Array
11-05-2002, 09:22 AM
http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/8/1036373442
View Full Version : WETA's Massive featured in Popular Science
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CG.p
11-06-2002, 02:31 AM
That is a ton more than they had at SIGGRAPH.
"Hey, look at our software that we won't tell you anything about."
:)
"Hey, look at our software that we won't tell you anything about."
:)
redstagg16
11-09-2002, 12:25 PM
My feeling is that because Massive is such a "revolutional" program with a very simple principle and skeleton they want to show what its capable to impress the clients but not tell them how its done so that people wont bother going and copying the idea.... because there going to capatilize on the market with this program.... (they do tell you how its done not all that clearly and not in detail... sorry if anyones from weta... we would never be able to afford your program so we decided to build our own)
--------------------OUR MASSIVE PROGRAM------------------------------
Read on if you want to know about our program
===========Information Leak Alert===============
We had an EDUCTIONAL project of making a "Massive LITE" as we've nicknamed it (wont be the finished tital)... me and 15 friends (16 in total) from school (yr 12 final year highschool) got together over a month (35 days) and built a working version of a crowd/battle simulator
Ill just give a run down
2 races
40 battle anims (10 fighting 10 death 10 blocking 10 being hit)
each unit does 30 calculations (e.g. balance, gravity, speed, who is my target..ect)
then does 10 battle calculations (am i in striking range...ect)
they use field of vision to make them select there characters
its calucated then played back real time your able to fly around as the battles waging... like spectator mode in quake...well actually tribes 2 coz we used some of the frame work from there for the real time playback...im only part of the design and animation team so i cant really answer anything about the programming im only repeating things from what ive heard and seen... i dont even know what language its programmed in
takes 8 hours to process a 45 minute battle of 2000 stong armies (4000 agents) on 1 p4 2ghz...... none of use know how to utilize the network to process so that we can use all 400 computers.... where researching tho
we never programmed a walk cycle just programed how they should walk (oppisite arm to foot) .... i think we got the edge over massive because our scenes are more chaotic then theres or from the few reels ive seen of massive in action
we are currently working over having it so each unit in each race is not similar... aggression**, fighting style, size**, fitness** speed**...ect (**these will be a numeric value between 50 - 100) but where also going to include damage of each character so as the fight wheres on units may be limping or crawling...ect ( if a character gets hit in the leg then that leg will be weak so he may limp or crawl)
where currently refining it and working out bugs, this is a bit of an information leak soo shhh lol..... we should have a website up within the next 3-4 months but sometime next year when we are ready for beta testing .... in the mean time where going to do what weta does and not say much or show much so no images till the websites up... but we will be showing everything unlike weta ...snapshots of the program units agents and battles in action.
The good news is the finished program will be free, will be getting paid by advertising for banners and in hoping that we will get acouple of million hits we should get enough to cover some costs.
Red
--------------------OUR MASSIVE PROGRAM------------------------------
Read on if you want to know about our program
===========Information Leak Alert===============
We had an EDUCTIONAL project of making a "Massive LITE" as we've nicknamed it (wont be the finished tital)... me and 15 friends (16 in total) from school (yr 12 final year highschool) got together over a month (35 days) and built a working version of a crowd/battle simulator
Ill just give a run down
2 races
40 battle anims (10 fighting 10 death 10 blocking 10 being hit)
each unit does 30 calculations (e.g. balance, gravity, speed, who is my target..ect)
then does 10 battle calculations (am i in striking range...ect)
they use field of vision to make them select there characters
its calucated then played back real time your able to fly around as the battles waging... like spectator mode in quake...well actually tribes 2 coz we used some of the frame work from there for the real time playback...im only part of the design and animation team so i cant really answer anything about the programming im only repeating things from what ive heard and seen... i dont even know what language its programmed in
takes 8 hours to process a 45 minute battle of 2000 stong armies (4000 agents) on 1 p4 2ghz...... none of use know how to utilize the network to process so that we can use all 400 computers.... where researching tho
we never programmed a walk cycle just programed how they should walk (oppisite arm to foot) .... i think we got the edge over massive because our scenes are more chaotic then theres or from the few reels ive seen of massive in action
we are currently working over having it so each unit in each race is not similar... aggression**, fighting style, size**, fitness** speed**...ect (**these will be a numeric value between 50 - 100) but where also going to include damage of each character so as the fight wheres on units may be limping or crawling...ect ( if a character gets hit in the leg then that leg will be weak so he may limp or crawl)
where currently refining it and working out bugs, this is a bit of an information leak soo shhh lol..... we should have a website up within the next 3-4 months but sometime next year when we are ready for beta testing .... in the mean time where going to do what weta does and not say much or show much so no images till the websites up... but we will be showing everything unlike weta ...snapshots of the program units agents and battles in action.
