AXYZ design releases anima 2

AXYZ design announces the release of Anima 2, a complete revamped version of the fastest stand-alone character animation application for the Archviz industry, developed especially to create stunning 3D animated crowds in less time and with minimal effort.

Anima 2 has been designed for rapid simulation of large crowds while retaining the versatility and artistic freedom that users need. Nearly every aspect of an animation can be controlled, and for the first time it is now possible to import and use custom characters and motions.

At the heart of Anima 2 is a brand-new simulation engine that dramatically improves animations, brings a host of new features, and paves the way for rapid development of future releases.

All scenes are courtesy of Evermotion.

Anima 2 highlights include:

• REWRITTEN FROM THE GROUND UP Anima 2 is a completely new application, rewritten from scratch, and improved in every way.
• ARTIST FRIENDLY With a completely new WYSIWYG editor, Anima 2 makes crowd simulation simple. It's as easy as drawing a path, adding actors and hitting play.
• RAPID SCENE POPULATION Whether a project requires one thousand characters or just one, Anima can spawn and simulate crowds of any size while adding subtle variations in textures and motions for incredibly realistic animations.
• USE ANY ASSETS Users are not limited to the bundled content. Using Anima’s editing tools it’s easy to import and use 3rd party rigged characters and motion capture data.
• MOTION AND POSE EDITOR Fine-tune characters and motion clips with the visual pose editor, providing the ability to adjust the rotation of every joint. Also process, edit and loop motion clips using easy-to-understand tools.
• REALISTIC INTERACTION Anima creates natural looking crowd simulations using a sophisticated AI brain to anticipate collisions between actors and blend flawlessly between motion clips.
• COMPLETE CONTROL Precise control is possible when it is needed. Each actor is fully editable, providing complete control to direct the perfect animation.
• WALKWAY TOOLS New walkway tools provide sophisticated controls to direct walking, running and other locomotion animations. Advanced settings give users the power to control distribution, spacing, direction, clustering, and the ability to change the width of the path at any point.
• RAMPS, STAIRS, ESCALATORS, AND MOVING WALKWAYS Use Anima to add actors that walk, run, navigate slopes, ride escalators, tackle moving walkways and climb stairs realistically. Whatever a scene’s topology, characters can explore every corner.
• OBSTACLES AND TRAFFIC LIGHTS Characters navigate to avoid objects and walking and running actors can be stopped and started using traffic lights.
• STANDING CHARACTERS Fill scenes with standing and seated characters using an extensive range of animations, or import more from 3rd party sources. Characters can move from walkways to fixed areas to socialize.
• PHOTOREAL Anima 2 uses the same high quality 3D people found in the Metropoly collections, so there’s no need to compromise on quality. Actors are driven by real mocap data and a sophisticated AI engine with automatic procedural motion to achieve super-realistic animations.
• NO NEED FOR POST PRODUCTION Save time in post-production! Anima’s 3D characters look great from every angle and interact with the lighting and shaders in a scene to create accurate shadows, reflections, motion blur, depth of field, and color balance.
• 3D APP SUPPORT Anima comes with native import plugins for Autodesk 3ds Max® and Maxon CINEMA 4D.

The release, as well as a free trial version, and online documentation, is available and distributed through AXYZ’s website.