A new plugin for crowd simulation/crowd generation in Maya at a reasonable cost!
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risu...@gmail.com
Mar 5, 2016, 1:47:29 PM3/5/16
to Python Programming for Autodesk Maya
Hi folks,
Wouldn't it be great to have a robust and reliable open source or reasonably priced plugin to do crowd generation/crowd simulation for Maya or other 3D software?
Currently the existing software for crowd are in the thousands, some over $3,000 too and even hundreds of dollars for a few months' rental.
Why allow people to capitalize on those plugins?
Currently there is no reasonably priced crowd generation/crowd simulation plugin for Maya which can produce industry standard results.
By reasonably priced I am setting the bar as high as $1,000 for a PERMANENT license, and there is no plugin that can do industry standard crowd simulation/crowd generation work that sells for at least $1,000 for a PERMANENT license. People should not have to pay more than this amount for a PERMANENT license for such a plugin and should not deserve to rent the plugin either.
We cannot sit back and let plugins like these hold on to a high priced status in the market. As we know, Maya and Fusion for example were highly priced in their time previously, but now they have different cost structures. I can understand renting Maya as a subscription, but a crowd simulation/crowd generation plugin should not be rented.
I am sure there are very brilliant programmers who can formulate a great solution for industry standard crowd software, and at the right price, I am also sure many will be interested in buying those.
This expensive crowd plugin market needs a wake up call to reduce their license drastically.
How can this project be started?
Coders, programmers, developers how can we get an army of ten thousand people or 10,000 dogs running down a street interacting with each other and being animated etc.?
I have faith in the brilliant developers out there and hope someone has heard or will hear this call and start work on a plugin that can change the industry's mindset where crowds are required in CGI!
Wouldn't it be great to have a robust and reliable open source or reasonably priced plugin to do crowd generation/crowd simulation for Maya or other 3D software?
Currently the existing software for crowd are in the thousands, some over $3,000 too and even hundreds of dollars for a few months' rental.
Why allow people to capitalize on those plugins?
Currently there is no reasonably priced crowd generation/crowd simulation plugin for Maya which can produce industry standard results.
By reasonably priced I am setting the bar as high as $1,000 for a PERMANENT license, and there is no plugin that can do industry standard crowd simulation/crowd generation work that sells for at least $1,000 for a PERMANENT license. People should not have to pay more than this amount for a PERMANENT license for such a plugin and should not deserve to rent the plugin either.
We cannot sit back and let plugins like these hold on to a high priced status in the market. As we know, Maya and Fusion for example were highly priced in their time previously, but now they have different cost structures. I can understand renting Maya as a subscription, but a crowd simulation/crowd generation plugin should not be rented.
I am sure there are very brilliant programmers who can formulate a great solution for industry standard crowd software, and at the right price, I am also sure many will be interested in buying those.
This expensive crowd plugin market needs a wake up call to reduce their license drastically.
How can this project be started?
Coders, programmers, developers how can we get an army of ten thousand people or 10,000 dogs running down a street interacting with each other and being animated etc.?
I have faith in the brilliant developers out there and hope someone has heard or will hear this call and start work on a plugin that can change the industry's mindset where crowds are required in CGI!
Nicolas Chaverou
Mar 5, 2016, 4:17:07 PM3/5/16
to python_in...@googlegroups.com
Hi there,
Hope this will not be taken as a shameless plug, but i wanted to step in this discussion. Before starting let me introduce myself: my name is Nicolas, I'm one of Golaem founder and crowd lead dev there. We develop and sell a crowd sim plugin for Maya (here's the link for people having never heard about us: http://golaem.com and prices: http://golaem.com/content/buy).First let me say that from my experience, nobody in the VFX software industry (and I met a few) is capitalizing. Some are indeed healthy companies but no one drives a Ferrari to go to work neither they live in huge mansions. Us included. Vfx is a very competitive niche market and crowd sim even more. Contrary to rendering engine companies which can sell dozens of licenses to the same company, we (and plenty of others) usually sell between 1 and a few seats.
On the other side, we've been working for 6 years now on that product and I'd say it has reached *industry standards* about three years ago.
Behind the software there are several *brilliant developers* passionated about their job, not counting their hours and trying to make a living out of their passion.
Why so long? Well, developping an *industry standard* crowd sim software requires you to deal with AI, behaviors, perception, animation, ground detection, cloth sim, fur/hair sim, physics ragdoll sim, muscles, blendshapes, character variation (geometry, writing shaders), having decent performances (being able to sim thousands of characters real time), being able to display dozen of thousands of characters on screen and being able to render those dozen of thousands in a decent time on most industry standard rendering engines (6 in our case). Not speaking about doing an API, supporting productions and special feature requests (which is common to all vfx software developpers).
