MiarmyManualForV2 0

Miarmy 2.
0 Manual
2 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Miarmy Manual
Version 2.0
Basefount Software
BASEFOUNT TECHNOLOGY (HONG KONG) LIMITED 3 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Table of Contents
Brief ......................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Structure .................................................................................................................................................................. 14 Part 1 Main Concept ................................................................................................................................................ 15 Miarmy Human Logic Engine Concept ................................................................................................................ 15 Decision Node...................................................................................................................................................... 16 Defuzz Process ..................................................................................................................................................... 16 Solving Decisions Active .................................................................................................................................. 17 Make Priority for Decision Nodes .................................................................................................................... 17 Agent Brain Instantiate........................................................................................................................................ 18 Assets Management ............................................................................................................................................ 19 Miarmy Contents ............................................................................................................................................. 19 Agent Groups ................................................................................................................................................... 19 Perception_Set Group ..................................................................................................................................... 22 Placement_Set Group...................................................................................................................................... 22 Naming Conventions ........................................................................................................................................... 22 Animation Rig .................................................................................................................................................. 22 Original Agent, Action, Action Shell, State and Decision ................................................................................. 22 Bounding Box and Action Proxy ...................................................................................................................... 23 Geometry ......................................................................................................................................................... 23 General Pipeline .................................................................................................................................................. 23 Plan .................................................................................................................................................................. 23 Prepare ............................................................................................................................................................ 24 Create Agent Infrastructure ............................................................................................................................ 24 For Logic and behavior .................................................................................................................................... 26 Rendering and output ..................................................................................................................................... 26 Solver ................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Solver Contents ............................................................................................................................................... 27 Simulation Pipeline .......................................................................................................................................... 27 Reset, Update, Pause and Break Mechanism .................................................................................................. 28 Non-Connection Sequential Node Communication ........................................................................................ 28 Part 2: Menu Items .................................................................................................................................................. 30 4 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Menus .................................................................................................................................................................. 30 New Icons GUIs and ......................................................................................................................................... 57 Part 3: Agent Infrastructure .................................................................................................................................... 61 Rig ........................................................................................................................................................................ 61 Bone structure ................................................................................................................................................. 62 About binding .................................................................................................................................................. 64 Original Agent ...................................................................................................................................................... 64 What is Original Agent? And why we need it? ................................................................................................ 64 Creating Original Agent ................................................................................................................................... 65 Agent Group Node and Agent Type ................................................................................................................ 65 Render Geometry Binding ............................................................................................................................... 67 Render Geometry Management ..................................................................................................................... 67 Render Geometry Shader ................................................................................................................................ 68 Bone Shape for Display & Physical Simulation ................................................................................................ 68 Bone Attribute & Flags .................................................................................................................................... 69 Physical Joint Type ........................................................................................................................................... 70 Physical Joint Direction .................................................................................................................................... 71 Physical Joint Limits ......................................................................................................................................... 71 Referencing & Namespace Pipeline ................................................................................................................ 74 Select-able root bone for creating original agent ........................................................................................... 78 Placement ............................................................................................................................................................ 80 Point & Formation Placement ......................................................................................................................... 80 For formation placement: ............................................................................................................................ 84 Randomize Row/Column for curve and formation placement ....................................................................... 85 Populate Agents from Pace Node ................................................................................................................... 88 Curve placement.............................................................................................................................................. 88 Terrain Attachment + Point placement ........................................................................................................... 88 Polygon Based placement ............................................................................................................................... 89 Selection Placement (only place agents from selection) ................................................................................ 90 Proportion in Place Node ................................................................................................................................ 91 Hierarchical placement.................................................................................................................................... 92 Solver Space..................................................................................................................................................... 93 5 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Inverse Placement ........................................................................................................................................... 93 Place Node Data Structure .............................................................................................................................. 95 Visualize placement ......................................................................................................................................... 97 Skip flag can used to bypass individual instance ............................................................................................. 98 Animation and Action .......................................................................................................................................... 99 Animation to Action Pipeline Suggestion ...................................................................................................... 100 Create Action Node ....................................................................................................................................... 100 Transition Map Building .................................................................................................................................... 103 Concept.......................................................................................................................................................... 103 Main Features of Transition Map .................................................................................................................. 105 How to Build Transition Map ......................................................................................................................... 107 Easy control transition Map Move Tool ........................................................................................................ 111 Decision ............................................................................................................................................................. 112 Create Decision node .................................................................................................................................... 112 Agent ................................................................................................................................................................. 112 Agent attributes............................................................................................................................................. 113 Agent Mode ................................................................................................................................................... 115 Agent Memory Data ...................................................................................................................................... 116 Part 4 Logic in-depth ............................................................................................................................................. 117 Fuzzy Logic ......................................................................................................................................................... 117 Pipeline .............................................................................................................................................................. 118 Terminology ................................................................................................................................................... 118 General Pipeline ............................................................................................................................................ 119 Engine Process Breakdown............................................................................................................................ 119 Implementation ................................................................................................................................................. 122 Step 1: Get Channel Results .......................................................................................................................... 122 Step 2: Fuzzy Logic for a Single Sentence Calculation ................................................................................... 122 Step 3: Fuzzy Logic between Sentences Calculation ..................................................................................... 125 Step 4: Fuzzy Logic for Priority Ranking and Interfere to Node Active ......................................................... 126 Step 5 & 6: Output Mechanism - Node Active, Default Decision and Normal Decision ............................... 128 Part 5 Logic & Simulation ...................................................................................................................................... 131 Logic Presets ...................................................................................................................................................... 131 6 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Channel Presets ............................................................................................................................................. 131 Decision Presets............................................................................................................................................. 132 Interactive with Agent ....................................................................................................................................... 132 Sound ............................................................................................................................................................. 132 Vision ............................................................................................................................................................. 136 Agent Exclusion Feature ................................................................................................................................ 139 Dynamically Decrease Intelligence Mechanism (DDIM 1.0).......................................................................... 140 Collision Detection......................................................................................................................................... 140 Interactive with Environment............................................................................................................................ 141 Ground ........................................................................................................................................................... 141 Bound ............................................................................................................................................................ 143 Indexing Technique ....................................................................................................................................... 144 Zone ............................................................................................................................................................... 145 Repel/Forbidden Zone ................................................................................................................................... 149 Spot................................................................................................................................................................ 150 Road ............................................................................................................................................................... 152 Maya Field ..................................................................................................................................................... 161 Composition of Forces ................................................................................................................................... 162 Maya Fluid ..................................................................................................................................................... 163 Formation Control ......................................................................................................................................... 163 HP & MP ........................................................................................................................................................ 168 Lean ............................................................................................................................................................... 170 Parent channel, transform space .................................................................................................................. 171 Some Transform Channels............................................................................................................................. 173 Scene Info ...................................................................................................................................................... 173 Randomize ..................................................................................................................................................... 174 Sine Channels................................................................................................................................................. 175 Timer Channels .............................................................................................................................................. 176 Agent Bone & terrain Channels ..................................................................................................................... 178 IK Offset Channels ......................................................................................................................................... 178 MEL/Python source in Logic Channels........................................................................................................... 179 Simulation Space ............................................................................................................................................... 180 7 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual World Transformation for physical simulation ............................................................................................. 180 Local Transformation for non-physical simulation ........................................................................................ 180 Solver Space Node ......................................................................................................................................... 181 Output Behavior Channels ................................................................................................................................ 182 Transform Speed ........................................................................................................................................... 182 Bone Offset .................................................................................................................................................... 182 Sound ............................................................................................................................................................. 183 Vision ............................................................................................................................................................. 183 Aim Constrain ................................................................................................................................................ 183 Arbitrary Aim Axis and Up Vector.................................................................................................................. 188 Action............................................................................................................................................................. 189 Ragdoll ........................................................................................................................................................... 189 Traffic System ................................................................................................................................................ 190 Watch Logic Results ........................................................................................................................................... 195 Brain Viewer .................................................................................................................................................. 195 Feedback in Essential..................................................................................................................................... 197 Simulation Extra Tools ....................................................................................................................................... 197 Feet Map Generator ...................................................................................................................................... 197 Visualization ...................................................................................................................................................... 201 Visualize HP, MP Data.................................................................................................................................... 201 Visualize Action Transition ............................................................................................................................ 203 Visualize Agent ID .......................................................................................................................................... 203 Bounding box display Mode and Inverse Placement .................................................................................... 203 Part 6 Action .......................................................................................................................................................... 205 Action Infrastructure ......................................................................................................................................... 205 Action Node Data .......................................................................................................................................... 205 Action Node Attributes for Playback and Transition ..................................................................................... 