The good news is the finished program will be free, will be getting paid by advertising for banners and in hoping that we will get acouple of million hits we should get enough to cover some costs.
Red
finalfantast
11-09-2002, 01:50 PM
redstagg16 you and your team are fantstic! :buttrock:
I'm sure you'le get a million hits if you let people know where to go (I would)
I can't wait till i get my hands on that program! Hopefully you are ready very soon. :drool:
I'm sure you'le get a million hits if you let people know where to go (I would)
I can't wait till i get my hands on that program! Hopefully you are ready very soon. :drool:
CG.p
11-09-2002, 07:11 PM
Originally posted by redstagg16
My feeling is that because Massive is such a "revolutional" program with a very simple principle and skeleton they want to show what its capable to impress the clients but not tell them how its done so that people wont bother going and copying the idea.... because there going to capatilize on the market with this program.... (they do tell you how its done not all that clearly and not in detail...
I meant more along the lines of showing the same 5 second clip over and over and over along with putting smiling faces in the booth instead of someone that might actually be able to even answer a "we can't answer that at this time". It gave a very 'send some interns to siggraph' feel to it.
If they want to impress people get an OK to put up more crowd stuff on the massive website. The TT videogame commercial on TV right now has more crowd footage than the massive website. :)
My feeling is that because Massive is such a "revolutional" program with a very simple principle and skeleton they want to show what its capable to impress the clients but not tell them how its done so that people wont bother going and copying the idea.... because there going to capatilize on the market with this program.... (they do tell you how its done not all that clearly and not in detail...
I meant more along the lines of showing the same 5 second clip over and over and over along with putting smiling faces in the booth instead of someone that might actually be able to even answer a "we can't answer that at this time". It gave a very 'send some interns to siggraph' feel to it.
If they want to impress people get an OK to put up more crowd stuff on the massive website. The TT videogame commercial on TV right now has more crowd footage than the massive website. :)
finalfantast
11-12-2002, 07:57 PM
he CG.P I want to know if the engine you are creating is an open source. (I hope so)
CG.p
11-12-2002, 11:34 PM
whoa! I'm not doing the engine.!!!!
:)
That was redstagg16's post
:)
That was redstagg16's post
redstagg16
11-12-2002, 11:58 PM
IM sorry i really dont have much idea about how the programs been stucture and programed and im not sure in what langugue either.... i was on the other fringe of the project, i was talking to one of the guys just yesterday and i didnt relise
the battle scenes are unable to be exported but are able to be replayed and saved as a .dat file or something
they will not be able to export the scenes out of the program into a 3d program,
there also having major trouble with terrian like people falling over when inclines get to high and are unable to get to there feet again and just get slaughtered,
so basically while it does look like a fantastic program they only thought about it in a computer game mind not a 3d mind which is still a good thing for computer games just not so much for us.
Red
the battle scenes are unable to be exported but are able to be replayed and saved as a .dat file or something
they will not be able to export the scenes out of the program into a 3d program,
there also having major trouble with terrian like people falling over when inclines get to high and are unable to get to there feet again and just get slaughtered,
so basically while it does look like a fantastic program they only thought about it in a computer game mind not a 3d mind which is still a good thing for computer games just not so much for us.
Red
facial
11-13-2002, 02:38 AM
redstagg16, You did great job.
