The Briefing Room

Established and Boutique Animation Studios Adopt Massive for Pipeline Efficiencies

Massive Software, the leading developer of artificial life-based 3D animation systems, today announced multiple customer wins among visual effects, animation and post-production houses from London to Los Angeles, including facilities in Germany, India, Japan, South Africa and Thailand. More and more companies are discovering that epic levels of CG animation can be created with limited resources, and many of them are achieving this with the out-of-the-box functionality of Massive.

Thailand-based boutique visual effects and animation facility The Monk Studio recently adopted Massive into its animation pipeline to create an army of thousands of undead skeleton pirates for a television commercial. “The project required high-quality animation on a small budget with very tight turnaround times, and we were concerned that using Massive would be too complicated,” said Juck Somsaman, Founder of The Monk Studio. “But after tests, Massive integrated into our animation and rendering pipeline effortlessly and seamlessly. Within a week, our rigger was able to create some very cool shots of the skeleton army attacking the walls of a fortress.

“Massive was a tremendous help to our small team of character animators, freeing them to concentrate on detailed animation on characters in the foreground. It helped us give big shots a high-impact, epic feeling, while preserving the manic, comedic quality of the skeleton characters. Massive has turned out to be a great addition to our animation arsenal,” Somsaman concluded.

The Monk Studio is among a growing list of the newest wave of facilities adopting Massive products. New Massive users include: Dreamworks Animation, ESPN, CafeFX, The Moving Picture Company, Cinesite Europe, Prana (India), Square Enix (Japan), TV Globo (Brazil), Pixomondo (Germany), UPP (Prague), Condor Cape Town (South Africa), Riot Studios (Santa Monica, CA), ReelFX (Dallas), Postmodern (Sydney), Soho VFX (Toronto), Mr. X (Canada), Computergrafik (Germany), Intelligent Creatures (Canada), Massmarket (New York), Links Digiworks (Japan), Red Chillies (India), Ring of Fire (Santa Monica), Hybride (Montreal), Worldwide FX (Bulgaria), Animmate (South Africa), 100 Bares (Argentina), Shirogumi (Japan), The Chimney Pot (Norway), Pixel Farm (Minneapolis, MN), Molinare (Spain), Anirights (India), Watto Post (Venezuela), Kantana (Thailand), Serena VFX (Spain), Gemba Studios (Japan), Taiyokikaku (Japan), Ark FX (UK) and many others.

“We’re delighted to see that Massive is continuing to gain momentum among VFX and post facilities worldwide,” said Diane Holland, CEO, Massive Software. “Massive is a powerful tool that allows users to create shots and scenes on a very large scale, even with limited resources. Facilities have seen what’s possible with Massive and are discovering that these capabilities are well within reach.”

About Massive

Academy Award-winning Massive is the revolutionary 3D animation system that incorporates procedural animation and artificial intelligence. Massive is used by animation and visual effects artists to explore the new world of creative opportunities that AI-enabled characters make possible. Agents are 3D characters that have a fuzzy logic AI “brain” and the natural senses of sight, sound and touch which enables them to interpret and react autonomously to the world around them. Agents can be just about any character you can imagine from humanoids, birds, animals and insects to inanimate objects such as cars. The intuitive interface of Massive allows artists to interactively control and direct agents providing highly realistic, directable and emotive performances.

About Massive Software

Massive Software is the leading creator of artificial intelligence-based 3D animation systems. Massive was founded when Stephen Regelous programmed a unique piece of software for director Peter Jackson to make creation of complicated visual effects scenes involving hundreds of thousands of digital characters a practical reality. Regelous garnered a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2004.

Today, Massive Software develops a family of standalone, commercially available products, with customers including Pixar, The Mill, Centro Digital, Digital Domain, Moving Picture Company, Rhythm & Hues and other leading digital production and effects studios. For more information, please contact Massive North America (+1 310-837-7878), New Zealand (+64 9-3030-030), Europe (+44 20 7096 1605) or visit www.massivesoftware.com.