Virtual Population Growth

Driving Innovation in Crowd Simulation

By Dominic rowd simulation has finally become easier thanks to worlds, is up to the challenge. Milano is one of the technological breakthroughs. “Evolution favors simplicity and so do most challenging Whether filling scenes with opposing we,” said Michaël Rouillé, Golaem’s vice tasks in computer armies or throngs of people shuffling to president of engineering. “Our goal with animation—so work during rush hour, animation and Golaem Crowd* is to provide the VFX challenging that VFX teams need tools for creating realistic and animation industries with high- crowds in virtual virtual crowds that can interact with their performance, easy-to-use tools worlds are rare. surroundings in a believable manner. For for populating 3D worlds with Long accustomed example, they must follow undulations visually compelling and believable to these crowd- in the landscape, avoid obstacles, and virtual humans.” free worlds, audiences today don’t behave like a real cast of thousands, all Golaem Crowd is a multi-threaded notice the absence. At the same without the artist needing to manually plug-in for * that taps into time, computer animation and visual choreograph a horde of individual the power of the ® Core™ processor effects (VFX) have become incredibly characters. Dwindling budgets and family to enable a streamlined workflow sophisticated, enabling stunning realism compressed timelines are adding further for simulating crowd scenes. With in those worlds. Creating scenes with pressures to this complex task. Golaem Crowd, content creators can legions of virtual extras whose every Golaem, a company easily produce a virtual cast of thousands, move could make or break the illusion focused on bringing life to digital controlling overall crowd behavior in

1 Intel® Software Adrenaline SNCF—France’s national railway— • Procedural rendering plug-ins for was Golaem’s first customer. SNCF V-Ray*, mental ray* renderer, used Golaem’s crowd technology to RenderMan* rendering technology, simulate and optimize the boarding and and RenderMan-compliant renderers. disembarkation process of passenger trains in Paris and its suburbs. “Today In the VFX and animation market, Golaem SNCF uses our technology to simulate encounters as many workflows and various situations—for example, rush creative processes as there are users. To hour, impolite passengers, and passengers accommodate these variations, Golaem with impaired mobility,” Rouillé said. identified common steps that could be implemented in any production workflow. “We found that most studios build Intel® Hardware scenes incrementally, step by step, Enables Innovation starting with asset creation, followed by placement, animation, then simulation, A few years ago, computing a thousand- and finally rendering,” Rouillé said. character shot created with Golaem Crowd would have been a completely non-interactive process, taking overnight, a day, or longer. “Thanks to technological advances, a similar crowd simulation can be computed in real-time on a desktop PC,” Rouillé said. “The availability of multi- core Intel® processors brings a significant performance boost to our customers.” Another boost comes from the proliferation of 64-bit OSs. “Thanks to * 7 64-bit and * 64-bit, we can take advantage of the 16 GB of RAM commonly available on our users’ workstations,” Rouillé said. “If we can fit all the data for a 50K character crowd simulation in RAM, we do not have to rely on out-of-core algorithms to compute the crowd simulation in multiple which the appearance and motions of passes. This gives us another huge Golaem Crowd respects this iterative individual characters are visually believable. performance boost, because we do not process, and each tool in Golaem Through its close collaboration with need to access the hard drive as often as Crowd is paired with one of those steps. Intel, and by using a variety of Intel® when we’re using a 32-bit OS.” “We designed Golaem Crowd to help software development tools to optimize artists avoid repetitive or cumbersome code, Golaem has been able to achieve tasks, giving them more time to focus ABOVE, LEFT Fortress awesome near-perfect scaling, boosting Keeping the Artist on what gives real value to the shot. The Assault, a Golaem playback frame rates for pre-visualization in Mind goal is to make every dollar spent visible Crowd* demonstration and delivering faster render times both on on the screen.” by Axel Domenger workstations and in the cloud. Ample processing horsepower accelerates for SIGGRAPH 2012. rendering and pre-viz, but to speed the creative process, Golaem was selective Innovation through From Research to Reality in the virtual human technologies it built Collaboration into Golaem Crowd. Founded in 2009, Golaem is the “We chose key technologies that According to Rouillé, customer need— brainchild of Stéphane Donikian, a would allow artists to focus on creativity based on audience expectations—in the researcher at INRIA, the French National and forget about mechanics,” Rouillé VFX and animation market is another Institute for Research in Computer said. These technologies include: driving factor in Golaem’s software Science. Golaem currently employs a • Animation engine for automatic development process. “In a highly full-time staff of 13, eight of whom motion retargeting and motion competitive market, a studio needs to are focused on R&D. The fruits of their blending. innovate to bring the artists’ ideas to research include technologies for real- • Navigation engine for automatic path- screen in less time, with smaller budgets. time animation and navigation, and finding and collision avoidance. Our job is to bring innovation to the dynamic simulation of both the behavior • Behavior engine for control over virtual table and focus our R&D where it’s of the crowd as a whole and of each extras; starts and stops animation most needed. We know that our goals individual in the crowd. using environment-aware triggers. are ambitious and that the best way to