Well a lot of different skills are involved...
I usually like to say that crowds are a pipeline in the pipeline :)
Well a lot of different skills are involved...
I usually like to say that crowds are a pipeline in the pipeline :)
So at the end, we have to do the maths if we'd like to be able to live out of it.
I truly believe our pricing is fair and is a good value:
- commercials / tv shows studios usually rent the software for a month or more and charge it to the global project
- heavy film studios usually go permanent and charge it to the project as well
I truly believe our pricing is fair and is a good value:
- commercials / tv shows studios usually rent the software for a month or more and charge it to the global project
- heavy film studios usually go permanent and charge it to the project as well
- and people without commercial projects ? Well, they get a license for free.
This having been said I completely understand your point but there's a good reason why there are so few crowd softwares out there.
It takes a lot of time, skills, lines of code (hundreds of thousands) to achieve a competitive product.
This having been said I completely understand your point but there's a good reason why there are so few crowd softwares out there.
It takes a lot of time, skills, lines of code (hundreds of thousands) to achieve a competitive product.
Hope it shone some lights.
Will be happy to answer any questions :)
Best,
--
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Marcus Ottosson
Mar 5, 2016, 5:51:55 PM3/5/16
to python_in...@googlegroups.com
Why allow people to capitalize on those plugins?
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/python_inside_maya/CAFS5DCa2NJttu%2B0jNhL7N%3DetOhjSt_%2BfggcL2Ga3ay5gmn4wdQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Geordie Martinez
Mar 5, 2016, 8:22:32 PM3/5/16
to python_inside_maya
I happen to agree completely with Nicolas. I've been doing crowd work for around 7 years now.
There's a reason there are only a few companies making software for crowd work that is production-proven.
It is NO easy task and Goleam deserves every penny they get for their hard work.
But who am I to dissuade you? By all means, Risu, give it your best shot.
the hurdles will be many. Including convincing someone to use your software instead of a proven package will be
very difficult. It's taken Goleam years to get where they are.
If you feel this passionate about it, you should try it!
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/python_inside_maya/CAFRtmOBVcyN2z3GdM71_xn2uG2zhBubKt7K62wG9%3DKMBND1dYw%40mail.gmail.com.
Justin Israel
Mar 5, 2016, 9:03:27 PM3/5/16
to Python Programming for Autodesk Maya
On Sun, 6 Mar 2016 7:47 AM <risu...@gmail.com> wrote:
By reasonably priced I am setting the bar as high as $1,000 for a PERMANENT license, and there is no plugin that can do industry standard crowd simulation/crowd generation work that sells for at least $1,000 for a PERMANENT license. People should not have to pay more than this amount for a PERMANENT license for such a plugin and should not deserve to rent the plugin either.
I am genuinely curious to know what factors into your decision to settle on $1000 as the number? Could you give some more details about your process of researching and assessing, which lead to this conclusion?
Is the number based on what you have found to be a feasible cost to develop and sustain a suitable product? Or is the number just generally based on a loose budget of what you would be willing to pay?
Nicolas gave some very nice insight into the Golaem project and what it takes to produce and and support an industry standard product. Doed his description sound like it doesn't align with the price point?
We cannot sit back and let plugins like these hold on to a high priced status in the market. As we know, Maya and Fusion for example were highly priced in their time previously, but now they have different cost structures. I can understand renting Maya as a subscription, but a crowd simulation/crowd generation plugin should not be rented.
I am sure there are very brilliant programmers who can formulate a great solution for industry standard crowd software, and at the right price, I am also sure many will be interested in buying those.
This expensive crowd plugin market needs a wake up call to reduce their license drastically.
How can this project be started?
Coders, programmers, developers how can we get an army of ten thousand people or 10,000 dogs running down a street interacting with each other and being animated etc.?
I have faith in the brilliant developers out there and hope someone has heard or will hear this call and start work on a plugin that can change the industry's mindset where crowds are required in CGI!
kevco...@gmail.com
Mar 6, 2016, 12:24:01 PM3/6/16
to Python Programming for Autodesk Maya
Golaem is an amazing plugin. It's worth every dollar, and the guys behind it, really support it and will help you out In a pinch no problem.
Do you develop plugins?
