Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award^®-winning 3D animation software for AI-driven characters, has released Massive 4.0. The latest release includes support for popular V-Ray rendering, new terrain nodes, enhanced brain nodes and agent fields, and many more features and improvements.

Massive allows artists to create and direct anything from CG humanoids to birds, animals, cars and more to deliver realistic and emotive virtual performances.  Massive “agents” are 3D characters that use sight, sound and touch to interpret and react autonomously to the world around them.  Massive incorporates procedural animation and AI, and is used by professionals in animation, visual effects and design visualization.

“Massive 4.0 is a major release that brings both creative and pipeline flexibility to artists and studios, and fulfills a number of enhancement requests from the Massive community,” said Massive Founder and CTO Stephen Regelous. “We’ve added Terrain nodes, V-Ray support, Python GUI support, Hair/Fur clumping, deep shadow maps, better placement for stadiums, and many other improvements.”

Feature Highlights in Massive 4.0

• Terrain Nodes — Use an unlimited number of .obj files for terrain geometry; not only for the ground on which Agents walk, but also for walls of buildings, render-only geometry, collision-only geometry and other special purposes.
• V-Ray Rendering — Supports this popular renderer, ideal for scenes requiring highly realistic lighting, in the same highly-efficient manner as RenderMan, 3Delight, Air and Mental Ray. Massive generates .vrscene files for the main render files, and for the terrain and agent archive files. It also automatically generates shader dialog parameters for V-Ray material plug-ins and V-Ray materials, giving users complete freedom to assign any available default or custom plug-ins and materials.
• Enhanced Agent Fields and Variables — It is now possible to vary each Agent's response to Agent Fields individually using scale and offset parameters such as distance or color. A new plus button in the variables tab makes it easier and more convenient to handle large numbers of Agent/Group variables.
• Place Tools — Stadium placement is even easier with the addition of rows and columns to the polygon generator, which allow for locators to be placed in rows and columns in any shape. The polygon generator also offers a handy stagger parameter, which can be used to offset rows laterally.
• Hair and Fur Enhancements — Use Deep Shadow Maps to realistically render longer hair and fur and generate high quality self-shadowing; and Hair/Fur Clumping to generate messy, lumpy, or even wet hair or fur.
• Brain Node Improvements — Control delay time and filter width in the output node with other nodes in the brain, using new options to select between “latch,” “delay,” and “filter” as destinations for alternative inputs. To simplify multiple inputs to an input node, a new feature adds values together.

James Cameron's Avatar is the talk of the moment! Here at Massive we are especially proud of the work that Weta Digital have spent the past three years. Massive was used to create the crowds of creatures, humans and in a world first to fill the jungles with plants and trees. Congratuations to Weta Digital for once again taking Massive where no one else has. For more information about Weta Digital's work on the film, including a whole section on the Massive plants and trees, head over to CG Society.

Yahoo Movies have posted an epic behind the scenes look at how they created the world of Pandora. Massive doesn't get a direct mention but there are a bunch of Massive shots in the footage

Massive will be presenting at the Pixar booth in the main exhibition hall at SIGGRAPH this week. Please stop by, grab a seat, and introduce yourself to us after the talk.

2pm Tuesday, 4th August, Pixar Booth
2pm Wednesday, 5th August, Pixar Booth

Both presentations are identical, and are split into two parts:

PART 1: 'Shading the Masses' - Mark Thielen, CG Supervisor, Radium
How to maximize the look of the crowds of characters with well designed shaders and textures.  Using Massive, one can create unique looks quickly with the ability to make adjustments at the shot level.

PART 2: 'Filtration' - Daniel Maskit, Senior Technical Director, Digital Domain
A discussion of a set of tools designed to allow lighter's visualization and control over rendering of Massive crowds while working in Maya. This presentation shows a portion of the lighting pipeline for 'Mummy 3.'

Thanks to Pixar for the invitation, and to Mark and Daniel for presenting.

