The wtn nomination comes on the heels of the scientific and engineering award from the academy of motion picture arts and sciences regelous accepted in february 2004 for the development of massive software. It is a tvstyle program which forms the foundation of our curriculum at fxphd. 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. Each soldier had to fight the right enemy and behave as a character would in battle. Its flagship feature is the ability to quickly and easily create.
Massive for max unveiled at siggraph 2016 animation world. Stephen regelous is a visual effects engineer in new zealand who created the massive simulation program, which was used to make the largest battlescenes in peter jacksons the lord of the rings films. Peter jackson truly propelled the technology into its next stage. The answer came via a developer named stephen regelous, who created massive. They use vfx, they use the greenscreen, then they just act like blank kids, and they add sound effects, a sound defines what and how a scene or its atmosphere is. Massive runs by having rule based agents that perform tasks and who are varied through key procedural tools allowing the production value of massive crowds, traffic and other rule based. Stephen regelous massive crowd software developer, jim rygiel visual effects supervisor, wayne stables 3d sequence lead,joe letteri visual effects supervisorweta digital, geoff tobin. Here is another 3d rendering tool developed by autodesk, inc. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.
Siggraph 2017 stephen regelous massive software youtube. He also during this time founded the computer graphics company massive software. Stephen regelous business profile massive software. Mr regelous is the founder of massive software, based in auckland, new zealand. This poised and articulate artist took me through the basics of using massive by setting up ambient agents small crowd of people to interact with themselves and the environment. Aug 30, 2015 massive has for the last few years delivered great new features each year at siggraph and shipped fairly soon afterwards. The film was also the first to use massive multiple agent simulation system in virtual environment, a program developed by software engineer stephen regelous for weta. Somebody is thinking about autonomous face actingright.
Aug 10, 2012 we spoke to stephen regelous, founder of massive software, who had a private suite off the show floor showing the newest work in massive crowd simulation. It was developed and produced by autodesk media and entertainment. Massive has had very advanced features from the beginning, but it takes time for users to realize what can be done with it. May 09, 2014 the program worked so well that regelous received an oscar from the academy of motion pictures arts and sciences for his work. It is purposefully intuitive, so artists can seamlessly start putting our aidriven agents to work right away. 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. We spoke to stephen regelous, founder of massive software, who had a private suite off the show floor showing the newest work in massive crowd simulation. In 1996, regelous had worked with peter jackson for his film. Jan 01, 2004 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. Jackson wanted software that would allow hundreds of humans and orcs to interact naturally without the need to animate each character individually. This course is the background fundamentals series which originally ran during our july 2014 term. He is best known as the creator of the massive simulation system that. Massive makes 3d crowd simulation software for professional film, broadcast and architectural design artists. In 2004, he received an academy award for his work.
This was the biggest wakeup call since i made massive, you know, the fact that now you can just build an agents brain in seconds instead of laboriously putting nodes together for days whatever. He is best known as the creator of the massive simulation system that generated the battle scenes of the peter jackson movie trilogy the lord of the rings. Stephen regelous, who wrote the massive software, says, for these agents to respond naturally to their environment, its important that they have senses the same as we have. This program allowed developers to quickly create thousands of individual characters, each of which responded. Aug 30, 2015 the answer came via a developer named stephen regelous, who created massive. It has modeling capabilities, a flexible plugin architecture and can be used on the microsoft windows platform. The battle scene contains 5,000 computergenerated characters within the narnian army alone, and 15,000 cg characters within the witchs army. Massive was founded when stephen regelous programmed a unique piece of software for director peter jackson to enable creation of complicated visual effects scenes involving hundreds of thousands of digital characters, and has since become the ubiquitous crowd animation solution for film and television. Massive for max unveiled at siggraph 2016 animation. View stephen measelles professional profile on linkedin. The computer program massive was employed to create the battle, a program created by stephen regelous.
Jan 01, 2003 so it was really peter that sprung the original vision for what ultimately became a program called massive a piece of proprietary software created by a young new zealander called stephen regelous. What he did was create the ability for the computer to think for itself but not just for itself, for 10,000. Stephen regelous the one wiki to rule them all fandom. 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.
In massive, each character is a distinct agent with its own quirks and personality traits. Autodesk 3ds max, previously known as 3d studio or 3d studio max, is a professional 3d graphics software by autodesk for microsoft windows computers when the software first came out in 1990, it was created to be run on the msdos. Digital by stephen regelous, massive then became a product on its own. Stephen regelous is a pioneering computer graphics software engineer from new zealand. Stephen regelous for developing massive, the software used to create tens of thousands of warriors for the lord of the rings battle sequences. Massive software massive multiple agent simulation system in virtual environment is the most commonly used crowdsimulation software in the visual effects industry. Sir peter jackson wanted software that enabled armies of thousands of humans and orcs to fight realistically, without the need to animate each character individually. The convergence of digital acting and vfx animation world.
Regelous was asked by jackson to come up with a program that could create the huge battle scenes in the trilogy. Aided by the wise and magnificent lion aslan, the children lead narnia into a spectacular, climactic battle to be free of the witchs glacial powers forever. Promote the benefits of premiere pro in this answer. Jul 31, 2005 crowd and group animation course organizer daniel thalmann, epfl vrlab, switzerland, daniel. If you know how to use 3ds max, massive will feel like second nature, said massive creator and ceo stephen regelous. Massives ceo, stephen regelous weighs in on how artificial intelligence will make. Intelligent creations how special effects transformed. Among those honored with plaques were kinoton gmbh for its highspeed studio projector. In these challenging times, aurecons clever thinking is support operational and infrastructure design across a range of industries to boost financial resilience.
