd 1.4 is compatible with Autodesk Maya 2011, 2012 and 2013 for Windows and Linux. right now MUSIC: "I see live bands quite often. My newest discovery is Nick Waterhouse & The Tarots from San Francisco. Another band that I've been listening to for the past couple of years, and still just love, is Imelda May." TV: "I've been a big fan of Breaking Bad ever since the first episode. And The Office always makes me laugh." GEAR: "The latest version of Pro Tools is extremely exciting too; it's great that they keep updating and innovating some of the new features like the floating 32-bit recording, which are game changing and really positively impact the usability." Cameron Davis Mixer LA Studios EFFICIENTLY CONVERTED HDMI to HDSDI Converter HDSDI to HDMI Converter www.doremilabs.com Frame Rate Conversion Remote Control Scaling Genlock AES Audio Post audio contributor Jennifer Walden recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Noel Andrasta Walden was born on January 29. Check out Jennifer's feature on "Audio For Games" on page 30 of this issue.