The great folks at fxphd have just announced their July 2009 courses, and Massive features not once but twice! Other than a 10-week course with quicktime tutorials, assets and private forum access you also get your own license of Massive to use for the duration of the course.

The MSV 101: Introduction to Massive course is still going strong - it's the third time they've run this course - and they've also announced a new course - MSV 201: Massive in Production. Both are being run by Massive guru Geoff Tobin of Weta Digital who has been using the software since it was first developed for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Full details at fxphd.com. 

• www.fxphd.com
• Geoff Tobin on IMDB

Frantic Films just finished doing a whole bunch of shots for John Woo's historical epic Red Cliff. For full details check this link:

http://www.pitchengine.com/franticfilmsvfx/frantic-films-vfx-battles-john-woos-red-cliff/15085/ 

Lillian Grace, Manager of Corporate Projects with Israel Cooper, Director of Finance (center) accept the award

We're very happy to announce that Massive Software has been awarded winner of the Innovative Software Product Category at the New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards 2009. The gala dinner, held on Friday 1st May in Christchurch, saw a range of New Zealand based technology companies competing for awards in 12 categories. This year over 160 companies entered - a record for the event. Here's what the judges had to say about us:

"Massive, is recognised for the contribution their work in "simulation of behaviour" will have on the future of virtual worlds in applications other than just entertainment. It's about business model transformation that has positioned massive for success."

We'd also like to congratulate Biomatters Ltd who were awarded co-winner spot in the same category. For a full list of winners and finalists visit the Hi-Tech Awards website.

Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award®-winning 3D animation software for AI-driven characters, today announced the appointment of Kevin Mannion as VP Product Strategy and Israel Cooper as Director of Finance.

Most recently Mannion served as CEO of Legion, a leading software company known for transportation and pedestrian planning for the London Underground, Beijing Olympics, and other large simulation projects. At Legion, Mannion drove the commercialization of the software, making the company profitable within eighteen months and winning major contracts. His industry exposure includes enterprise, infrastructure, database, web services and networking technologies.

Cooper was most recently a finance and corporate strategy specialist with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Prior to spending five years at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a finance and corporate strategy specialist, Israel Cooper worked as a consultant for Accenture and Silverstone Global. Experienced in economic modeling, financial analysis and forecasting, Israel has provided advisory services in landmark mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings, corporate treasury activities, IP commercialisation, brand leveraging, global distribution, and has completed a number of public and private sector reports for government entities.

Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award winning animation system, today announced the introduction of Massive InsightTM and issued a call for entries for an exclusive beta testing program. Massive Insight utilizes AI-driven agents that use natural senses such as vision and hearing to accurately simulate real-world behavior, and can be used to simulate any object or creature moving on earth – from pedestrian, planes, trains and automobiles to insects and microbes.

“Our film and television customers have been producing realistic simulations of everything from human crowds to race cars for years. We are pleased to now make our technology available to architects, planners, civil engineers and research scientists to help manage our increasingly complex world,” said Diane Holland, CEO of Massive Software. “Massive’s flexibility provides for a huge range of behaviors -- urban traffic patterns, office evacuations, animal migrations –- more accurately than ever before. We are looking for a selection of beta users to best inform our ongoing development.

The March 5 2009 print edition of The Economist features a run down of Massive's uses in a wide range of non-entertainment settings. If you can't get your hands on a hard copy then be sure to read about our move beyond film, games and television online here. We're well known for the many high profile feature films that Massive Prime and Massive Jet have been used on. If you've seen any trailer for a Hollywood action epic in the past five years then you're probably familiar with what our software can do, but the uses of Massive are just as relevant to real life simulation - architectural visualisation, engineering simulations, transportation, retail behaviour. These are just some of the exciting new fields that we're making progress in through partnerships with a number of companies such as ARUP, USC and Drummond Madell. For more info take a look at these links:

• News article: The Economist -  'Model Behaviour' - March 5th 2009
• Massive Website: More information about Massive's move from animation into real world simulation

There are a few great articles available online talking about the visual effects that CIS Vancouver and freelance Massive Supervisor Phil Hartmann created for Clint Eastwood's Changeling. This film features some of the highest quality Massive characters seen to date, and they're not limited to being background extras. Not only can you see Massive agents featured as foreground characters, but there is also a record-breaking two and a half minute Massive shot to finish the film off with. Be sure to check out these articles for a more indepth look at Massive in Changeling.