Intel® Software Adrenaline 2 achieve them is through collaboration formations) that are navigational Golaem lacked the tools and with the right partners.” direction-enabled. expertise to quickly identify where to Whether they’re producing animation • The physics can simulate rag doll apply its parallelization efforts. “I have and effects for episodic television, behavior, so characters fall realistically solid experience in code parallelization feature films, or commercials, “Few have after an impact or an explosion. dating back to SGI architectures,” the time or budget to develop tools in- Rouillé said. “We did our homework by house,” said Rouillé. “Also, most studios reading on the subject, but nonetheless don’t have time to learn how to use we did not have the resources for a complex software or integrate it with trial-and-error approach.” their existing pipeline.” Working with Intel allowed Golaem to To hasten development and keep fully exploit the potential offered by Intel training costs down, Golaem chose to multi-core processors. integrate directly with Autodesk Maya, “We achieved a huge performance which Rouillé thinks of as “the artist’s boost for Golaem Crowd 2.0—a 15x Swiss Army knife.” Rouillé also felt improvement over Golaem Crowd 1.0 that Maya’s flexible architecture was when run on Intel® Core™ i7 processors. ideal for creating scripts and writing When run on the 3rd generation Intel® plug-ins to help increase efficiency and Core™ processor family, performance will customize features. improve even more.” Golaem used two Intel software development tools: Intel® Threaded Raising the Bar Again Achieving Breakthrough Building Blocks (Intel® TBB) versions 2.2 Performance through 4, and Intel® Parallel Studio XE, Golaem Crowd 2.0, due for release which includes Intel® VTune™ Amplifier in summer 2012, will introduce new Golaem customers were also asking for XE and Intel® Inspector XE. “Intel TBB features and enhancements designed to increased simulation performance, which gave us cross-platform atomic operations, make creating complex crowd shots, such is when Rouillé turned to Intel. “Golaem thread-safe containers, threads, and as battle scenes and urban population Crowd 1.0 simulations were CPU-bound,” thread-locking mechanisms as well simulation, easier than ever. he explained. “The next logical step was as multi-thread allocators in a solid • The Behavior editor makes it easier to to scale on multi-core processors, so I package,” Rouillé said. build characters’ behaviors. looked for a partner to help us achieve a Intel VTune Amplifier XE helped identify • Group navigation allows characters holy grail—parallelism; great scaling with and resolve performance bottlenecks. “The to be assembled by group (or in a minimum of effort on our part.” tool gives reliable performance reports

