[Release] Golaem 8.1

[Alexandre Pillon]

Hi guys,

Happy new year! 

We wish you a year full of crowds (soon both virtual and real hopefully!)

Here is a new release of Golaem with plenty of improvements for users of all levels.

We added small quality of life tools like tools to help you manage Golaem shaders in your scenes (assign to geo proxy, remove shaders) and we totally revamped the ChOp editor!

We deep dived into PhysX code to give you the ability to have an unlimited number of colliders on your clothes and be able to define overrides for your physics shapes (think having a different physic shape depending on which weapon a character is holding for example).

Of course we fixed plenty of bugs you guys reported, and we also upgraded compatible renderer versions (yes, Golaem is now compatible with Arnold 7!)

You can grab this new version here: https://packages.golaem.com

And see release notes here: https://releasenotes.golaem.com

Cheers,

Alex

GOLAEM 8.1 (2022/01/24)

NEW FEATURES

• New Physics Override Node in the Character Maker to represent different physics morphologies within the same Character File
• Motion behavior weights are dynamic when using Golaem Attributes
• New Golaem HUD in the Maya viewport
• New tool to assign scene character shaders to a geo proxy
• New tool to remove character shaders from the scene
• Entities can now have Perception custom shapes

IMPROVEMENTS

• Apex Cloth simulation is not limited to 32 colliders anymore
• Improved ChOp Editor usability (autolayout, controls...)
• Improved GCG skin weights export performance
• Hidden meshes can be skipped in the Polygon Zone Trigger
• Added transformation support when exporting a Fur Cache as GFC
• Added transformation support when exporting a Geometry Cache as GCG
• Added attributes aliases in the GDA file format
• USD Bake parameters are now saved in the scene
• NavMesh Creator tool inherits from the Crowd Manager Crowd Unit when opened the first time
• Added fur rendering support in the Guerilla Render rendering plugin
• Added Character Maker helper button in the Motion Locator

BUG FIXES

• Fixed GCG blendshape export when target does not exist in the scene
• Fixed GCG animated meshes export with constant keyframe values
• Fixed blendshape offset when using FBX Character Geometry
• Fixed Bounding box computation error message when exporting a Character with a Fur Asset
• Fixed fur assets export in the glmExportCharacterGeometry command
• Fixed error message when a Character File is invalid in a scene
• Fixed UI refresh when reexporting a Fur Cache in the Character Maker
• Fixed mesh append when using relative file paths in the Character Maker
• Fixed Vector Field Layer not working on entities with a zero height pelvis in the Layout Tool
• Fixed Vector Field Layer not refreshing properly in the Layout Tool
• Fixed frames in the GSCB Library File when using the Batch Simulation Exporter command
• Fixed orientations not being taken into account in the External Entity Locator
• Fixed a crash when baking meshes with namespaces as USDSkel
• Fixed a crash when rendering an incomplete Fur Cache
• Fixed a crash when loading the Golaem and the MayaUSD plugins in Maya 2022
• Fixed a crash when using expressions in ChOp Input in the Golaem Engine
• Fixed a crash when rendering several Simulation Caches in Katana
• Fixed Sensor attributes export in the Golaem Engine
• Fixed identifier assignment in the Renderman rendering plugin
• Fixed export of Maya Curves as Fur Cache
• Fixed ground adaptation when using Skeleton Overrides
• Fixed Curve sampling not uniform in the Goto Behavior
• Fixed Curve sampling not uniform in the Flock Behavior
• Fixed avoidance when the NavMesh does not match Ground Terrain in the Navigation Behavior
• Fixed the default size of the Chop Node Library

REFACTORING

• Added support for Renderman 24
• Added support for Arnold 70
• Removed support for Renderman 22
• Removed support for Arnold 60
• Added contextual menu to the Shaders Shelf icon
• Removed External Entity Shelf icon (still available for the Golaem Menu)
• Polygon trigger returns false by default if no active mesh is set
• Character shaders are now added to a glmShaders group 
• USD Procedural file export is now available from the Simulation Baker tool
• ARNOLD_PROCEDURAL_PATH environment variable is not used anymore (replaced by standard ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH)
• Added warning message when blendshape targets are unreadable when exporting geometry as GCG
• Added USD bake parameters in the Crowd Manager Node

API

• UVs are now stored in the same channel in the C++ API

SUPPORTED DCCS

• Autodesk Maya 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022
• Autodesk 3ds Max 2018, 2019, 2020
• Foundry Katana 3.X, 4.X
• Unreal Engine 4.26, 4.27, 5.0
• SideFx Houdini 18.0.566, 18.5.672

SUPPORTED RENDERING ENGINES

• Arnold - Mtoa 4.2.X / KtoA 3.2.X
• V-Ray - For Maya 5.0.22, 5.1 / For 3ds Max 5.1
• Renderman - For Maya 24.X / For Katana 24.X
• Redshift - For Maya 3.0.46-57 / For Katana 3.0.46-57 / For 3ds Max 3.0.46-57
• USD - Standalone 0.19.11 and 0.20.02 / For Houdini 18 and 18.5 / For Katana 3.5
• 3Delight - For Katana 2.3.2 (through USD)
• Mental Ray - For Maya 3.14
• Guerilla Render 2.1, 2.2

Also supported (but must be manually installed):

• Arnold - Mtoa 5.0.X / KtoA 4.0
• V-Ray - For Maya 4.0X, 4.1X, 4.3X / For 3ds Max 4.30
• Renderman - For Maya 23.X / For Katana 23.X
• Redshift - For Maya 2.6.49, 2.6.5X / For Katana 2.6.55

--

 
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SKYPE     alexgolaem
 
alexandr...@golaem.com
http://www.golaem.com

[Alexandre Pillon]

PS/ if you are using Arnold, you should pay attention to this line in the release notes

=> ARNOLD_PROCEDURAL_PATH environment variable is not used anymore (replaced by standard ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH)

If you are just using the default Golaem install, you have nothing to worry about.

But if you are running Golaem on a studio pipeline, etc, it means that you may have to adapt your scripts/environment for the Golaem procedural to be found.

The  ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH now needs to contain both Golaem procedurals and shaders paths.

For example on my computer

getenv "ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH";
// Result: ;C:/Golaem/Golaem-8.1-Maya2018/procedurals/arnold/62;C:/Golaem/Golaem-8.1-Maya2018/shaders/arnold/62;C:/solidangle/mtoadeploy/2018/shaders;C:/solidangle/mtoadeploy/2018/procedurals // 

Sorry for the inconvenience, but it is for the best, as we are now using the standard way of telling Arnold where to search for our procedurals

Cheers,

Alex