Hi all Just wanted to post a new thread to research into the idea of producing a new piece of software similar to ''Weta''s "Massive" crowd sim package. I really would like to see what people want in such an application, so could anyone answer my questions, please ... i) What key features would be wanted? ii) what other similar packages are there out on the market at the mo? iii) what formats should it import/export to make it 3d package independent (I''m guessing ''.obj'' for geometry and ''.bvh''/''.acm'' for motion)? iv) what OS would it need to support? v) what price range would you be prepared to pay? vi) what level of support would be required? If anyone could help me with these qs and/or give me some feedback, that would be great. Cheers Dan

quote: Original post by djwarder

i) What key features would be wanted?

Randomized movement. IE, create a walk animation and a stop and look around animation and have the two mix back and forth in a random fasion

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ii) what other similar packages are there out on the market at the mo?

Max has similar functionaility via the Crowd features of Character Studio

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iii) what formats should it import/export to make it 3d package independent (I''m guessing ''.obj'' for geometry and ''.bvh''/''.acm'' for motion)?

Sticking with ability to export/import standardized/open formats is a must for new software.

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iv) what OS would it need to support?

Windows, Linux and OS X

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v) what price range would you be prepared to pay?

Pay? How about open source?

If not, it would depend on functionality. If a fully functional demo were availble before purchase, I would consider a price under $200 bucks. Anything over that, and your app starts to look like the big boys and needs to compete on features/support

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vi) what level of support would be required?

If open source, just well documented code. If commercial, a lot. 24hrs/7 days in English, Spanish, French, German and Swahili.

Just kidding, but if you charge regular business hours support should be provided free of charge for a period of time.

Hi

Cheers for the info. Some very good points you''ve mentioned, especially support. That is probably the main worry for me at the moment, although purely email/forum support wouldn''t be too bad.

Market is very funny at the moment, with apps looking suitable for consumers, but then costing the earth!! A good example is ''Antics'' (www.antics3d.com) which is similar to what I want to do. Its aimed at pro-sumers I guess, it was advertised in a consumer 3d mag (Digit?), but then it costs £2-4,000!! Plus, AI animations programs can go all the way up to $40k (Massive itself)!!

All very daunting, but interesting too.

Ta again

Dan

As for the model formats, would it be possible to create plugins to most of the major modeling apps and then use the plugin to interface between the "Massive" app and the modeling program.

Could use a plugin approach, but may be easier for me to use a stand-alone app idea, with easy to use file formats, because of costs of developing plugins. I know that Alias charge a few grand to produce a plugin for Maya, and I think Discreet are the same for Max. Probably best to get technology working, then work out if plugins possible.

Any other suggestions(price, features)?? Do you think there will be a market for it??