• CG Society - Guiding the eye to the Invisible Digital Effects for Changeling
• Studio Daily - Massive Digital Actors in the Foreground of Changeling
• VFXWorld - Changeling: VFX as 'Peripheral Imagery'

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor features a lot of Massive shots from a number of VFX Studios. There is a great article up at fxguide that talks to one of the Massive artists on the film and how they brought the undead armies and terracotta warriors featured in the film to life. Click here to read the full article.

The August 2008 issue of Computer Graphics World features Massive front and center in the form of an interesting article called 'Unleashing the Artificial Horde'. The journalist - Kenneth Wong - looks at the increasing use of AI simulation software to build safer more efficient buildings. Although here at Massive HQ we're best known for our entertainment customers - we have started to work with a few engineering and architectural firms to push the uses of Massive into a whole new world - the real world!

This might sound like a bit of a jump. What do films and engineering have in common? The answer - quite simpy - is that Massive isn't really an animation tool. It's an A.I. authoring tool that can easily create characters - tens, hundreds, thousands - that react to each other and to their environment. Whether it's being used to fill the stadium in a superbowl TV commercial or to show how long it takes to evacuate an unbuilt skyscraper - the principles behind it are the same.

• News article: Computer Graphics World - 'Unleashing the Artificial Horde'
• Massive website: Uses of Massive in real world simulation
• Video Gallery: Examples of Massive being used in real world simulation

Massive Software today announced Massive 3.5, a new upgrade to Massive, the artificial intelligence (AI) driven animation system. Massive 3.5 follows up on Massive 3.0 with new features, including Agent Fields and improved integration and hair and fur dynamics.

Massive Software, developer of the artificial intelligence-driven animation system Massive, will be in Los Angeles during the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference, showcasing their latest product updates and unique customer projects at special events to be held throughout the show.

London based The Mill used Massive on the BBC TV series Doctor Who in March 2008. It was the first time that Massive was used in an episode of Doctor Who, but we had our fingers crossed that it wouldn't be the last. Well with the broadcast of 'The Stolen Planet' on June 28th 2008 - the 750th episode of the show since it started in 1963 - we're happy to say that we've finally made it to two, and with quite some style. The Mill used Massive to create a crowd of hundreds of Daleks. It's very cool! Be sure to click below to see the clip.

Massive VFX house Framestore CFC - based in London - have used Massive on a lot of projects recently, but for the first time ever they're using Massive to create digital crowds on an animated feature. Not just any animated feature though, but one that they are producing themselves. It's an adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's 2004 novel The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread. The first trailer for the film - due to be released December 19 2008 in the USA - has just been put online, and there are a few quick Massive shots in there. Be sure to take a look at the HD version for extra crowd eye candy. Click here to see it for yourself.

The first trailer for the third installment of The Mummy series is available online at Apple Trailers, and there are some great Massive shots in there. Be sure to take a look at the HD versions for maximum eye candy. Here at Massive HQ we've seen some early tests of the Massive characters for this film, and although we can't say too much, we're looking forward to seeing it on the big screen in August. Click here to see the trailer.

When it comes to making commercials with Massive, no one has as much experience as The Mill. Their most recent television commercial featuring Massive - Puma 'Until Then' - features a single dizzying shot, forty seconds long with a whole lot of cutting edge CGI thrown into the mix, including hundreds of thousands of Massive agents featured as extras in the stadium stands. Be sure to click read more to see some images from the spot and a behind the scenes look, or else take a look at the finished commercial by clicking here.

