Copyright © 2011 Domingos Silva

USER GUIDE MASSIVE TO MAYA PIPELINE V0.5.5

Overview

Mass2maya V0.5.5 is a Maya Plug-in which let you import Massive crowd simulation inside
Maya for rendering, adding VFX and more. With this version you will regenerate your crowd
inside Maya with multi-texture, different models and unlimited number of agents. For each
sim (fbx) are created new Maya Binary files for each character including texture, geometry.

In this version is introduced in the window control a texture combination textbox. Why? The
skin color must be the same for head, arms, legs… and each texture is loaded randomly. When
you combine two or more texture, if is loaded texture_1 for head will be loaded too texture_1
for arm and if arms are combined with legs will be loaded texture_1 for legs. The number of
combined textures files must be the same (3 textures for head, 3 for arms, 3 for legs). See the
maps folder on step 7.

MASSIVE PRIME

AUTODESK MAYA
Quick Start

To import massive sims, one can simply:

1. Open massive scene and press Ctrl+d to delete instance.

2. Export Sims as fbx Go to Run->Sim

Sim directory must be created in same folder as .mas file.

3. Press again Ctrl+p to place all agent and export sims, step 2.
4. Create your default agent in Maya.
a. Import the fbx exported in step 2 and Geometry in maya.
b. Select skeleton root and them all geometry - Bind Skin as Smooth Skin.
c. If you have two different models you need to create two default agents. See
the pic bellow, two default agents:

Default agent1 with shirt.

Default agent2 with sweatshirt.

5. Open maya scene default agent1, if mass2maya ins’t loaded, load it and type
mass2maya in mel command and press enter.

6. Browse to the fbx sims and select one of the “basename.#.fbx”, where # is a number
and press ImportFBX button.
7. The Control Window will be showed. In this example, the massive scenes have 20
agents and two different geometries (sweatshirt and shirt). Loading 13 with shirt and
7 with sweatshirt in maya using the Control window.

The head textures are combined with arms texture in control window, skin with same
color. See the maps folder, second picture below.
Mass2maya generate 13 Maya Binary files randomly between the sequence of the fbx sims.

8. Open default agent2 and type repeat step 5, 6 e 7. Do not move the mbs created in
step 7. When maya finish, see the Sim folder, all 20 mb are created.
 9. Select all mb drag-and-drop to a new maya scene. If the Playback speed isn’t Real-
Time[24fps] change it in the preferences window.

10. Optimize the scene, removing duplicate shadings network.

FINISH! Now you are ready to render your crowd. Enjoy it.