:beer:
:beer:
gmask
11-13-2002, 03:24 AM
That's cool that you and friends are writing something for free.. $10k for a plugin is a bit much when some ingenuity and that fact that todays's hardware can handle such calculations make this practical if not easy to do. But if you need this technology yesterday and have the funds.. then expensive off the shelf software is great!
urgaffel
11-13-2002, 09:52 AM
When I visited the Massive booth, the lead prgrammer gave a presentation, didn't seem very intern-like to me :)
wasted weasel
11-13-2002, 07:52 PM
Originally posted by redstagg16
We had an EDUCTIONAL project of making a "Massive LITE" as we've nicknamed it (wont be the finished tital)... me and 15 friends (16 in total) from school (yr 12 final year highschool) got together over a month (35 days) and built a working version of a crowd/battle simulator
year 12?.....i don't understand... you guys are how old??
maybe i missed something, but that sounds like an amazing acheivement, and you explained so that a even dumb twit non-programmer like myself can understand it.
great work, i'd love to see even a tiny little render of what you guys have done using this.
:beer:
We had an EDUCTIONAL project of making a "Massive LITE" as we've nicknamed it (wont be the finished tital)... me and 15 friends (16 in total) from school (yr 12 final year highschool) got together over a month (35 days) and built a working version of a crowd/battle simulator
year 12?.....i don't understand... you guys are how old??
maybe i missed something, but that sounds like an amazing acheivement, and you explained so that a even dumb twit non-programmer like myself can understand it.
great work, i'd love to see even a tiny little render of what you guys have done using this.
:beer:
thecheeseburger
11-13-2002, 08:15 PM
Yeah, Redstagg, if you guys are seniors in high school you've got a bright future ahead of you. Keep up the good work. Don't get down on yourselves for the terrain issue. Keep chugging along and sooner or later you'll guys in suits show up at your door from Alias Wavefront, Newtek, Electric Image, etc. with briefcases full of money and bling bling. Heck, if they dont show up, I will. I'd love a "riot/mosh pit" simulator.
mattregnier
11-13-2002, 08:43 PM
Red-
I would love to see some of the development of this project and look more into it. Is there a webpage you guys are keeping with production notes, ie some visuals ? If you can't post a link could you pm me with it?
Thanks-
I would love to see some of the development of this project and look more into it. Is there a webpage you guys are keeping with production notes, ie some visuals ? If you can't post a link could you pm me with it?
Thanks-
DJace
11-14-2002, 01:24 AM
whoa...redstagg16
i sure hope your HSC went alright.....
i sure hope your HSC went alright.....
redstagg16
11-14-2002, 02:17 AM
wow so many people are interested... cool
sorry guys i still have 2 exams to go... i finish on monday so ill try to get a website up with some of the other guys that are finishing, but i doubt it will have any pictures.... just our production documents which explain
what its capable of doing, the problems it had, how we fixed them, and what we went on to inprove from there.... we have already produced 5 versions of the program because of bugs and defaults... ive been trying to find out what type of coding it uses and we have come to the conclusion its c++ or c or something ive got no idea... same langugue as rhino 3d uses
but after the 3d guys and the artist kicked the programmers buts in unreal tournament, they have agreed to take it out of the tribes engine and try to make it as a max plugin... they said " it pretty simple to do but we will have to change some of the point of view settings and re structure alot of it, but if you guys are willing to sacrifice the speed of the processing for the eye candy and control and ability of the 3d program then we can do that"
I felt like slapping them....
we will add gizmo's to control the units better, you will be able to set the thresholds of the units attributes in the rollouts.
but you will be able to texture the units,
add your own animations around the crowd, add objects like castle trees lakes, and also special effects (just like any max scene)
we will be making an office in my backroom with 25 networked computers just gotta purchase some 1 more hub and we should be able to get alot done in the next month and have a beta ready for chrissy.... it is getting to large to download or for us to put on the net to download but where working on it like always.