206 Action Features.................................................................................................................................................. 211 Action Trigger ................................................................................................................................................ 211 Action Group Trigger ..................................................................................................................................... 211 Action Blending.............................................................................................................................................. 212 Action Playback Rate ..................................................................................................................................... 213 8 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Action Channel for Input ............................................................................................................................... 214 Randomize Entry Points................................................................................................................................. 214 Subjective Objective Action Synchronization ................................................................................................ 215 Hook up Custom Attributes ........................................................................................................................... 218 Single Character Cache .................................................................................................................................. 221 Skip Animation Calculation for Some Bones ................................................................................................. 224 Action Drive Agent............................................................................................................................................. 225 Pipeline .......................................................................................................................................................... 225 Getting the Target Action .............................................................................................................................. 225 Parsing out the Next Action........................................................................................................................... 226 Action Transition ........................................................................................................................................... 228 Action Transition Visualization .......................................................................................................................... 228 Action Proxy List ................................................................................................................................................ 230 Story List (Logic Drivable Action Proxy List) ...................................................................................................... 231 IK System ........................................................................................................................................................... 233 Part 7 Physics ......................................................................................................................................................... 238 Enable Dynamics................................................................................................................................................ 238 Dynamics Types ............................................................................................................................................. 238 Dynamics Channels ........................................................................................................................................ 240 Pre-build RBD Objects and Visual Clue .............................................................................................................. 241 Fully Pre-build RBD Objects for Dynamical.................................................................................................... 243 Collision Detection............................................................................................................................................. 244 Mark Collide................................................................................................................................................... 244 Pre-build RBD Objects for Collision Detection .............................................................................................. 244 Collide Check Channels .................................................................................................................................. 245 Optimization .................................................................................................................................................. 249 Dynamics Features ............................................................................................................................................ 249 Physics Global ................................................................................................................................................ 249 Step Time and Sub Step ................................................................................................................................. 250 Disable sub-tree simulation (skip finger and toes etc) ............................................................................... 251 Gravity VS Mass ............................................................................................................................................. 252 Joint Move Inertia.......................................................................................................................................... 253 9 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Terrains and Default Terrain ......................................................................................................................... 254 Maya Field ..................................................................................................................................................... 257 Force Field General Rules .............................................................................................................................. 258 Maya Fluid ..................................................................................................................................................... 259 Build-in Force Field ........................................................................................................................................ 259 Combo ........................................................................................................................................................... 261 Kinematic Primitives ...................................................................................................................................... 262 Cloth simulation............................................................................................................................................. 263 More realistic Cloth Simulation and Cloth Collision ...................................................................................... 268 Mute Dynamics .............................................................................................................................................. 269 Rigid Body Dynamics Emitter ........................................................................................................................ 269 Rigid Body Contact and Leave to Agent ........................................................................................................ 273 Render RBD Emitter....................................................................................................................................... 276 Agent Bone Particle Emitter (Action Phase based) ....................................................................................... 277 Part 8 Render ......................................................................................................................................................... 280 Agent Cache....................................................................................................................................................... 280 Creating Agent Cache .................................................................................................................................... 280 Agent Cache for Bone Rotate Only ................................................................................................................ 281 Agent Cache with translate ........................................................................................................................... 282 Agent Cache with cloth.................................................................................................................................. 282 Agent Cache Format ...................................................................................................................................... 282 Command Line Caching ................................................................................................................................. 282 Render Solutions ............................................................................................................................................... 283 Render by Miarmy Mesh Drive.......................................................................................................................... 284 Concept.......................................................................................................................................................... 284 Features: ........................................................................................................................................................ 284 Optimizing Mesh Drive before Implementation ........................................................................................... 285 Generate (Duplicate) Mesh ........................................................................................................................... 285 Pairing ............................................................................................................................................................ 287 Enable Mesh Drive......................................................................................................................................... 288 Render by Renderman....................................................................................................................................... 288 3Delight Configuration .................................................................................................................................. 288 10 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Manually Setup Renderer (Windows) ........................................................................................................... 289 Pipeline .......................................................................................................................................................... 289 How to Render............................................................................................................................................... 290 Render Agents ............................................................................................................................................... 290 Random Geometries Rule.............................................................................................................................. 291 Texture Naming Convention and Random Textures ..................................................................................... 293 Render Global ................................................................................................................................................ 295 Texture generate and path accessible........................................................................................................... 295 Multi cam render ........................................................................................................................................... 296 Preset shaders ............................................................................................................................................... 296 Self-defined Renderman Shader ................................................................................................................... 302 Prman Rib Export, support .slo for custom Shader ....................................................................................... 304 Light Usage & Shadow ................................................................................................................................... 305 Motion Blur.................................................................................................................................................... 308 Renderman Procedural Primitives................................................................................................................. 310 Renderman Extra Rib Attribute (internal or custom) .................................................................................... 313 Hierarchical Subdivision Mesh ...................................................................................................................... 315 Command Line (Batch) Exporting RIBs .......................................................................................................... 316 Misc New Layers: ........................................................................................................................................... 316 Split render .................................................................................................................................................... 318 Procedural Primitives .................................................................................................................................... 320 Subdivision Mesh........................................................................................................................................... 323 Matte ............................................................................................................................................................. 324 Fetch Agent Render Information from Miarmy to Your Own Pipeline ......................................................... 324 Render by Mesh Drive ....................................................................................................................................... 326 The Old Mesh Drive 2.0 (Obsoleted) ............................................................................................................. 326 The History of Mesh Drive ............................................................................................................................. 326 NEW: Mesh Drive 3.0..................................................................................................................................... 326 Render By Arnold............................................................................................................................................... 333 General Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 333 Arnold Procedural Primitive .......................................................................................................................... 333 The tools ........................................................................................................................................................ 339 11 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual The Pipeline ................................................................................................................................................... 339 Render By Mental Ray ....................................................................................................................................... 341 General Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 341 The tools ........................................................................................................................................................ 341 Render Pipeline and Assets Organization: .................................................................................................... 342 Render By V-Ray ................................................................................................................................................ 346 V-Ray archive Support ................................................................................................................................... 346 Preparation .................................................................................................................................................... 346 Pipeline & Assets ........................................................................................................................................... 347 Under the hood ............................................................................................................................................. 347 Replace Shader .............................................................................................................................................. 349 Alembic Cache (Geometry Cache) ..................................................................................................................... 350 Alembic Cache Export .................................................................................................................................... 350 Export FBX ......................................................................................................................................................... 351 Bake Bone + Geometry ...................................................................................................................................... 352 Bake to Bone Animation ................................................................................................................................ 352 Directly Get Simulation Data Using MEL/Python .......................................................................................... 352 Part 9 Optimization ............................................................................................................................................... 354 Low Efficiency Channels Optimization .............................................................................................................. 354 Vision ............................................................................................................................................................. 354 Collide Family Channel & Pre-build RBD Object ............................................................................................ 357 Collide Any Channel ....................................................................................................................................... 358 Bounding Box Display ........................................................................................................................................ 358 Solver Space....................................................................................................................................................... 359 Easy Transition................................................................................................................................................... 359 Optimizing Crowd Dynamics ............................................................................................................................. 359 Using Spot or Zone Trigger Dynamic ............................................................................................................. 359 Mute Dynamics .............................................................................................................................................. 360 Aggregate Optimization................................................................................................................................. 361 Part 10 Expanding Guide ....................................................................................................................................... 363 Scripts ................................................................................................................................................................ 363 Build your own logic Preset ........................................................................................................................... 363 12 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Build your own channel Preset ...................................................................................................................... 363 Build your own automatic original agent setup pipeline .............................................................................. 363 Build your own automatic action creation pipeline ...................................................................................... 363 Particle Express for Hybrid Dynamics Effects ................................................................................................ 363 Command Line Tasks ..................................................................................................................................... 363 Command Line (Batch) for Developer ........................................................................................................... 363 API...................................................................................................................................................................... 365 Write your own Field Node ........................................................................................................................... 365 Render Fur ..................................................................................................................................................... 365 Use Miarmy Engine Drive Maya Character ................................................................................................... 365 Miarmy Reference ................................................................................................................................................. 365 Callback Functions ............................................................................................................................................. 365 After Load Miarmy......................................................................................................................................... 365 Before Save .................................................................................................................................................... 365 After Save ...................................................................................................................................................... 365 Selection Change ........................................................................................................................................... 366 Before Duplicate ............................................................................................................................................ 366 Reserved MEL Command .................................................................................................................................. 366 Cloth .................................................................................................................................................................. 366 Channel Reference List ...................................................................................................................................... 367
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Brief
Thank you for reading this. This document listed and explained every detail of Miarmy. Before you reading this, please make sure you already know some basic of Miarmy. This document explained many things in technical under the hood and not a step by step tutorial. If you like to know or learn Miarmy from start, please refer the PDF Miarmy Example tutorials and Miarmy Online video tutorials www.youtube.com/basefount.