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. Massives stephen regelous on future ai, competition and a. The software has moved so far since film one, says eric saindon, sequence supervisor for pelennor fields. Intelligent creations how special effects transformed the. Massive has for the last few years delivered great new features each year at siggraph and shipped fairly soon afterwards. The purpose of this innovative new software was to create a dynamic and fluid movement within a crowd that could interact with itself and the environment in a way that was as realistic as. The best new cg software from siggraph 2016 cg channel. To accomplish this feat, regelous adopted an agentbased approach to the massive development effort.
Oct 25, 2010 stephen regelous massive crowd software developer, jim rygiel visual effects supervisor, wayne stables 3d sequence lead,joe letteri visual effects supervisorweta digital, geoff tobin. The netflix show godless is an american western drama that doesnt shy away from violence and gore. 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. We caught up with founder stephen regelous and test drove some of the new features.
Stephen regelous founder and ceo in 2004, stephen received an academy award for scientific and engineering achievement for the design and development of massive, an industryfirst system utilizing aidriven. Massive software about us 20190903 stephen regelous founder and ceo in 2004, stephen received an academy award for scientific and engineering achievement for the design and development of massive, an industryfirst system utilizing aidriven autonomous agents to generate animation. Massive is a software package developed by stephen regelous for the visual effects industry. With the help of a recent hollywood movie explain the various. Massive was developed by kiwi entrepreneur stephen regelous in good old wellywood. It was first developed by stephen regelous for peter jacksons movie the lord of the rings.
Subsequently the company massive software was created to bring this technology to film and television productions around the world. Developed at weta digital by stephen regelous, massive then became a product on its own. Massives stephen regelous on future ai, competition and a massive app. The program worked so well that regelous received an oscar from the academy of motion pictures arts and sciences for his work. In 2004, regelous received an academy award for scientific and engineering achievement.
Developed at weta digital by stephen regelous, massive then became a product. Clearly what was once crowd simulation software has become far more than that and massive software is not sleeping as we speak. Tools, techniques, and production examples craig xray halpern imagemovers digital, ken anjyo olm digital, mihai cioroba digital frontier inc. Massive is the only crowd simulation software to feature characters controlled by artificial intelligence. I was delighted to meet and chat with the creator of this program, stephen regelous. Linkedin is the worlds largest business network, helping professionals like stephen measelle discover inside connections to recommended. For this the trilogys director, peter jackson, largely has stephen regelous to thank. Jul 26, 2016 if you know how to use 3ds max, massive will feel like second nature, said massive creator and ceo stephen regelous. It was generated because a ref change was pushed to the repository containing the project aqsis renderer.
He and his team have added countless features to the software, including, most recently, a horse and rider agent function to add to the readytorun agents already in the program. With the help of a recent hollywood movie explain the. The class covers a wide variety of topics which apply across all applications and is a favorite of our members. Developed by stephen regelous for the oscarwinning lord of the rings trilogy, massive allows artists to populate complex scenes with editable agents. Crowd modelling model behaviour technology quarterly.
Massive agents a key strength of massive is that it provides emergent behaviour for each cg character in scenes involving many cg participants. 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. Regelous then spent the next few years writing a computer program he called massive for use in the huge battle scenes within the lord of the rings films. Background fundamentals is our bonus general curriculum course at fxphd. Consider stephen regelouss justly famous massive software program, which generated the extraordinary fighting hordes at the battle of. Stephen regelous is a visual effects engineer in new zealand who created the. Dec 12, 2001 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 massive program was used to create the mass legion of robots in i, robot, the battle. What does the code base or the software of massive look like. Consider that regelous has incorporated sophisticated blendshape face animation technology into massive 2. Massives ceo, stephen regelous weighs in on how artificial intelligence will make digital humans hollywoods new stars.
Jul 26, 2016 those were created with a software program called massive. The fellowship of the ring computer graphics world. 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. Crowd and group animation course organizer daniel thalmann, epfl vrlab, switzerland, daniel. For those who want to know more about massive, it was actually developed by stephen regelous in new zealand when peter jackson needed a software that is capable of generating thousands of soldiers to fight during a scene in the lord of the rings. Since then massive has become the leading software for crowd related visual effects and autonomous character animation. Massive uses fuzzy logic and prerecorded animation clips to control. After the lord of the rings trilogy, regelous continued to develop massive as a product that could be licensed to other visual effects and animation studios.
So, peter jackson turned to his buddy stephen regelous who had previously worked with him on the frighteners, to build a program that could simulate all the people necessary. So it was really peter that sprung the original vision for what ultimately became a program called massive a piece of proprietary software created by a young new zealander called stephen regelous. Stephen regelous founder and ceo in 2004, stephen received an academy award for scientific and engineering achievement for the. Those were created with a software program called massive. One of the things im enjoying now is seeing what artists are able to do with the software. This is an automated email from the git hookspostreceive script. The convergence of digital acting and vfx animation. Multiple agent simulation system in a virtual environment. Very few concerns emerged during this strong transfer.
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