Sign In
Sign in
English

   TopBanners17041002.jpg
        
April 12, 2017 1:00 PM

by B. N. Reporter


On April 4, 2017, AXYZ design has released ANIMA 2.5 (the famous crowd simulation software) with added support for Open Collada--a file format Blender & Lightwave can import. Previously, ANIMA had support for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D only. Now on its export option for Open Collada, you can see "Blender" as default. If you have not seen the software, how good is it? And how good is its support for Blender? And is it worth to buy its PRO version--beside its free "lite" version which has 4 second animation limits?

What is AXYZ design?
AXYZ design is Italy-based company well known for its photo-scanned human models and crowd simulation tool. The quality of its human model contents had been well demonstrated in a few Archviz renders featured here at BlendNews.org such as the followings:
AVIB161101.jpg

AVIB160606.jpg

How good is ANIMA 2.5's support for Blender?
Check out the following animation made using Open Collada export files from ANIMA 2.5 lite--a free version with 4 second animation limits. The shots were made from different angles and edited as one long video.

When imported, the file was imported as Blender Internal file, so a conversion had to be made from Blender Internal to Cycles. There's a python script that automatically converts BI shader to Cycles at: http://pasteall.org/52917/python. 
And note that only the human models are exported from ANIMA 2.5's scene. Please have in mind that the above demo has used addition assets to create the scene. And more tweaking in the Cycle shader nodes might be necessary, since all shaders are imported as defuse shaders.

How to export the scene for Blender
Check out the following gif:
ANIMAT25-to-Blender.gif

Is it worth to buy its PRO version?
If you can afford it, yes definitely. Even with the free lite version you can use it in your static Archviz shots or short animated sequences less than 4 seconds. It's a great news that Blender users now have at their disposal what was once at the realm of 3ds Max and Cinema 4D.

Related Links:
1. https://secure.axyz-design.com/anima-crowd-simulation-software-home
2. https://www.facebook.com/axyzdesign/
3. http://pasteall.org/52917/python (BI to Cycles sript)

List of Articles
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2020 Blender Retrospective
211234   Feb 20, 2021 Feb 21, 2021 01:20
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file
563348   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:13
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file
426455   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:13
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file
432214   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:15
Notice Tutorials Top 15 Highest-Rated Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file
376120   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:12
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 for Blender 2.8 file
345282   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 23, 2019 23:35
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file
684596   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 25, 2019 23:34
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file
408661   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 23, 2019 15:48
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 file
345193   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 25, 2019 10:33
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2018: Winners Annouced file
381940   Jan 02, 2019 Jan 02, 2019 13:20
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2018 Blender Retrospective file
376316   Jan 02, 2019 Jan 02, 2019 13:42
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2017 file
969265   Jan 09, 2018 Jan 25, 2019 23:35
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2017 Blender Retrospective file
697071   Jan 01, 2018 Jan 09, 2018 04:55
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2017: Winners Annouced file
551038   Dec 26, 2017 Jan 09, 2018 04:55
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials (Videos) Released in 2016 file
765665   Jan 16, 2017 Jan 16, 2017 05:18
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2016 Blender Retrospective file
1060589   Dec 29, 2016 Feb 01, 2017 10:28
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2015: Seven Winners Annouced file
790834   Jan 20, 2016 Feb 02, 2016 03:35
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2015 Blender Retrospective file
762574   Jan 12, 2016 Feb 20, 2016 22:40
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2015 file
805898   Jun 26, 2015 Jan 01, 2016 05:33
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2014: Five Winners Annouced file
814124   Jan 02, 2015 Jan 02, 2015 16:04
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 file
853007   Dec 11, 2014 Jan 24, 2015 21:31