Structure
We organize this document like this: Part 1 Main concept: This part explained the logic engine concept of Miarmy, the Miarmy infrastructure contents and general workflow and pipeline for making project Part 2 Menu Item: This part detailed listed all the menu item of Miarmy 14 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Part 3 Agent Infrastructure: This part listed and explained the agent contents we need create and how to make them work. Part 4 Logic in-depth: This part explained the logic workflow and pipeline in-depth and listed all the logic algorithms of Miarmy Human Logic Engine. Part 5 Logic & Simulation: This part explained all the perception contents under the hood workflow and algorithm, such like road, zone, etc. Part 6 Action: This part explained the action node, action transition mechanism and drive action in logic. Part 7 Physical Simulation: This part explained the physical collision detection and dynamic simulation and some more stuff under the hood. Part 8 Rendering: This part explained the Miarmy caching mechanism and rendering workflow Part 9 Optimizing: This part explained in-depth how you can optimize your scene. Part 10 Expanding: This part explained using Script and C++ API for expanding Miarmy. (coming soon)
Part 1 Main Concept

In Miarmy, we get rid of any node connections and programming, balanced the simplicity and diversity, and dedicated designed a fuzzy logical based human logic engine for imitating how people thinking. And you can easily construct complex logic just by several nodes.
Miarmy Human Logic Engine Concept

Basically, people think things just like this, If there is something happening, decide to do something. For instance, there are some obstacles in front of me, I decide to turn away and go around them. People always make some decisions based on what is happening. More specific, each decision contains something happening and the next things want to do. In Miarmy, we call them conditions (sentences input) and decisions (decisions output). People always make some decisions based on the conditions. 15 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual There may be many things happening together, so, we maybe have many decisions. From these decisions we need figure out which is the correct next things to do. The process from decisions to behaviors is called defuzz in Miarmy engine and this process is total automatic. Additionally, in the process of defuzz, there may be several decisions conflicted. So, people will naturally make priority for them. For example, someone in my left and near, I want to go right, but there is a cliff on my right, without saying, I have to go to left for avoiding the fall. In this situation, go left and go right are conflicted decisions, we need make a priority for them. Avoid cliff take higher priority than avoid each other. People always make priority based on natural principles, and finally decide what to do next. Generally, Miarmy Engine was built for trying to simulate the above brain process in human brain, conditions, decisions, priority ranking and behaviors. In Miarmy, We use decision node to imitate the the conditions and decisions, We use parenting hierarchy to rank priority for multiple decision nodes. We make the defuzz (from decisions to behaviors) process totally automatic.
Decision Node
Decision nodes are the basic units for simulating the Human Logic. In each one of decision node, there are Several conditions tests Some decisions to make.
We usually call these conditions as sentences and call the decision results as outputs. Miarmy engine will test the sentences true or false with fuzzy logic, and then figure out whether and how much decides the outputs.
Decision Node Pipeline
Defuzz Process
Defuzz is the process based on your decisions figure out the behaviors, and this process is totally automatic. In this process we need each decisions active and decisions priority. After that, we can assign the behavior to the digital actor.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Solving Decisions Active The decision active is the condition test result of decision node. For example, if someone in my left and near, I need go right and slow down. Input Sentences: 1. Someone in my left 2. Someone is near Output Decisions: 1. Decide go right 2. Decide slow down a bit
In this example, the decision active of this decision nodes is the condition test result of these input sentences. We use the fuzzy logic to test conditions, and the result value will be a float value from 0 to 1. We will talk about the sentences test later in detail. See Part 4 Logic in-depth
Blue bound for conditions and yellow bound for decisions
Make Priority for Decision Nodes For achieving the priority for decisions, we just need simply re-arrange the hierarchy of decision nodes.
Decision node priority ranking pipeline
In the following real example, character need to avoid each other, get around a zone and follow the road direction. We need make the following priority ranking: 1. First priority: avoid each other 2. Second Priority: get around a zone 17 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual 3. Third Priority: follow road Just re-arrange the hierarchy of these nodes we can achieve this:
Priority ranking by hierarchy
You can also group a bunch of decision nodes together and make this bunch of decision nodes totally lower priority than the other bunch of nodes. All of decision making process and priority ranking process are driven by Fuzzy Logic engine. We will explain the in-depth algorithm and implementation in Part 4: Logic in-depth
Agent Brain Instantiate

You may ask, a group of agent, all of them have the same brain, are their behaviors also the same?? No. The behavior is depending on the decisions, and the decisions are depending on not only the brain, but the environment. Different agents are facing different environments. Therefore, they will have different decisions and behaviors Just like the picture below.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
The same brain in different condition, brings out different behaviors
Assets Management
Miarmy Contents Miarmy_Contens Group is the main group contains all of Miarmy infrastructure. They are agent groups, Perception_Set group and Placement_Set group
Miarmy Contents, General Group
Agent Groups Usually there may not be only one kind of agent in scene. We group their contents in different groups and this kind of group is McdAgentGroup node, we dedicated designed the McdAgentGroup rather than using group node (Maya transform node), because we want them can be searched by engine easily. Technically, McdAgentGroup node is the same as transform node. In addition, there are many extra attributes on this node. And we call them Agent Type Attributes
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Extra attributes on McdAgentGroup node
And for each type of agent, there are several kinds of contents in different groups. The contents in each agent group node, only belongs to their specific agent type. They are shown in following image, and we will introduce them in details.