3 Intel® Software Adrenaline through hardware-based sampling that According to Rouillé, Autodesk chief we could compare with blueprints at executive officer Carl Bass foresees that in each improvement and thus measure the two or three years all Autodesk products impact of any modifications. Furthermore, will be only used online. However, Marc system-wide, event-based sampling gave Petit, Autodesk’s senior vice president, us precious information on cache misses told the CG Channel that Autodesk in our code. It was an eye-opener for us.” Media & Entertainment’s transition to Rouillé added, “Intel Inspector XE saved us online services will be challenging due weeks of time tracking down subtle errors to the high bandwidth requirements. in our parallel design implementation and, “Personally, I believe the cloud will as an added bonus, pinpointed minor become invisible to users, a way to store memory errors in legacy code.” and access data worldwide,” Rouillé How did Intel® tools accelerate said. “Golaem does its part by reducing Golaem’s time-to-market? “Some years the bandwidth requirement with our Mikros Image: ago, I had to write a library similar to Intel procedural rendering techniques because Crowd Control for Nissan Using Golaem Crowd* TBB for a cross-platform distributed 3D we do not transfer all of the geometry, engine. It took me three months to code but rather we use procedural primitive and debug the whole thing,” Rouillé said. requests that generate the geometry ikros Image is an Academy Award-winning “With Intel TBB, the guys writing our CPU on-the-fly.” studio dedicated to high-end digital visual code provided me with optimized code Rouillé also envisions new character- effects. Since integrating Golaem into that I did not have to develop or maintain animation control modes, powered by their pipeline and writing a custom plug- for critical system services, so I could focus advances in motion-sensing technology in for Solid Angle’s * renderer using my developers on coding innovations in such as Microsoft Kinect* or a Vicon the Golaem SDK, the studio has used our key technology.” motion-capture system. “I think we’ll MGolaem Crowd on numerous commercial projects, including When optimizing its code performance, be able to use such a system to directly a 60-second commercial spot for the Nissan Juke. Mikros Intel VTune Amplifier XE eliminated the control specific characters’ movements created a CG stadium and used Golaem Crowd to fill it with need for Golaem to include profiling in a crowd simulation, which will help 5,000 to 12,000 virtual extras, depending on the shot. A code in each function or to guess which artists and producers pre-visualize a tight production schedule added to the pressure, but in functions to optimize. In addition, Rouillé desired shot.” Rouillé continued, “Being about 10 days the team was able to get up and running with said, “The tool is fast enough for us to a plug-in to Maya gives us access to Golaem Crowd, set up the shots, and prep all of the assets, use on a daily basis without relying on our the user experience and improvements including clothes, shaders, and motion. own performance-analysis layer.” Autodesk develops. Nevertheless, our Visual effects (VFX) producer Christophe Huchet and own user experience could be improved VFX artist Guillaume Parra said, “Golaem Crowd enabled us by allowing artists to draw navigation to handle the animation cycles very easily. We were also able Future Gazing: flows or character placement using finger to introduce variety in the way each character decided to Mobile and Beyond gestures on a touch screen.” move. The Asset Manager tool made choosing the type and Where’s all of this headed? Rouillé is color of the characters’ clothes very simple. For character Rouillé recognized that 3D artists want looking forward to giving his customers placement, a particle system localized each seat in the to take advantage of the latest mobile the ability to simulate hundreds of stadium, so all we had to do was map character instances computing platforms to create whenever thousands of virtual characters in real onto the particles.” and wherever creativity strikes them. time, complete with enhanced realism “In the near future,” he said, “we must that accurately reflects the complexities be able to compute crowd simulations of human behaviors. “We’re a long way remotely and send back the results to our from being able to deliver characters that customers, either as a software service that can portray simulated emotions, fatigue, we host or as a service they run remotely.” memory, and perception,” Rouillé said, Mobile computing devices already “but we’ll get there by harnessing the play a role in Golaem’s development power of innovations such as Intel® previous page workflow. “We have a small development Many Integrated Core architecture and Populating the Fortress team and our customers are spread the cloud.” Assault demonstration across the globe, so at any given time Today, Intel® hardware and software using Golaem Crowd* 2.0. one-third of our engineers are abroad. are driving innovation at Golaem, We can access our planning and lists of enabling them to achieve higher playback to-dos, bugs, and tasks from any location, frame rates for pre-viz and faster render even using a smartphone. We record times on workstations or in the cloud—all and keep track of most information in of which gives VFX and animation studios the cloud, so our developers can readily the ability to save both time and money access their code and our servers at any while delivering impressive results. time,” Rouillé said. “The next step will be to significantly improve the remote code- For more information on Golaem Crowd, compilation time.” go to: www.golaem.com/crowd