Do you develop plugins?
risu...@gmail.com
Mar 7, 2016, 3:42:05 AM3/7/16
to Python Programming for Autodesk Maya
On Saturday, March 5, 2016 at 2:17:07 PM UTC-7, Nicolas Chaverou wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Hope this will not be taken as a shameless plug, but i wanted to step in this discussion. Before starting let me introduce myself: my name is Nicolas, I'm one of Golaem founder and crowd lead dev there. We develop and sell a crowd sim plugin for Maya (here's the link for people having never heard about us: http://golaem.com and prices: http://golaem.com/content/buy).
>
>
> First let me say that from my experience, nobody in the VFX software industry (and I met a few) is capitalizing. Some are indeed healthy companies but no one drives a Ferrari to go to work neither they live in huge mansions. Us included. Vfx is a very competitive niche market and crowd sim even more. Contrary to rendering engine companies which can sell dozens of licenses to the same company, we (and plenty of others) usually sell between 1 and a few seats.
>
>
> On the other side, we've been working for 6 years now on that product and I'd say it has reached *industry standards* about three years ago.
>
> Behind the software there are several *brilliant developers* passionated about their job, not counting their hours and trying to make a living out of their passion.
>
>
> Why so long? Well, developping an *industry standard* crowd sim software requires you to deal with AI, behaviors, perception, animation, ground detection, cloth sim, fur/hair sim, physics ragdoll sim, muscles, blendshapes, character variation (geometry, writing shaders), having decent performances (being able to sim thousands of characters real time), being able to display dozen of thousands of characters on screen and being able to render those dozen of thousands in a decent time on most industry standard rendering engines (6 in our case). Not speaking about doing an API, supporting productions and special feature requests (which is common to all vfx software developpers).
> Well a lot of different skills are involved...
> I usually like to say that crowds are a pipeline in the pipeline :)
>
>
>
> So at the end, we have to do the maths if we'd like to be able to live out of it.
>
> I truly believe our pricing is fair and is a good value:
> - commercials / tv shows studios usually rent the software for a month or more and charge it to the global project
> - heavy film studios usually go permanent and charge it to the project as well
>
> - and people without commercial projects ? Well, they get a license for free.
>
> This having been said I completely understand your point but there's a good reason why there are so few crowd softwares out there.
> It takes a lot of time, skills, lines of code (hundreds of thousands) to achieve a competitive product.
>
>
> Hope it shone some lights.
>
> Will be happy to answer any questions :)
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi there,
>
> Hope this will not be taken as a shameless plug, but i wanted to step in this discussion. Before starting let me introduce myself: my name is Nicolas, I'm one of Golaem founder and crowd lead dev there. We develop and sell a crowd sim plugin for Maya (here's the link for people having never heard about us: http://golaem.com and prices: http://golaem.com/content/buy).
>
>
> First let me say that from my experience, nobody in the VFX software industry (and I met a few) is capitalizing. Some are indeed healthy companies but no one drives a Ferrari to go to work neither they live in huge mansions. Us included. Vfx is a very competitive niche market and crowd sim even more. Contrary to rendering engine companies which can sell dozens of licenses to the same company, we (and plenty of others) usually sell between 1 and a few seats.
>
>
> On the other side, we've been working for 6 years now on that product and I'd say it has reached *industry standards* about three years ago.
>
> Behind the software there are several *brilliant developers* passionated about their job, not counting their hours and trying to make a living out of their passion.
>
>
> Why so long? Well, developping an *industry standard* crowd sim software requires you to deal with AI, behaviors, perception, animation, ground detection, cloth sim, fur/hair sim, physics ragdoll sim, muscles, blendshapes, character variation (geometry, writing shaders), having decent performances (being able to sim thousands of characters real time), being able to display dozen of thousands of characters on screen and being able to render those dozen of thousands in a decent time on most industry standard rendering engines (6 in our case). Not speaking about doing an API, supporting productions and special feature requests (which is common to all vfx software developpers).
> Well a lot of different skills are involved...
> I usually like to say that crowds are a pipeline in the pipeline :)
>
>
>
> So at the end, we have to do the maths if we'd like to be able to live out of it.
>
> I truly believe our pricing is fair and is a good value:
> - commercials / tv shows studios usually rent the software for a month or more and charge it to the global project
> - heavy film studios usually go permanent and charge it to the project as well
>
> - and people without commercial projects ? Well, they get a license for free.
>
> This having been said I completely understand your point but there's a good reason why there are so few crowd softwares out there.
> It takes a lot of time, skills, lines of code (hundreds of thousands) to achieve a competitive product.
>
>
> Hope it shone some lights.