Agent Group Structure
Setup_<agentName> under Agent Group Node This group contains the user defined character rig. And this rig is usually should be referenced into Maya scene for keeping you scene clean, because this rig will not be useful when all agent infrastructure created. We just need reference its bone structure for easily deleting after everything is done.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
A rig been referenced to scene under Setup Group
Original_<agentName> Group under Agent Group Node This group contains a bone structure with exact the same as the character rig. Original agent is the template of agent and contains many necessary attributes which character rig doesnt have. When we place the agent out, we also need the original agent to provide some extra information, such like the render, cloth, matching information. We will continually provide more information throughout this entire document. Action_<agentName> under Agent Group Node This group contains all the action nodes, the action nodes are generated from animated Character Rig and responsible for drive the agent to the target poses. For more details about the action nodes, please check out the action chapter. ActionProxy_<agentName> under Agent Group Node This group will contain an only one node if you create action proxy. The action proxy is a fairly simple node only contains a list of action names. If you already create some actions for this type of agent, you can fill some existed action names into action proxy list and our engine will take place the logic procedure and perform the actions inside this list cyclically, one by one. For more details about action proxy node, please check out the action Proxy chapter TransitionMap_<agentName> under Agent Group Node This group contains the action shell and state nodes. They are the element nodes of the Transition Map. For more detail about the action transition, please check out the Transition Action and Transition Map Viewer chapter. Decision_<agentName> under Agent Group Node This group contains all of the logical decision for this type of agent. With these nodes, we define the agents brain and behaviors
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Geometry _<agentName>under Agent Group Node This group contains all the geometries of this agent type need to be rendered. Just using the simple structure arrangement you can achieve the random geometries. For details, please check out the random geometry in render chapter. Perception_Set Group All of the perception contents node will be located in this group after them firstly been created, there are lot of types of perception content, such as road, bound, zone, field, etc. For more detail, please check out the Perception Contents chapter Placement_Set Group All of the place nodes will be located in this group after them firstly been created. Place node is a previsualization of the agents would to be placed. This node will provide a visible position and rotation for the agents to be populated and let the users setup their transformation and proportion. For more details, please check out the Placement chapter
Naming Conventions
Note: This naming convention is only available in current version. In future, the naming might be more arbitrary. Animation Rig Rig joints and controls can be any naming including namespace Original Agent, Action, Action Shell, State and Decision <Name>_<Node Type>_<Agent Type Name> Example:
The agent type name is casual
Original Agent Joint: torso1_ogb_casual Action Example: standToRun_action_casual Decision Example: default_decision_casual State Example: walk_state_casual Action Shell Example: jog_actionShell_casual
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Bounding Box and Action Proxy There is unique bounding box in each type of agent, and also Action Proxy node <Node Type>_<Agent Type Name> Example: Original Agent Bound Box Example: BoundingBox_casual Action Proxy Example: actionProxy_casual Geometry Geometry cannot contain namespace comma :, except, it can be any name
General Pipeline
In this chapter we will introduce the general pipeline of all Miarmy throughout. But this is just a general introduction, if you want to know the details, please refer the specific part and chapter.
Plan Crowd simulation sometimes is a little bit complex that you have to consider the entire pipeline throughout from modeling to final rendering. We need plan it carefully before we start it. Here we listed some important stuffs you need plan them in details before starting. Models complexity for rendering speed If you have many complex models for each agent, it is going to be difficult for rendering. So please plan the complexity of your models based on the shot and agent number. How to do the animation and Action You need consider which action you need the agent have, so you need prepare them before started, you can use any type of animation keyframe, preset packages or motion capture are ok. Logic complexity We need carefully plan which the behaviors we want to the agents perform and which the logic can achieve these. Then we can plan which decision the agents need make. And which the perception we have to create. If the scene is too large, you need consider using the Decrease Intelligence Mechanism or making some agents with very low-intelligence for filling the scene. Agent types You need consider how many types of agent you need, such as solider and enemy. Each one has a color and some specific attribute such like sound range, vision range, density etc.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Whether we need perform crowd dynamics If you want to let your agent been enable ragdoll dynamics, you need plan them from start. When agents perform dynamics, each of the character bone will be transformed to RBD, so each bone should have length. Mute some agents are never going to be enabled dynamics for saving huge time. Plan the collide body etc. Which renderer you need to use For current version, if you want to render you scene by Renderman, you need install 3delight. If you want to render you scene with Mesh Drive and arbitrary type of renderer, you need first consider the complexity of your character model because mesh drive need duplicate all the geometries out and drive them. See Mesh Drive Prepare Rig In this step we usually reference rig to scene, or if you want, you can build your own one. The rig has to obey some limits, please check out the rig chapter Animation We create action node for agent from animated character rig with same structure, so you need prepare these animated character before starting.
Create Agent Infrastructure Original Agent Create and Check In this step we need build original agent from character rig. If everything of rig in all right, the original agent will be the exact same bone structure as character rig, without all of the controls like the IK solver and constrains. The original agent is the blueprint template of agent. For more about the original agent, please check out the original agent chapter Original Agent Refine Then we need fine-tune the original agent in many aspects. Setup bone attribute, setup agent attribute, adjust the bounding box, set flags, etc. Physical Setup If you want to your agent can be enable dynamical ragdoll or be influenced by the force field, you need setup the physical bones and joint correctly and carefully. Also you need setup the collision detection flags (see Original Agent and physics simulation part)
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
The original agent, left: physical joints, right: original agent bounding box
Simple Render Test You need skinning all of the geometries to original agent so that our engine can render it. In this step, we usually create a very simple placement node and place the agent out and render some agents.
A simple setup and placement
Test render by mental ray and 3delight
Miarmy 2.0 Manual For Logic and behavior Create Perception & Logic In this step we need create the planed logic for the agent, and make perception contents like road, zone into your scene. Test simulation, fine-tuning, and optimizing In this step we need place part of the agents out and check is that everything running ok. Please notice, we are not recommended you place full number of agents for now. Small group of agents are easier for debugging and designing the logic of them. Usually you need find-tune the data in logic node for achieving better results. Also, you can continually add perception contents and logic in any time even in simulation playing back. Optimization You can optimize your scene in many aspects. You can decrease the intelligence of many agents in realtime, mute some agents dynamic etc. See dedicated Part 9, Optimization
Generate Crowd and Preview After you satisfying your setup, you can place all of your agents out and check out the entire scene in your shot
Rendering and output Caching After caching, you can achieve interactive playback for your large scene. You can easily watch your finally results. Also, the deformation motion blur can be rendered out only after caching. Get rid of error agents If some of agents are not correct, we recommend you get rid of them out of the shot. But you cannot delete the agent directly because this agent will appear again after next placing. What you need to do is using a Maya expression to put these agents out of the screen. Just like McdAgent1.ty = 100000; Render it! If you satisfy your scene, you can render it by 3delight directly or duplicate these geometries out and render them by any other renderer. You also can make geometry cache or Alembic cache for exporting to others package for VFX and rendering.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Solver
Solver Contents When you click the Miarmy > Miarmy Ready, the solver contents have been created, they are McdBrain, McdBrainPost and McdGlobal, without these nodes, you simulation is not going to start.
Solver setup and contents creation
Simulation Pipeline Each time update, Miarmy will do the following things if the simulation is not broken. 1. The McdBrain is responsible for collecting the information from scene. Such as the agent information, the perception contents information, etc. 2. Then, McdBrain will send the collected data to engine. 3. The engine will calculate out the result, such as the agent transformation and posing. 4. The McdBrainPost is responsible for updating the scene using the engine results
Simulation Pipeline
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Reset, Update, Pause and Break Mechanism There are 4 statuses of solver which are reset, update, pause and break. Suppose that the start time of engine is 1, we can set it by McdBrain.startTime
Green: reset, Yellow: update, Red: will break simulation
Take a look at the green point, any time you can reset your scene by setting current time to start time (or before start time) As the yellow arrows shown, the engine can simulate and update Maya scene correctly, when playback from start time and frame by frame. If you jump frame back or jump more than one frame, the simulation will break, just like the red arrows shown. At this time, the engine will never solve until you reset it (back to start time). If simulation has been paused at the xth frame, you can jump time as you like, but before resuming it, you need set the time when the time simulation break which is the xth frame. You can pause the simulation in Miarmy Global. Reset: the agents will be set back to initial status, meanwhile, some information in agent memory will be clear and reset, such as the physical stuff, cloth buffer, etc. Update: simulation in progress, engine is still working for updating scene Pause: simulation stop but can resume later Break: simulation will not continue proceed any more until reset.
Non-Connection Sequential Node Communication Using some non-traditional Maya techniques, we designed a non-connection sequential node communication solver. So, there are no connections among any Miarmy nodes for data transferring. All of data transfer is happening in memory. When we create the Miarmy scene, we dont need hypergraph anymore.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Part 2: Menu Items

Menus
Miarmy Ready! Click this button system will do the follow things for you: 1. Setup Playback Options: a. Update all viewport b. Play every frame c. By 1.0 frame for each update d. Max playback speed is realtime (depending on the user specify, 24fps or 30fps) 30 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual 2. Create Something: a. Create a McdBrain node if not exist b. Create a McdBrainPost node if not exist c. Create a McdGlobal node if not exist. d. Create Miarmy_Contents group and some preset stuffs Miarmy Contents: Agent group 1: agent repository o Setup: rig location (usually reference into the scene) o Original Agent: template for current agent o Action: Miarmy action generated by Maya animation o Action Proxy: an action list node can proxy all action playback o Transition Map: state and action for build transition map o Decision: logic entity o Geometry: binding geometry Agent Group 2 o o Agent Group 3
Miarmy Contents Check It will check the naming convention and integrity of Miarmy_Contents group and stuff inside.
