new ICE plugin emFlock 1.0 released

[Mootzoid]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to announce the release of emFlock 1.0 for SI 2011 and above.

The plug-in consists of a multithreaded "DLL" file (Windows) or "so" file (Linux) for the flocking solver node (compiled C++ code for 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Softimage|XSI). Additionally, there are several compounds that come along.

emFlock is well integrated into ICE and can be combined with the built-in ICE compounds like "Flow along Curve", "Forces", "Bounce from Surface", "Forces", etc.

Check out the emFlock web page for more info and some demo animations

http://www.mootzoid.com/html/XsiCorner/emFlock.html

Below two screenshots.

Take care,
Eric

[mattmos]

Just awesome. Soon as we have some spare company funds this (the entire bundle) will be the first purchase. Cheers eric!

[Hirazi Blue]

Shouldn't the two screenshots also include the "rendered with Arnold" remark the videos get on your product page?
And one example rendered with MR would have been nice, for those of us who do not have access to the mighty, mighty (did I already mention "mighty"?) Arnold.
I mean, the example videos almost make you believe Arnold is a prerequisite for emFlock... ;)

[Mootzoid]

No, you needn't use Arnold to render emFlock, any renderer will do the trick. I'm using Arnold mainly because of its incredible render speed compared to MR.

[wacom]

Thank you for providing a solution where there is a huge gap in SI!

Makes me want to become an ICE coder just to score a copy of Arnold...

[dwigfor]

I wish this had more Steering algorithms besides flocking. Perhaps v2 will offer more controls, such as Seek, Evade, Path Following, Obstacle avoidance, etc... More crowd/pedestrian/vehicle simulation I guess is what I'm looking for.. Or a translation of this paper into a compound http://gamma.cs.unc.edu/HRVO/

How controllable is this compound? My Boids compound (from Kim Aldis' tutorial) pretty much does it's own thing... This is probably much faster, I realize.

This makes some cool patterns when generate strand trails is added

I think Phil Taylor had some great ideas demonstrated in his Ice Unleashed video way back when.. Perhaps you could beat him to the punch and release a full on crowd sim plugin. I'd probably go for that, priced not-too-expensive...

[Mootzoid]

Hi,

Agreed, emFlock is really only a little basic flocking solver, definitely not a revolution or whatsoever, but it's fast and a nice-to-have for certain flocking effects.

The things you mention like steer, seek, etc. might come in futur versions... it is version 1.0 ;)

Cheers,
Eric

PS: I already have a bunch of compounds that let you have a flock of particles morph into any shape you wish, but it's still beta. It was used in a commercial project and it is just not useable enough to be released.