The latest season of the BBC's cult series Doctor Who (now in it's 30th season) started recently in the United Kingdom, with London based Massive-shop The Mill taking on VFX duties. In a contrast to the usual big scary monsters the series features, the antagonists in this episode are thousands of Massive-animated blobs of fat called the Adipose. Massive founder, Stephen Regelous - a big Dr Who fan - actually worked on the episode. You can read the rest of that article here. Click read more to see a clip from the show. 

Here at Massive we're very proud of the growing number of educational institutions with Massive as part of their curriculum (you can see a full list here).VFX World has just posted an article that looks at this, called 'Massive Goes to School': Read the full article here.

Massive, the premier Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven 3D animation software, was used by CIS Vancouver (formerly Rainmaker Visual Effects) to fill a political rally with crowds of digital protesters, spectators, secret servicemen, security guards, and dignitaries for pivotal sequences in Columbia Pictures' hit film Vantage Point, which opened #1 in the US on February 22, 2008.

Massive software announced today that it will be exhibiting at CeBIT as part of the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) stand along with other exemplary New Zealand-based technology innovators. CeBIT, the world's largest IT and telecommunications trade show, is hosting its first-ever New Zealand Day, created to recognize and celebrate New Zealand's innovative technology and unique culture. CeBIT takes place March 4-9 in Hanover, Germany.

As part of Massive's exhibit, representatives from Hanson Robotics will be on hand to demonstrate Zeno, the first AI-driven robot using the breakthrough artificial intelligence (AI) software from Massive to reason and get smarter over time. 

You can read the full article here on VFX World.

Massive Software announced today that visual effects company Rhythm & Hues used Massive, the autonomous agent 3D animation software, on over 50 shots for the highly anticipated feature film from New Line Cinema, "The Golden Compass." The film stars Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards and Ben Walker, and went into wide release in the U.S. on December 7.

Massive Software, developer of the Artificial Intelligence-driven animation system Massive, will be hosting an exciting group of guest presenters at SIGGRAPH 2007. Massive will be exhibiting at SIGGRAPH 2007 in booth #1428, August 7-9, at the San Diego Convention Center and will feature demonstrations from Reel FX, The Mill, Method, Rhythm & Hues and more.

Massive Software's Artificial Intelligence-driven animation system, Massive, has been utilized visual effects and animation facility Digital Dimension for the HBO film "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." The movie, which aired May 27, is based on the book by Dee Brown, and chronicles the displacement of the American Indians during the westward expansion of the U.S.

Massive Software was used to create lifelike computer generated animals for the upcoming Universal Pictures comedy "Evan Almighty." Visual effects facility Rhythm & Hues tapped Massive, the artificial intelligence (AI) driven animation system, to build large establishing shots of hundreds of animals paired two-by-two as described in the biblical story of Noah's Ark.

Now in it's 12th year, FMX takes place at the Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart from May 01 to 04, 2007. Massive Software will be on the exhibition floor at FMX in the List-Saal on the PNY Technologies booth, and will also give a presentation at the forum with Escape Studios and Pixar demonstrating the Massive-RenderMan workflow.

Massive Software was used as the AI-driven animation by leading visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic for 'Happy Feet.'

Using Massive, Animal Logic filled the screen with enough happy-footed "extras" to populate several Busby Berkeley showstoppers. The film, which opened on November 17, and has already grossed over US$350 million, is director George Miller's first CGI animated offering, and features a voice cast that includes Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Robin Williams.

Massive Software announced today that the company's AI-driven animation system has been utilized by leading visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic for the Warner Bros. animated hit, Happy Feet. Using Massive, Animal Logic filled the screen with enough happy-footed "extras" to populate several Busby Berkeley showstoppers. The film, which opened on November 17, and has already grossed over $350 million, is director George Miller's first CGI animated offering, and features a voice cast that includes Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Robin Williams.

Director Gabor Csupo and screenwriter/producer David Paterson are not your typical LA filmmakers. One, along with Arlene Klasky, is the co-founder of Klasky Csupo, here, the production house that specializes in traditional animation — and broke box office records with its Rugrats movies in addition to numerous TV series. Paterson is an indie filmmaker at heart (Love, Ludlow '05) and a family man living in a New York suburb.

