Thanks to Darrin Hofmeyr, for sending in these screenshots from the SOFTIMAGE|Behavior section of the Production Series DVD:
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First released back in November 2002 , Softimage|Behavior was a behavioral animation system for creating characters and choreographing 3D animated crowds that can respond to objects, other characters or changes in their environment. From the press release:
Softimage|Behavior lets an animator control individual characters in a simulation through a combination of graphical editing, scripting and debugging tools in addition to a library of pre-defined behaviors. Individual characters can be set to respond and interact in multiple ways to their environment and with other characters. The system’s integrated character engine features real-time IK, animation blending and warping, dynamic path planning, and automatic obstacle avoidance, which supports event-driven responses for characters in the simulation.
Softimage|Behavior is priced at $14,995
SOFTIMAGE|BEHAVIOR was used on the history-based mini-series Napoleon for the A&E Channel, and in James Wong’s feature film The One.
It was also used by Buzzimage for a Dollar Bank commercial. Here’s a collage of a few AVIs about this commercial that I found lying around:
And there was a press release on xsibase too:
SOFTIMAGE HELPS MAKE MILLIONS FOR DOLLAR BANK
–Buzz Image relies on SOFTIMAGE|BEHAVIOR to populate the streets of Pittsburgh in the newest Dollar Bank commercial —
And finally, courtesy of the WaybackMachine, here’s the case study that was posted on softimage.com back in 2003:
I used behavior a few years ago on “John Adams”, “The Battle of Red Cliff”, and “The Mist”. Even now it’s still a good solution for some jobs. Though I’m not sure if the behavior toolbar still works in 2012.
Oh man this is classic, I remember driving to Vancouver BC from Seattle to see Eric Goulet
the first version of behavior I think is was some run horses, club bots.
Softimge Behavior blast from the past, Thank you Softimage, Thank you Yotto Koga.
Thanks for the posting friday-flashback, Stephen
Was there a reason Behaviour was a standalone package? It just seems like it could have been some kind of superplugin/addon and been more convenient.
I wasn’t at Softimage back then, but I would guess that since Behavior was already a standalone app (Motivate from Motion Factory), the quickest way to get it integrated was to use dotXSI and .mi.
Interview with Yotto Koga: http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=65