It will try to fix the naming in specific group.
Maya 2012 Import
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Maya 2012 cannot import contents without name prefix or namespace. This tool let you import contents without changing the name of objects.
Miarmy Global
Transition Type o Use Simple Transition If enable, the transition map will be ignored by engine. Transition will automatically happened by themselves between any 2 actions.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Solver Options o Stop Feedback If enable, the agent will not send information to Brain Viewer. It will save your time if you are already done the logic construction. o Pause Solve If enable, the simulation will be paused. And if you disable this at the frame you enable this, the simulation will continue. o Start Time Specify the simulation start frame.
Agent Cache Options o Enable Agent Cache Enable agent cache, make the engine find cache file instead of solving o Is Cache Bone Translate If enable, when making cache, the translate information will be recorded. When assigning, the translate information will be set to bone. Its useful for record break body like the sword and shield o Cache folder Specify in which the cache file located, the path should be accessible o Cache Name Specify the cache file name such as scene001cache o Cache Offset Frame offset when apply cache to scene.
Mesh Drive Options o Start Agent Global ID Specify the first agent which will perform mesh drive o End Agent Global ID Specify the last agent which will perform mesh drive, mesh drive will enable the agent id between these 2 values o Enable Progress Bar Show updating progress bar when agents drive their meshes o Clear Delete all duplicated meshes o Duplicate Mesh Duplicate meshes for agents, from start ID to end ID o Pairing Meshes and Agent Mapping agent to their paired geometries in agent memory o Enable Mesh Drive 33
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Enable mesh drive for update meshes.
Note: if you change your frame rate of this scene in Maya Preferences, the start time will change. You need to fix it to the correct value.
Physics Global
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Solver o Each Step Time: Specify how much time will proceed in one Maya frame o Sub Step: Specify how many steps will make in Each Step Time o Is Self-Collide: Specify whether you need enable collision on bones of single agent o Gravity X: Gravity acceleration in X direction o Gravity Y: Gravity acceleration in Y direction o Gravity Z: Gravity acceleration in Z direction Agent Body o Stop Apply Force Speed When the speed of RBD exceeds this value, the force field cannot add force on to it.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Agent Cloth o Cloth Density The particles density of cloth o Vertical Stretch Stiffness Stiffness in vertical direction, bigger value leads harder deform in vertical space o Horizontal Stretch Stiffness Stiffness in horizontal direction, bigger value leads harder deform in horizontal space o Shearing Stretch Stiffness Stiffness in diagonal direction, bigger value leads harder deform in diagonal space o Bending Stretch Stiffness Stiffness for bending, bigger value leads harder bending or curling.
Default Plane Terrain The attribute effect on the plane terrain default created. o Dynamic Friction The friction force when object is moving on terrain o Static Friction The friction force when object is before moving on terrain o Restitution The energy of bounces back from collision, increase this make object bounce greater on the default terrain
Field Multiplier Exclusive adjust the force effect on the rigid body of Miarmy. If the Maya field or fluid affects both Miarmy contents and Maya contents, you can adjust these values to change the result only on the Miarmy contents. o Field Force Multiplier The value will be multiply the result force effect on the rigid body from Maya field o Fluid Force Multiplier The value will be multiply the result force effect on the rigid body from Maya fluid
Render Global
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Summary First line: The result folder name of output image or rib Second line: The result file name of output image of rib Image File Output The attributes can change the file export name, format and path o Output Folder The location your image files of each pass will output o Ribs Name(Rib/) The file name of RIB file o Pics Name The file name of image file o Extension The file name extension o Image Format The format of output image 37
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Start Frame The frame the render will start o End Frame The frame the render will end o Frame Padding The bit of digits of file name endin Renderable Camera Adjust the camera attributes o Renderable Camera Select the renderable camera here o Alpha Channel Enable this if you want to export alpha channel o Depth Channel Enable this if you want to export depth channel o Camera Motion Blur Enable this if you want ot apply motion blur when camera is moving Image Size o Preset Choose width and height presets o Width The X resolution of output image o Height The Y resolution of output image o Copy from Maya Copy the same setup from Maya Render Global node Split Render To know more about split render, please refer the render part of this manual. o Split X The number of parts the viewport should be split in horizontal space o Split Y The number of parts the viewport should be split in vertical space o Bound Filter The filter pixels which between any 2 split parts o
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Texture Options o Generate .tex Everytime The system will generate a .tex texture file for each of texture file and send the .tex file to the RenderMan renderer when rendering. By default, the system will check the existence of that .tex file, if there is .tex file exist, system will not generate them again. If you need convert it every time, please enable this. Image Quality The attributes exclusive belong to RenderMan and control the quality of output images Please refer the RISpec if you want to know them in details o Shading Rate Minimum rate of surface shading o Pixel Sample X Sampling rate in the horizontal directions o Pixel Sample Y Sampling rate in the vertical directions o Filter method Antialiasing by filtering the geometry (or supersampling) and then sampling at pixel locations o Pixel Filter X The filter in horizontal directions 39
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Pixel Filter Y The filter in vertical directions o Deformation Motion Blur Enable this to enable deformation motion blur, only available with agent cache o Motion Blur Enable this to enable motion blur o Shutter Open The times at which the shutter opens o Shutter Close The times at which the shutter closes Ambient Occlusion Options o Occ Sample Increase this can get smoother result (less noise) but take more time to render o
Render Passes Setup Specify which pass or passes should be rendered If in preview mode (Miarmy > Render Preview), renderer will render the first option which enable here. If in batch mode (Miarmy > Render Extra > Render Batch to Image Files/RIB Files), renderer will render all the options enabled here.
Render Preview (i-display) Render current frame from current active viewport and put the image to the frame buffer (or i-display). The pass to be rendered should be the first pass enabled in Render Pass Setup of Render Global.
Render Extra (sub menu)
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Foreground Render Open Maya Render View, and render this scene from start frame to end just inside of Maya Render Batch to Image Files Render this scene from start frame to end frame and output the images to the folder been specified in Render Setting Render Batch to RIB Files Convert the scene to the RIB files start frame to end frame and output the RIB files to the folder been specified in Render Setting Add Subd Attribute Add 2 attributes to the selected objects, so that the objects can be recognized to the subdivision mesh by the render engine.
Delete Subd Attribute Remove the 2 attributes of subdivision mesh flags from selected objects Add Displacement Bound Attribute Add an attribute to the selected objects, so that the renderer will use this value when dealing with displacement shader Delete Displacement Bound Attribute Remove the attribute of displacement bound from selected objects Add Matte Attribute Add an attribute to the selected objects, so that the renderer will render it totally black but alpha channel existed. Delete Matte Attribute Remove the attribute of matte from selected objects Note: if this attribute is added to the agent instead of geometry, the specific agent will matte out all the geometries it used
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Agent Viewer (Auto Focusing) The Agent Viewer will display the bone structure and some flags set in Agent memory
Bone structure: The name of bone in memory, it can be used in channel, like torso1:tx Flags (@) sign This bone will join collision check if using collide channel (*) sign This bone can feel field and fluid when dynamics is turned on
Agent Manager
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Agent manager can determine which type of agent is activated. System will create contents such as logic decision nodes or action nodes for the active agent and put the contents inside the active agent group. Active Active the agent type in this line Modify Modify the name of agent Delete Delete all the contents of this agent Color buttons Select color for active agent, when the agents are placed, the color of bones will be the same color selected here Add Agents Add a new type of agent to scene
Terrain Manager
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Terrain manager can mark geometry terrain. When the geometry is marked terrain, the agents can interactive with it and the rigid body can collide in it. In fact, the geometry which been marked terrain is connected by a McdTerrain node.