Massive Software, the industry’s premiere developer of autonomous agent 3D animation systems, announced today a certified network of worldwide channel partners. Massive’s new channel partners are established leaders servicing the visual effects community in each of their respective regions, including On the Go Technologies (www.otgdigitalmedia.com), RFX, Inc. (www.rfx.com), PacifiCAD (www.pacificad.com), Cinesys (www.cinesysinc.com) and 3VIS (www.3vis.com) in North America; Escape Studios (www.escapestudios.co.uk) in the UK, Weltenbauer (www.weltenbauer.com) in Germany and Megafront (www.megafront.com) in Sweden; and Crescent Video (www.crescentvideo.co.jp), Storm FX (www.stormfx.com.au), Rahul Commerce, (www.rahulcom.com) and Jadason Technology (www.jadason.com) in the Asia-Pacific region.

Massive Software announced today that visual effects company Rhythm & Hues used Massive, the autonomous agent 3D animation software, on over 30 shots for the forthcoming feature film, Night at the Museum. Using Massive, Rhythm & Hues filled the screen with 3D crowds that come alive from within exhibit dioramas. The film journeys into the world of an after-hours natural history museum, where the displays are brought to life by an Egyptian curse. Twentieth Century Fox's Night at the Museum was directed by Shawn Levy and stars Ben Stiller. The film opened in US theatres on December 22nd, 2006 and was number one at the box office in North America over the holidays.

Massive Software, the leading developer of artificial life-based 3D animation systems, announced today multiple customer wins across visual effects, animation and post-production houses from London to Los Angeles to India. 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.

Massive Software, the industry's premiere developer of autonomous agent 3D animation systems, has entered into an educational partnership with Bournemouth University, it was announced today by Diane Holland, Massive CEO.

Bournemouth University's National Centre for Computer Animation, the top animation school in the UK, will be the first university in the United Kingdom to integrate Massive software and training curricula into its animation course-load. Bournemouth acquired over fifty Massive Prime licenses via Massive's educational program, and will provide training on the system to undergraduate and graduate-level students.

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. The list, published in the October 19th issue of The Hollywood Reporter, reflects the industry's most talented leaders in digital media.

The list includes heavy hitters in seven categories: Animation, Broadband, DVD, Games, iTV, Mobile and Visual Effects. The Hollywood Reporter and the Producers Guild of America New Media Council jointly came up with more than 100 nominees. The results were then voted on to determine the 50 finalists.

Lucas is terrified. The boy has water-bombed an ant colony. Now, he's being hauled before the Ant Queen.

Pointing and nodding, some 2,000 angry ants watch closely, flexing their mandibles and twitching their antennae. Still others are shaking their heads and chatting among themselves until a loud gong brings them to silence.

Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award-winning Massive artificial life-based 3D animation system, announced that Rhythm & Hues continues to drive innovation with Massive with visual effects for the motion picture The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Universal Pictures). The work follows on the heels of Rhythm & Hues' epic visual effects for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and saw the facility extending its command of Massive to meet such diverse new challenges as digitally creating Tokyo street scenes.

Massive Software announced that its Academy Award-winning artificial life-based 3D animation system has been used by visual effects companies Framestore CFC and WETA Digital for the new X-Men movie X-Men: The Last Stand (Twentieth Century Fox). With Massive, visual effects studios can animate anywhere from a few to a few hundred thousand realistically responding digital characters, helping artists and animators tackle ever more ambitious effects challenges and scenes, such as those seen in X3.

Both Framestore CFC and WETA Digital used Massive to craft scenes of mayhem in the Brett Ratner-directed movie, which sees war breaking out after a cure for mutant genes is found.

Massive Software announced that the company's Massive artificial life-driven animation system has been used by CIS Hollywood to produce digital visual effects for the motion picture Poseidon (Warner Bros.). Massive's Academy Award-winning technology helps filmmakers and VFX artists push the realm of possibility by allowing scenes and stunts to be achieved with autonomously responding virtual characters. Other recent uses of Massive include epic-level CG animation for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and King Kong.