Intel® Software Adrenaline 4 INtel® Software Adrenaline Resources

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4 Amplifying Inspiration: Intel 26 Intel Science and Technology Superstars on the Road with the Centers for Visual Computing: Ultrabook™ Device Researchers Pursue Four Learn more about OurStage.com for artists at: Cutting-edge Themes http://artists.ourstage.com/Overview See the Foldit* puzzle at: Go to the fan page at: http://fold.it/portal/ http://fans.ourstage.com/Overview Learn more about the ISTC-VC program at: Enter the competition or vote for the next Intel Video http://visual.stanford.edu/ Superstar at: www.ourstage.com/go/superstars and http://www.intel-vci.uni-saarland.de/ Check out Justin Lassen’s sound design for iZotop Iris*: http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/iris/index.asp?hs12 Read Rost’s blog post, “Ray Tracing, For more on Cakewalk SONAR* X1 see: RenderMan, Radiosity, Antialiasing and www.cakewalk.com Much Much More” at: http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2012/04/06/ The Graphics Systems project site is: http://visual.stanford.edu/research-themes/ 8 Madagascar 3: Animators Get #graphics_systems Ever Closer to the Promised Land The Content Creation project site is: http://visual.stanford.edu/research-themes/ Check out the Madagascar 3 movie site at: #content_creation www.madagascarmovie.com The Scalable Real-Time Simulation project site is: Find out what’s coming next from DreamWorks http://visual.stanford.edu/research-themes/ Animation at: www.dreamworksanimation.com #scalable_simulation The Perceiving People and Places project site is: http://visual.stanford.edu/research-themes/ 14 Visions of Cars and Clouds: Unleashing #perceiving_people the Power of the Connected Car Learn more about the Human Connectome Project at: www.humanconnectomeproject.org Read “Intel Invests in Product Development and Research to Spur Innovation in the Connected Car” at: http://newsroom.intel.com/community/ intel_newsroom/blog/2012/02/29/intel-capital-to-invest- in-future-of-automotive-technology 38 Intel’s Growing Sensory To see the Nissan Unveils Major Advances in Perception: Touch, Voice, GPS, Connected Car Technology video, go to: http:// and Motion Detection Expand nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/releases/05173b9a- Ultrabook™ Device Capabilities 4d51-4eee-98d6-f2b497210937 For more information about PointGrab, check out: www.pointgrab.com Learn about Unlimited Realities at: 20 Making the Cloud Work for You: www.unlimitedrealities.com Preparing for 15 Billion Connected Devices Check out what’s new at Nuance: www.nuance.com Get the latest on cloud computing at: www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/cloud-computing/intel- Read “Do People Want Touch on s-cloud-computing-.html?wapkw=cloud+computing Laptop Screens?” at: Check out the Open Data Center Alliance at: http://freepress.intel.com/community/news/ www.opendatacenteralliance.org/ blog/2012/03/22/do-people-want-touch-on-laptop-screens For more information on the Distributed Management Task Force go to: http://dmtf.org/

72 Intel® Software Adrenaline 42 Microsoft Windows* 8: The Next 60 Security in the Mobile World: Phase of Human-Machine Interaction Hardware and Software Advances For details on Windows 8, go to: Take a Bite Out of Threats http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ Get more information on identity protection, windows-8.aspx anti-theft, and encryption at: www.intelligenceinsoftware.com/feature/ it_software_strategy/double_protection/ index.html#axzz1pnTcBYgp 46 Faces and Interfaces: Transparent Learn about the McAfee strategy at: Connections Enrich Creativity www.intelligenceinsoftware.com/feature/it_software_ strategy/rootkits/index.html#axzz1pnTcBYgp Read “Intel Conducts Study to See If You Want Read “Security Issues for Multicore Processors” at: Touchscreen Laptops” at: www.tomshardware. www.intelligenceinsoftware.com/feature/sw_dev_tools_ co.uk/Touchscreen-Intel-Ultrabook-tablet-windows- and_tips/multicore_security/index.html#ixzz1p2fDikMy 8,news-38220.html#xtor=RSS-141

64 Virtual Population Growth: 50 Avid Pro Tools* Goes Native: Driving Innovation Taking Digital Audio to the Next Level in Crowd Simulation For details on Avid Pro Tools software, check out: For more information on Golaem Crowd*, go to: www.avid.com/US/products/Pro-Tools-Software/ www.golaem.com/crowd Get more information on Intel® Integrated Learn more about Intel® Threading Building Blocks, Performance Primitives at: http://software.intel.com/ Intel® Parallel Studio XE, and other software en-us/articles/intel-ipp/ developer tools for optimizing multi-threading performance at: Learn about the Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE at: http://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-sdp-home/ http://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-vtune/ Get the latest on Intel® Many Integrated Core architecture at: www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ 54 What’s New? Apps for the architecture-and-technology/many-integrated-core/ intel-many-integrated-core-architecture.html Ultrabook™ Device For more information on Mikros Image go to: For more on the Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ www.mikrosimage.eu devices, see: www.intel.com/Ultrabook Join the Intel AppUp® center at: appup.com 68 LANFest: Old-school Social Networking with a Bang 56 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ Check out the Intel LANFest home page here: Processor Family: A Look Inside http://lanfest.intel.com/ Find more details on the 3rd gen Intel Core Go to the Facebook* page at: processor at: www.intel.com/content/www/in/en/ www.Facebook.com/joinLANFest processors/core/intelligent-systems-core-processors.html See what’s new at Modders, Inc: Get information about the Intel® Media SDK at: www.modders-inc.com www.intel.com/software/mediasdk To learn more about the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers, see: www.intel.com/software/gpa

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