Terrain Node The McdTerrain node name which connected to terrain geometry Mesh Actual mesh name been marked terrain Dynamic Friction The friction force when object is moving on terrain Static Friction The friction force when object is before moving on terrain Restitution The energy of bounces back from collision, increase this make object bounce greater on the terrain Is anim Enable this if the terrain has animation or deformation. Is Plane Enable this if the terrain is a plane, it can speed up the physical simulation Select Select the transform node of this terrain geometry.
Visualization
Sound range switch Switch on/off the sound range Vision range switch Switch on/off the sound range
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
As the picture above, the red circle is sound range, and the green frustum is the vision range.
Setup Rig
Miarmy provide a free setup pipeline tool, which can generate a simple rig from the template. Import Template Import template with default pose Import Template (Preset Pose) Import template with the preset pose Setup Rig Convert the template to the rig Import Standard Bone Tree Import a clean and preset posed bone chain which can be used to motion capture
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Above 3 pictures, from left to right: 1. Template with default pose 2. Template with preset pose 3. Bone chain with preset pose
After setup, the rig has been generated.
Original Agents
Create Original Agent Create Original Agent if there is correct rig in Setup group for the active agent type Create Original Agent (Preset Pose) Create Original Agent with many preset setup 46
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Select Skin Bone and Geo Selete all the joints except end ones from current active original agent Hide Bone Shape Hide all the box shape of the bone Unhide Bone Shape Hide all the box shape of the bone Re-create Original Agent Delete the current active original agent and create it again. If you delete some important part from original agent, you can use this tool Delete Original Agent Delete the current active original agent Create Bounding Box for Agent Create bounding box for current active agent Shape Box Adjustment (This feature is not finished yet) Go Original Pose Clear all rotation value from original agent and put it to the origin Send Active Geo to Original Agent Copy geometries and skinning info from setup rig to Original Agent, only can work on active agent type
Placement
Create Placement Node Create a placement node for you Placement Editor
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Placement editor can setup the proportion for the selected placement node o Proportion Setup (slider) Only the place-able agent type can be listed here. The agent with original agent is correct agent type. Move any of the slider, the others types will automatically update except 0 proportion type 0 proportion Crank down to 0 for turning off this type of agent place o Make Even Auto averaging all the proportion of exist types
Place Populate agent to scene. De-Place (Delete All Agents) Delete all the agents and flush the undo queue. We not recommended delete agents by del key because that the agent is actually leave there in memory. Inverse Place Create a brand new place node from the selected agents, and this will record follow info: o Parent node of each agent o Type of each agent o Translate and Rotate o Mute dynamic flag Attach Terrain Attach place node to the selected terrain 48
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Detach Terrain Detach place node from terrain Attach Curve Attach place node to the selected curve Detach Curve Detach place node from curve
Mocap Import Standard Bone Tree Import a clean and preset posed bone chain which can be used to motion capture Human IK (available next time) Characterize (available next time)
Actions
Create Action Create an action node, then playback once and store the animation data to this node, from rig (with animation) to action Action Editor
Basic Attribute 49
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Length The length info of current selected action Rate The playback speed multiplier, e.g. 2 means playback speed is 2 times than normal Is Final Enable this means that once agent transit to this action, never transit out, e.g. dead Transition Control the transition between 2 actions Is Cycle Enable: cycle action (e.g. walk), Disable: transition action (e.g. standToWalk) Cycle Filter A percent value stand for a smooth filter when the action performing self-cycle transition Entry Range The range of transition from previous action to the current one Exit Range After this percent range, this action can transit to next action, before that, it playback itself Agent Transform Speed The speed of transform node of the agent, this can create the locomotion result, please check out the detail of this in Animation and Action session Channel(TX, TY, TZ, RX, RY, RZ) Block/Open the channel on agent transform node Auto Fill Use the preset channel preset Rebuild Important: After editing the channels, user need click this rebuild button make it works Agent Transform Fix This feature can offset the result of transform speed of the root, e.g. one of the motion capture data is x-oriented, but one can use this feature to rotate it back to z-oriented action Transform Data Specify which channel and how many values need offset Fix Agent Transform Once specify the value in blank, click this for performing offset Exit Choices In different phase, action can transit to different next actions. We can specify the exit choices here Exit Action The list of actions which the current action will transit to Start Frame & End Frame Between start and end frame, the current action will transit to this exit action if there is a transition signal 50 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Preview Bar Preview in which phase we can transit to which exit action
Create Action Proxy Create an action proxy node for current active agent type Action Proxy Editor Action proxy can check the transition between any actions and see is them transit smooth or correct For more details of action proxy, please check out the Transition session of this manual.
o o o o
Active Activate/deactivate element of agent name Play list The names of actions in list Set From right to left set Available Actions Choose which action to be set
Transition Map
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
(Note: need switch to the transition map viewport) Move tool Click and drag to move the states and action shells in transition map viewport Create State Create a new state node for current active agent type Create Action Shell Create a new action shell node for current active agent type Add/Edit Action Group Add an action group flag to the selected action Cancel Action Group Remove the action group flag from the selected action
Knowledge Perception
Please check out the channel spec for the detailed information Create Solver Space Create a solver space node Create Road from Curve Create a road object from your selected curve, the agent can feel it Attach Road to Terrain 52 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Attach the road to terrain Road Mode Switch Switch road between flow and road modes Create Bound Create bound box/sphere so that the agent can feel it Create Spot + Force Field Combo Create a spot node and set the Feel Mode to both Create Spot Create a spot node and set the Feel Mode to Only Spot Create Force Field Create a spot node and set the Feel Mode to Only Field Create Wind Create a wind node so that the agent can feel it Create Zone Convert the selected geometry to zone object Select Zone Node Select the geometry firstly, and then this tool can help you get the related zone node
Logic and Decision
Make Decision Create a decision node for the active agent type, for detail, please check out the logic part of this manual Decision Node Editor o Input Part (Normal Mode) The inner logic part
Make Default/Global Button Change the current selected decision to Global Mode Active Activate/Deactivate of this sentence Priority 53
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The priority of this sentence, bigger value has higher priority Logic The operate before this sentence Not Determine whether invert the logic result ID The Identity of this sentence assigned by the system Input Input sentence Inf Whether infinity for the fuzzy range in, e.g. < 10 means negative infinity to 10 Min The minimum/start value of range in which the result will be true Inf Whether infinity for the fuzzy range out, e.g. > 10 means 10 to positive infinity Max The maximum/end value of range in which the result will be true Fuzzy In Blur the start of true range, not available when negative infinity Fuzzy Out Blur the end of true range, not available when positive infinity Input Type Chose the input type between max or average Max Take the result which makes this sentence fully activated Average Take all the results and calculate out the average, then calculate the activation of this sentence Auto Fill Some presets for the user, one can add new preset in McdSentencePresetListGUI.py Move Up Change the order between 2 sentences up and down, move current sentence up Del Delete current sentence Parse Result The result of inner logic Output Part (Normal Mode)
Active 54
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Activate/deactivate output channel Decision The output decision Value The output value if full activated Auto Fill Some presets for the user, one can add new preset in McdDecisionPresetListGUI.py Decision (Global Mode)
Make Normal Button Change the current selected decision to Normal Mode Default Action Play this action when there is no other action activated. Active Activate/Deactivate the default output channel Decision The output channel Default Else System will use this value when the channel are not been activated Output Type The output value change type, absolute value or change rate Defuzz Type The output defuzz type average/blend/max Auto Fill Some presets for the user, one can add new preset in McdDecisionPresetListGUI.py
Preset Logic Behavior Create the preset logic decision nodes for current active agent type
Physics
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Cloth Setup o Attach Cloth (Tip: points to box) Mark cloth for selected geometry and attach the selected points to the bone shape of original agent (firstly select the cloth points, then the bone box shape) o Clear Cloth Unmark the cloth for the selected geometry Force Field
Create PhysX force field Kinematic Primitive
Create PhysX kinematic Primitives Create PhysX Debug Node Create a PhysX debug node which can display all the contents of PhysX scene.
