Golaem 8 including Real-Time crowd sims for UE4..

After winning an Engineering Emmy award last month, Golaem 8 has been released that introduces real-time simulation in Unreal Engine, facilitating interactive usage and Unreal Engine-based creation workflows. Golaem Crowd enables animating thousands of characters with advanced behaviors, including physics, fur, and cloth simulation, in real-time.

Golaem 8 also increases the crowd previsualization quality inside the Maya viewport while keeping Golaem great performances, and brings new Layout layers enabling it to populate and customize a scene faster.

Real-time UE4 simulations

Golaem simulations can now be executed in real-time within Unreal Engine, reacting to player actions, or taking into account changes in the environment. This new workflow speeds up scene creations in Unreal Engine and makes it possible to use Golaem character simulation capabilities for interactive use.

Works with UE4 Blueprints

The new Golaem Unreal Engine integration comes with Golaem Blueprint nodes, making it possible to create interactions between Golaem and Unreal Engine. The Golaem Blueprint nodes can be used to trigger events in the Golaem Simulation or to override placement or simulation parameters.

Unreal Engine Character Pack

To facilitate the use of Golaem into Unreal Engine, all characters from the Golaem Character Pack are available as ready-to-use Unreal Engine characters, complete with shaders diversity.

Maya and Viewport Previz improvements

Visual diversity in the viewport

Golaem 8 implements shading diversity for all characters, directly in the Maya viewport, while keeping the same performances. Artists will be able to validate the look of their crowd characters directly at simulation step, and use the Golaem Layout layers to override it if needed.

Shading Diversity Weights control

To make shading repartition more controllable for artists, shading diversity has been made controllable due to weight sliders similar to the ones used asset repartition. This will help artists come even closer to the final look they desire for their crowd, which can always be controlled via the Golaem Layout shader overrides nodes.

Mesh Drive Display Mode

Golaem features a new Mesh Drive display mode, generating real Maya geometry for all characters, including all deformations. Artists can check the final look of their scenes before even rendering. Thanks to the Mesh Drive display mode, Golaem characters are now renderable with any renderer.

Depth of field and fog support in the viewport

Golaem 8 adds support for Maya viewport depth of field and fog features with Golaem characters display in order to enhance previsualization quality.


Triggers visual feedback

Enhancing Golaem Visual Feedback capabilities, Golaem 8 displays the behavior triggers status in real-time in the Behavior Editor. By selecting a character in the viewport, artists can follow how their behavior is executed, check when events trigger a behavior or not, and debug blocked behaviors.


Physics and Cloth Sims

Torque on force Behavior

A Torque attribute was added on the Force Behavior. It brings more realism in the physics simulation and allows artists to control how your characters react to an explosion or other kind of physics events.


Real-time GPU sims in Windows and Linux

Thanks to its NVIDIA Apex integration, Golaem can simulate clothes in real-time with many characters. Through a partnership with NVIDIA & Autodesk, Golaem is maintaining the Physx/Apex plugin code and hosts builds for Windows & Linux and for new versions of Maya.

FUR WORKFLOW

Fur

Golaem includes an advanced procedural fur workflow with skinned fur which can be deformed along the character animation and bone chains. This workflow is compatible with most of the major fur simulation solutions (Xgen, Yeti, Ornatrix) and proprietary engines provided they can be imported within Maya as curves (or Alembic curves).

Houdini

Golaem simulations can be brought into Houdini with a dedicated plugin expanding them to real Houdini geometry. The Golaem for Houdini plugin comes with the Golaem Cache Library and Layout Tool for easy imports and modifications directly in Houdini. As stated above Golaem characters can now be rendered with Mantra.


USD

Golaem includes a procedural plugin for USD, efficiently loading Golaem characters in the USD pipeline, therefore making them directly usable in many digital content creation tools supporting USD, which includes NVIDIA Omniverse.  The Golaem for USD procedural plugin is available for USD Standalone, Houdini, and Katana. The procedural code is open source for studios that need to build it themselves.

Availability

Golaem Layout allows artists to layout a scene in many DCCs, by moving characters like any other 3D object, and using procedural tools to automatically adapt their feet to the ground or add variety in the appearance and animation while being able to manually animate with a simple IK rig. The Golaem Crowd Simulation Real-Time simulation engine is available through GolaeGolaem 8: Real-Time crowd simulation for Unreal Engine!m for Unreal Engine or as a standalone C++ SDK Golaem 8 is compatible with all Maya versions from 2018 to 2022 and provides integrations with 3dsMax, Houdini, Katana, Unreal Engine, and all USD-compatible platforms. There is a free Personal Learning Edition available

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