sorry guys i still have 2 exams to go... i finish on monday so ill try to get a website up with some of the other guys that are finishing, but i doubt it will have any pictures.... just our production documents which explain
what its capable of doing, the problems it had, how we fixed them, and what we went on to inprove from there.... we have already produced 5 versions of the program because of bugs and defaults... ive been trying to find out what type of coding it uses and we have come to the conclusion its c++ or c or something ive got no idea... same langugue as rhino 3d uses
but after the 3d guys and the artist kicked the programmers buts in unreal tournament, they have agreed to take it out of the tribes engine and try to make it as a max plugin... they said " it pretty simple to do but we will have to change some of the point of view settings and re structure alot of it, but if you guys are willing to sacrifice the speed of the processing for the eye candy and control and ability of the 3d program then we can do that"
I felt like slapping them....
we will add gizmo's to control the units better, you will be able to set the thresholds of the units attributes in the rollouts.
but you will be able to texture the units,
add your own animations around the crowd, add objects like castle trees lakes, and also special effects (just like any max scene)
we will be making an office in my backroom with 25 networked computers just gotta purchase some 1 more hub and we should be able to get alot done in the next month and have a beta ready for chrissy.... it is getting to large to download or for us to put on the net to download but where working on it like always.
redstagg16
11-14-2002, 04:45 AM
okay heres a website detailing the functions and layout and some other things for any of those interested... ill make it look nicer next week and produce some graphics for it (headings logos and titles not images)
PROJECT MASSIVE lite (http://massivelite.20megsfree.com/Contents.htm)
Red
PROJECT MASSIVE lite (http://massivelite.20megsfree.com/Contents.htm)
Red
pgp_protector
11-15-2002, 07:46 AM
Originally posted by redstagg16
okay heres a website detailing the functions and layout and some other things for any of those interested... ill make it look nicer next week and produce some graphics for it (headings logos and titles not images)
PROJECT MASSIVE lite (http://massivelite.20megsfree.com/Contents.htm)
Red
Get rid of all the pop-unders, God I hate thoes things.
Are you trying to give info about your product or annoy people
okay heres a website detailing the functions and layout and some other things for any of those interested... ill make it look nicer next week and produce some graphics for it (headings logos and titles not images)
PROJECT MASSIVE lite (http://massivelite.20megsfree.com/Contents.htm)
Red
Get rid of all the pop-unders, God I hate thoes things.
Are you trying to give info about your product or annoy people
Sinister
11-15-2002, 12:17 PM
They just explained they aimed to make this software free, financing it through banners. I dont mind these banners knowing they are for a good cause.
Keep up the good work!!
Keep up the good work!!
Howzat
11-15-2002, 01:02 PM
Originally posted by Sinister
They just explained they aimed to make this software free, financing it through banners. I dont mind these banners knowing they are for a good cause.
Keep up the good work!!
ditto! Except tell those programmers to make a lightwave plug-in at the same time! :) :beer:
They just explained they aimed to make this software free, financing it through banners. I dont mind these banners knowing they are for a good cause.
Keep up the good work!!
ditto! Except tell those programmers to make a lightwave plug-in at the same time! :) :beer:
Andres
11-16-2002, 11:29 PM
Was this software used in 'Mummy returns' first scene?
redstagg16
11-17-2002, 06:28 AM
Im pretty sure the answer is no, because weta's massive was first seen only in lord of the rings, i cant recall what program was used for the mummy returns, but im prety sure that it wasnt a battle simulator it was a crowd simulator that was used at the end... but the begining scene was i think people with animated characters around them, im 90% sure but i dont make any gaurntee's.
Can someone who went to spingraphh or what ever it was called, verify a rumor that massive is only 2 meg large.
Red
Can someone who went to spingraphh or what ever it was called, verify a rumor that massive is only 2 meg large.
Red
DFGFX
11-17-2002, 05:07 PM
So, red... Do you guys need hosting? or beta tester:D
DFGFX
11-18-2002, 01:58 AM
Red sorry but what language are you coding ur proggy in?
Nicool
12-14-2002, 09:37 PM
I'm realy interest about those new tech. And so the project on which your are working look wonderful (and very hard).
Big regards!
Big regards!
mikefeil
12-29-2002, 02:08 PM
this sounds awesome
Hopefully your still going hard at it and havent died at schoolies :shame: heh
anyway give us some updates
Hopefully your still going hard at it and havent died at schoolies :shame: heh
anyway give us some updates
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