Debug Tools
Create PhysX Debug Node Create a PhysX debug node which can display all the contents of PhysX scene. Agent Match
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Match the original agent to the selected agent, this feature is used to integrate your baking or rendering pipeline Agent Return Put the original agent back to origin and default pose
Re-Link Miarmy Reconnect your Miarmy if you install a new version in the other place
Un-Link Miarmy Disconnect Miarmy from this Maya
3Delight Setup
Check Renderer Status Check is your 3delight been installed correctly, check are your 3delight paths been setup correctly, check are your 3delight shaders been compiled ok, etc. If there is anything incorrect, the finished dialog will report them Compile Shaders Find the source code of shader in Miarmy installation place and compile using your installed 3delight program, then put the result shaders into 3delight shader path Remove 3delight.dll Remove the 3delight.dll from your Maya bin folder. Because system will copy a 3delight.dll to your Maya bin folder when installing, this 3delight will proxy/take over the 3delight of yourself if you already using your own 3delight. Delete the 3delight Miarmy provided here.
New Icons GUIs and Credits Special Thanks,
Miarmy 2.0 Manual The New Icons, Toolbar and new control Menu with a lot of useful and handy tools are created by Thanapoom Siripopungul from Luma Pictures. We really appreciate his brilliant skill and kindest help! And well continue work together and provide better tools for you. The Tools
Toolbars
Main GUI and tools created by Thana
Proxy List Easy Control Main GUI has some cool features like the proxy list operators
Add action proxy
Miarmy 2.0 Manual You may notice there are many more operations than Miarmy Proxy Editor and much easier to operate on the action proxy list. The result will sync to Miarmy Proxy List.
(left) Main GUI, (right) Miarmy GUI, they will sync
Action Shells Handy Tools Another very handy tool is auto create action shells, in the Main GUI, ACT tab, user can multi select the action name list and then click Create Multiple Action Shell, the action shell will automatically create in Transition Map
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Specify action and get ready for action shells creating
After some re-arrangement, it can be listed in Map
Created action shells
Also there is a tool can assign action group for selected action shells list together. Just load the right list Load Action Shell and then click create multi action group
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Mark action group for multiply action shells
Also many tools very useful, if you interesting, please just use it and give us feedback and we can improve them for you
Part 3: Agent Infrastructure

Rig
Animation Rig can be anything, FBIK, Human IK, or any kind of custom Maya joint system. Miarmy need the joint structure of your rig for generating the Original Agent and fetch the animation data from that, and nothing else. Just making sure your bone structure obey some rules and everything will be OK.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Bone structure Single Chain Joint Structure You should make sure your rig is a single chain rigging system. Single chain rigging system means each of the joint (except root) must have a joint parent. No matter how many children nodes under each joint, and no matter how many constrain and IK, just make sure each bone has a joint parent. Notice the following 2 pictures, the left one is an example of single bone chain, because each joint (except root) in structure has a joint parent, although joint 2 have several non-joint children. However, the right picture is not a single bone chain. Please notice the parent of joint 3 is locator 2. The locator 2 breaks the chain.
(Left:) single chain rig; (right:) non single chain rig
Bone with length If you like to enable dynamics on your rig, please make sure each bone has a length, otherwise, once you enable dynamic for the agent originate from this rig, your dynamic system will unstable, even might crash Maya
The joint2 and joint3 overlapped and the joint2 doesnt have length
(Green:) correct joint2 with length (red:) joint2 and joint3 overlapped without any length
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Bone Naming We highly recommend you make the name of the bone unique because the repeated name may bring some unpredictable problems. Non-unique name is no problem in most case but we are not sure is there further problem in features of coming future. Please take a look at the following 2 pictures, the left one contains some joints which name is not unique whereas the right bones are all unique name.
(Left:) joint name non unique; (right:) joint name unique
And once you select a joint with non-unique name, the verbose in script editor will be its full dag path instead of its node name.
Select the non-unique name of joint
Joint Orientations The root joint should orient to positive Z axis, because all of Miarmy engine algorithms (like the sound, vision, field and so on) and action system take the +Z axis of agent as the face front. Please make sure your rig and animation is facing to +Z axis.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Facing to +Z axis
About binding The geometries on the rig will not join the render pipeline, you need duplicate and bind the geometries to the original agent (and we have script can do this for you automatically). We will talk about this in following chapters
Original Agent
What is Original Agent? And why we need it? Original agent is the blueprint or template of agents. It is generated form animation rig. Original agent contains a bunch of Miarmy necessary information we need them to populate agents. Each one of Original Agent is responsible for populating one type of agent. You may ask, if we have ability to populate agents directly from animation rig, why we need Original Agent. The answer is obvious: Animation rig is complex and contains many extra useless nodes and information for building agents. These stuffs will make Maya scene messy. Original agent has much extra necessary information and nodes when populating agents. We dont want to add these stuffs directly to your animation rig.
So, the animation rig is not part of your Miarmy scene, usually we just need it to be referenced to scene.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Original agent is a main and important part of your Miarmy scene. It contains the same bone structure information of the animation rig, contains enough necessary information to populate agents. Additionally, it is very clean and clear
Creating Original Agent For creating original agent, you need firstly make sure that your animation rig meets the requirements we mentioned above and then just simply put you entire rig into the Setup_<AgentName>. And you can create original agent with menu item Miarmy > Original Agent > Create Original Agent. There is another situation we need notice. Some rigging system has control joints structure and deformer joint structure, please make sure your deformer joint structure above the control joints. Or you can make the Once you click Create Original Agent, our code will parse the structure from your animation rig and create a new rig based on your rig. After that, it will add a bounding box for each joint of the new rig. The new created
From another point of view, if you original agent can be created correctly and successfully, that prove that your animation rig is ok. Agent Group Node and Agent Type The agent group nods is the root node for managing all the contents of one agent type. Our system distinguishes different agent types using this group node. You can add, edit or delete the agent group in Miarmy > Agent Manager. Please take a look at the follow example, there are 4 types of agent in scene, each one of them have its own setup, original agent and other contents. And in each one of agent type node, there are several groups nodes for storing the contents of this agent type.
(left:) Agent group nodes; (right:) contents in Agent_aaa Technically, the agent group node is a simply transform node and the Maya type name is McdAgentGroup.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Due to that usually there is not only one type of agent in scene, when we want to create some contents for specific agent type, we need specify which type is activated for current been dealing with, and the new created stuff will automatically belongs to the active type. For example, we want to create a logical decision node for type aaa. We have to activate the aaa type of agent in Agent Manager. Then, the system will know the new created decision node belongs to aaa agent type and group the decision node to the Decision_aaa node. For detail, see Menu Item, Agent Manager chapter.
(left:) new created node belongs to aaa; (right:) Agent Manager, agent which type name is aaa has been activated
The active agent name will be stored in McdGlobal node, with attribute name is activeAgentName, the following picture demonstrate this.
The agent type name
The attribute in McdGlobal Node
Importantly, there are several attributes on each agent group node, and these attributes belong to this type of agents
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Extra attributes on McdAgentGroup node
Scale min/max: random range for sizing agents Sound Freq: the sound frequency of agents Sound Range: the sound range (amplitude) of agents. If 0, it will automatically use the diagonal length of bound box of this agent Vision X/Y: vision range frustum angle in horizontal and vertical Density: the bone density for physical simulation Start Delay Rand: some random frame before starting action Road Probe: how far the agent can feel in front road HP/MP Min/Max: random range for setting initial HP/MP
Render Geometry Binding Different render pipeline support different binding method. If you are going to use 3delight build-in plugin for rendering, you can use arbitrary binding method, such as smooth skinning bind, rigid skinning bind, even constrain. If you are going to use Mesh Drive Pipeline for rendering you scene directly in Maya or export geometry cache, you need to use smooth bind skin the geometries to the original agent. Notice its only support smooth skinning bind.
About render, see details in Part 8 Rendering. Render Geometry Management After skinning, you need put your geometries to Geometries_<agentNam> group like this:
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Putting the geometries of original agent in Geometry_<agentName>
Cloth geometry should be put in his group. Render Geometry Shader Different render pipeline support different kind shader on geometries. If you are going to use 3delight build-in plugin for rendering, you can only use the default shader like Lamber, Blinn, or Phong. Or you can create custom surface or displacement shader with McdRMShader and McdRMDispMat. And our plugin doesnt support bump map, we only support displacement map. If you are going to use Mesh Drive Pipeline for rendering you scene directly in Maya or export geometry cache, any type of shader is available such as mental ray, v-ray, and so on.