>
> Will be happy to answer any questions :)
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
>
>
>
> +33 (0)2 99 27 21 44
>
> http://www.golaem.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 9:56 AM, <risu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
>
>
> Wouldn't it be great to have a robust and reliable open source or reasonably priced plugin to do crowd generation/crowd simulation for Maya or other 3D software?
>
>
>
> Currently the existing software for crowd are in the thousands, some over $3,000 too and even hundreds of dollars for a few months' rental.
>
>
>
> Why allow people to capitalize on those plugins?
>
>
>
> Currently there is no reasonably priced crowd generation/crowd simulation plugin for Maya which can produce industry standard results.
>
>
>
> By reasonably priced I am setting the bar as high as $1,000 for a PERMANENT license, and there is no plugin that can do industry standard crowd simulation/crowd generation work that sells for at least $1,000 for a PERMANENT license. People should not have to pay more than this amount for a PERMANENT license for such a plugin and should not deserve to rent the plugin either.
>
>
>
> We cannot sit back and let plugins like these hold on to a high priced status in the market. As we know, Maya and Fusion for example were highly priced in their time previously, but now they have different cost structures. I can understand renting Maya as a subscription, but a crowd simulation/crowd generation plugin should not be rented.
>
>
>
> I am sure there are very brilliant programmers who can formulate a great solution for industry standard crowd software, and at the right price, I am also sure many will be interested in buying those.
>
>
>
> This expensive crowd plugin market needs a wake up call to reduce their license drastically.
>
>
>
> How can this project be started?
>
>
>
> Coders, programmers, developers how can we get an army of ten thousand people or 10,000 dogs running down a street interacting with each other and being animated etc.?
>
>
>
> I have faith in the brilliant developers out there and hope someone has heard or will hear this call and start work on a plugin that can change the industry's mindset where crowds are required in CGI!
>
>
>
> --
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Python Programming for Autodesk Maya" group.
>
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to python_inside_m...@googlegroups.com.
>
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/python_inside_maya/d274a689-1f80-4bbf-92d2-d25c13673615%40googlegroups.com.
>
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Well, here is to say that I understand your point of view Nicolas. I have heard about Golaem and seen some clever things it is capable of, and no doubt, it is on the top 5 list for crowd software in my opinion. So perhaps, when I posted this thread, I was a bit shocked with the prices in general on average by all producers of such a plugin, but in time maybe you folks will be in a position to make it more competitive for permanent licences for indie folks and smaller companies.
>
> http://www.golaem.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 9:56 AM, <risu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
>
>
> Wouldn't it be great to have a robust and reliable open source or reasonably priced plugin to do crowd generation/crowd simulation for Maya or other 3D software?
>
>
>
> Currently the existing software for crowd are in the thousands, some over $3,000 too and even hundreds of dollars for a few months' rental.
>
>
>
> Why allow people to capitalize on those plugins?
>
>
>
> Currently there is no reasonably priced crowd generation/crowd simulation plugin for Maya which can produce industry standard results.
>
>
>
> By reasonably priced I am setting the bar as high as $1,000 for a PERMANENT license, and there is no plugin that can do industry standard crowd simulation/crowd generation work that sells for at least $1,000 for a PERMANENT license. People should not have to pay more than this amount for a PERMANENT license for such a plugin and should not deserve to rent the plugin either.
>
>
>
> We cannot sit back and let plugins like these hold on to a high priced status in the market. As we know, Maya and Fusion for example were highly priced in their time previously, but now they have different cost structures. I can understand renting Maya as a subscription, but a crowd simulation/crowd generation plugin should not be rented.
>
>
>
> I am sure there are very brilliant programmers who can formulate a great solution for industry standard crowd software, and at the right price, I am also sure many will be interested in buying those.
>
>
>
> This expensive crowd plugin market needs a wake up call to reduce their license drastically.
>
>
>
> How can this project be started?
>
>
>
> Coders, programmers, developers how can we get an army of ten thousand people or 10,000 dogs running down a street interacting with each other and being animated etc.?
>
>
>
> I have faith in the brilliant developers out there and hope someone has heard or will hear this call and start work on a plugin that can change the industry's mindset where crowds are required in CGI!
>
>
>
> --
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Python Programming for Autodesk Maya" group.
>
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to python_inside_m...@googlegroups.com.
>
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/python_inside_maya/d274a689-1f80-4bbf-92d2-d25c13673615%40googlegroups.com.
>
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
I don't produce plugins and and cannot even start to imagine all the time it took to make Golaem as great as it is today.
So, here is wishing Golaem best wishes for the hard work of the many folks that worked on this product.
Thank you for your post and explanation.
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