Massive Software announced today adoption of the company's Academy Award-winning 3D animation system for primetime television series effects. CBS Digital recently purchased Massive, embracing the artificial life-based software to speed turnaround of increasingly complex visual effects scenes on a primetime show.

CBS Digital has been using Massive on "The Twelfth Man" (a pilot being produced for FOX Television) as well such projects as "Category 7: The End of the World" and "Pope John Paul II." Artists at the Los Angeles, CA, studio sought out the unique "autonomous agent" capabilities of Massive to efficiently fill large stadiums with realistic AI-enabled-characters for the basketball-themed show.

Massive Software announced that Method Studios has tapped into the company's artificial intelligence-based 3D animation system to bring a new ad for Budweiser to life. Creative treatment for Anheuser-Busch's "The Wave," which debuted during Super Bowl XL, centers on messages being spelled out on a sea of cards held by an arena crowd, which was created using some 97,000 virtual Massive characters. Seen from above, one side of the stadium builds the picture of a Budweiser bottle while the other side forms an empty glass. By doing the "wave," they "pour" the beer into the glass and then "drink" it back down to empty. "We wouldn't have tackled this job without Massive," said Andrew Bell, technical director, Method Studios. "It would have been difficult to do using traditional techniques."

Massive Software announced today that visual effects company Rhythm & Hues has taken advantage of Massive's autonomous agent 3D animation and digital stunts system on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, filling the screen with fantastical CG armies that interact via artificial life. The film breaks ground for the variety of characters and animals bought to life using Massive crowds. It also for the first time demonstrates that Massive-generated performances are realistic enough to appear in close proximity to the camera and to hero characters in the scene.

Massive Software announced today continued pioneering use of the company's AI-driven 3D animation system by Weta Digital for more than 600 visual effects shots on King Kong. The Massive work on the film, which follows Weta's industry-leading innovation with Massive on such movies as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and I, Robot, creates a living, breathing backdrop of activity on Manhattan and Skull Island.

Massive Software announced today Massive Jet, a new autonomous agent 3D animation application that enables the creation of large-scale, believable digital crowd shots "out of the box" with high quality and a low learning curve. A full-functioning package priced under $6K USD, Massive Jet leverages the company's Academy Award-winning artificial life-based technology, pre-built Ready-to-Run Agent library and GPU-accelerated rendering support to allow animators and artists at any facility to quickly and easily produce highly realistic Massive scenes.

Massive Software announced today graphics processing unit-accelerated rendering for Massive, the company's Academy Award-winning autonomous agent 3D animation system. GPU-accelerated rendering support in Massive, now available for use with products including NVIDIA Quadro graphics boards, enables visual effects artists to render huge-scale Massive shots at film quality without a render farm.

Large facilities can maximize the new GPU-accelerated rendering to free up rendering resources and produce Massive simulations with astounding quality and speed. For the first time, visual effects studios of any size have the capability to use Massive and render out large-scale Massive scenes -- using their typical production setups.

Award-winning Los Angeles visual effects and design company A52 today detailed their animation and visual effects work for a new Budweiser broadcast spot from Waylon Ad in St. Louis. The :60 commercial "Everyday Heroes" debuted widely during high-profile programming on Memorial Day weekend, featuring innovative visual effects feats including the team's first-ever use of Massive - the artificial-crowd-generating animation system developed specifically to support production on "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy. The spot will continue airing through Jul. 4.

Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award-winning 3D animation system for AI-driven characters and digital stunts, announced today that Digital Domain (DD) is integrating Massive into its VFX pipeline. Massive, originally developed by Massive Software founder Stephen Regelous for use on The Lord of the Rings large-scale battle scenes, has been adopted by premiere creative facilities worldwide including Rhythm & Hues, Animal Logic, WETA Digital, The Mill and many others. Digital Domain, a renowned visual effects studio, recognized the value of Massive Software for meeting the complex effects challenges of today's discriminating feature film and commercial clientele.

Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award-winning 3D animation system for AI-driven crowd-related effects, announced the use of Massive by Rhythm & Hues for the motion picture Elektra (20th Century Fox). Maximizing the software's new built-in "Smart Stunts", a team of two at the leading visual effects studio - Massive Supervisor Dan Smiczek together with Technical Animator Marc Bryant - applied the software's unique flexibility for animating large groups of characters or creatures to create a complex scene involving hundreds of CG snakes.

Massive, developer of the premiere 3D animation system for crowd-related visual effects in cinema and television, announced that its founder and product manager Stephen Regelous has been nominated for a World Technology Network Award. Determined by a vote of industry peers, the prestigious accolades are presented by the World Technology Network (WTN) to recognize work that has a high level of innovation and lasting significance in fields including biotechnology, space, energy, ethics, design and entertainment. Winners will be named October 8th at the World Technology Awards in San Francisco.

Massive Software announced Massive 2.0, a new version of the company's award-winning, artificial intelligence-driven system that enables generation of 3D animation in real time with Massive Live. Ushering in a major conceptual shift for motion picture and television animation, Massive Live provides artists with the unprecedented ability to create and collaborate on film-quality facial animation, full-body animation or facial and full-body animation simultaneously in the same way they might produce and interact with animation on the fly when playing their favorite computer game. Massive Live will be demonstrated as part of Massive 2.0 at Booth #1521 during SIGGRAPH 2004.

Massive, developer of the premiere 3D animation system for artificial intelligence-driven, crowd-related visual effects, announced it is streamlining the generation of arena spectators, crowds moving en masse and large-scale digital armies with breakthrough Ready-to-Run AgentsTM. These pre-built agents can be easily dropped into shots to create 3D character-based crowd scenarios allowing animators to significantly speed up their workflow. The initial agents, debuting August 10-12 in Los Angeles during SIGGRAPH 2004 at New Zealand's booth #1521, are the first in a series of agent "sets" which will make up the growing Massive Ready-to-Run Agent LibraryTM.

Continuing its unstoppable winning streak, Mill-heavy production, Playstation "Mountain", has been honoured with arguably the most prestigious prize in advertising, the Cannes Lions Grand Prix.

According to the 22-strong judging panel, "Mountain" was rewarded with the top prize in recognition of "simplicity of idea and magnitude of execution." The Mill helped such "magnitude of execution" by creating 146,000 digital people to form the eponymous - and now famous - mountain.

Innovative animation software Massive has won the award for Technological Innovation at the 2nd Annual International 3D Awards at the 3D Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Massive, developed for use in "The Lord of the Rings" films, can be seen in action in the spectacular crowd scenes such as the battle of Helm's Deep in "The Two Towers", and throughout the final film "The Return of the King", including hundreds of shots in the incomparable end battle sequences.

Nike knows that footballing passions can't always be contained on the playing field. So their long-awaited offering for Euro 2004, "The Other Game", shows Brazil and Portugal's raucous rivalry breaking out in the tunnel before they even hit the pitch. Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Roberto Carlos, Denilson, Figo and Cristian Ronaldo battle it out in a illicit match until a frustrated ref brings proceedings to a halt with a stern tackle on the near-unstoppable Ronaldinho. The spot was worked on by a core team of four from The Mill, requiring over two-months of 2D and 3D post-production.

Competing in the music industry is tough work. Quite often an amazing promo coupled with a great track can propel the song/promo package into the limelight. Radiohead's fantastic new release together with staggering CG, completed by The Mill for their music video, is such a combination, destined for chart-topping success.

The video, Directed by Alex Rutterford of Black Dog/RSA, features a virtually generated Thom Yorke performing the bands latest release 'Go to Sleep'.

We've been busy so far this year improving Massive as we get closer to release. See what's been happening with Massive at the Maya User's Group meeting, or at the Alias|Wavefront booth (#3015) on July 30th at 4pm or at the New Zealand Tech Talk.