About render, see details in Part 8 Rendering.
Bone Shape for Display & Physical Simulation Adjust the boxes of the original agent and make them look right size and transform. The placed agents will be the same as the original agent. Also, dont forget resize the green bounding box, make it can bound your agent. No need precise, but roughly bound the agent. This bounding box can determine: Default sound range OpenGL display culling (The bounding box of each agent) Split render culling
Be careful: dont scale or move the joint!!
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
(left:) the original agent boxes; (right:) the placed agents
The final bone (end box) is not necessary to deal with, just ignore it.
You can ignore the head end. Its useless and will not join the animation and physical simulation
Bone Attribute & Flags Also, each of the boxes has some extra attributes can be applied:
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Bone Scale Min and bone scale max determine the current bone random size when populating agents Bone Thickness is not available for current version of Miarmy Field Feel determine whether this bone can feel Maya field after turning on dynamics Collide Feel determine whether this bone can join collision checking when we apply collide channel Collide Cloth determine whether this bone can collide against with cloth
We will call them flagged bones when collision detection or interacting with force field.
Physical Joint Type Between each pair of bones, there is a joint. It is use to build rag doll joint. Each joint can be one of 3 types like the picture below middle.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual

3 different types of joint respectively: ball, shoulder, hinge
Physical Joint Direction Each joint have a green arrow, you should always point this arrow to the next bone
Pointing the green arrow to next bone
Physical Joint Limits Each of joint has some rotation limits need to setup, especially on elbow and leg. And the same attribute name maybe have different meanning if the different joint type. The swing attribute cannot be the negtive value.
Joint types and limit attributes
Ball joint Ball joint can swing and twist:
Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Ball joint example
Ball joint swing and twist limit
After Miarmy 1.5, once you select the physical joint, it will become to a visible manipulator
Left non-selected, Right Selected The ball joint setup (Blue: swing down, red: swing up, yellow and purple: twist in counter/clockwise)
(From left to right) Small range of rotate, middle range or rotate, wide range of rotate
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Shoulder joint Shoulder joint can swing only, cannot twist
Shoulder joint limit, swing up and down limit
Hinge joint Hinge joint can rotate as Z axis only:
Hinge example
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Hinge joint rotation limit (the right one: can be rotate back easy but cannot rotate to forward)
Referencing & Namespace Pipeline Exclude the regularity way, Miarmy Original Agent Contents can be referenced to scene. Thanks to the Maya referencing system, we can get many benefits: Save a lot hard disk space for different scene with the same agent. Easy to replace agent if we want to replace another type of agent. Artist can get benefit if the agent changed from crowd TD. One change, automatically update the agent in any scene contains that.
Pre-Reference Contents Before referencing, we need clean up the scene and just leave the agent group there. Please refer the pictures below, the left picture shows if the scene non-referencing, something usually when creating agents contents by Crowd TD. Then it should be cleaned up and just leave the agent group node there and save to a independent file. You can click Miarmy > Export Agent for exporting that node and sub nodes.
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
left: non-referencing scene, right: referencing element
Referencing Then, for the Crowd Artists/Animators, they just need reference the agent into the scene and it will contain the namespace, the referenced agent groups need be put into the Miarmy_Contents sub tree, like the following picture:
Referencing and put to Miarmy Contents
Namespace & Agent Type Name If we deal with the scene without referencing, the agent type name will be the suffix of the agent group, like the first picture below, whereas the type name of the referencing file, it will be the namespace. Notice: the non-referencing and referencing file cannot exist together mixed. 75 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual
Regular scene without referencing namespace
Scene with namespace
And if you want to change the type name, just need change the namespace at reference editor:
Adjust namespace of agent type for referencing scene
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Production Now the artists and animators can work with the referenced scene and make specific shot in production. They can freely create scene contents like bounds, spots, and roads etc. Also they can tweak the placement as wishes. The artist can replace agent can control the namespace of the agent type. Also once the crowd TD changes the referencing stuff, the artist scene will change at the same time. (Re-open scene or refresh reference)
Animators build environments and perception contents.
Referencing Pipeline Suggestion: The crowd TD can: Can do anything but need responsible for exporting correct referencing file. Sometime need do several different versions of agent for the same agent type because some shot need some specific deal with.
The crowd artists cannot add/edit the below stuffs: Cannot add/edit actions Cannot add/edit transition map Cannot add/edit Original Agents Cannot add/edit Geometry
The artists can add/edit Add perception contents like bound, road, etc Arrangement the placement Add/edit Logic node (but not recommended)
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Assets management Crowd TD will build different Type of agents, and make actions, logics, geometries etc. Of course some agents will interactive each other, so they need make them in the same files. Then crowd TD will export each agent file to the hard disc and store there. Animators will referenece the agents to the different scene
Assets on hard disk should be like this
Select-able root bone for creating original agent For example this is your rig and the root you want is blue joint, red is root but not animation root.
Root bone is not real moving root
Miarmy 2.0 Manual And of course the animation will be on the blue joint, just like the right picture above. 1. Select the red joint, add an attribute called skipRoot (Boolean type) and make it True/On, then use this rig generate action node, the system will automatically find blue joint and skip the red one.
Select the red bone, and add an attribute called skipRoot and make it true
2. We create action node as usually. The action node will know what happened and automatically ignore the red joint 3. Before creating original agent, please un-parent and create one without fake joint node, and the action will drive the agent perfectly
The original agent we need get rid of the fake root
Everything will be OK
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Placement
Place node is a tool can populate your agent into the scene. There are some main features: You can adjust proportion for different types of agents Automatically check overlap if all place nodes in the same parent You can parent the place node to a specific node for achieving Hierarchical Placement If you make the place type custom, you can use MEL or Python to adjust the inner data structure of it. Inverse placement mechanism can store the information of your custom placement scheme to placement node. From your agents to placement node.
Point & Formation Placement Firstly, we are going to introduce you 2 independent placement types point and formation. Please look at the picture below.
Point placement type
Formation placement type
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Note: in current version, the circle and polygon type is not available.
Creating Place Node For create a placement node, simply click Miarmy > Placement > Create Placement Node, The default type of place node is point:
(left) default initial place node (right) attributes on place node
Terminology The single unit of triangle stand for one agent instance, we call it Place Unit. The entire placement group we call it Place Node The process we generate agents from place node, we call it placement
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Attributes on Place Node There are some attributes on each of place node. And different placement type need different attributes, lets take a look at the following example: Num of Agent:
The numOfAgent determines how many agents to be placed
Scale:
The scale determines the size of single place unit
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Noise:
The noise determines the random position on X and Z axis of each place unit
Orient:
The orient determines the orient of every place unit uniformly
Orient Random:
The orientRandom determines the random orient of each single place unit
High Random:
The heightRandom determines the random of Y -axis of each place unit
Miarmy 2.0 Manual For formation placement:
The place type is formation
Noise:
The noise working on the formation place type
Angle:
The angle determine the entire rotation for formation place type
Orient:
The orient determines each single rotate uniformly
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Orient Random:
The orientRandom determines the random orient of each single place unit
Column:
The column determines how many columns for a formation placement
The summary of place node attributes: Place Type: o Point: arrange based beehive o Circle: not available for current version o Polygon: not available for current version o Curve: arrange follow curve o Formation: arrange by row and column o Custom: arrange by use Num of Agent: Number of agent for current node Scale: unit size Noise: random x, z value of unit in space Angle: (only work for formation place) the rotate of entire place node Orient: unit rotation Y Orient Random: unit rotation Y random from 0 to 360 Column: (only work for formation place) column number of a group of unit Distance: distance between units Height: place node height, translate Y Height Random: unit translate Y random
Randomize Row/Column for curve and formation placement There are some new attributes for the curve and formation distribute placement, they are 85 2011-2013 Basefount
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Row/column new attribute
The best way to familiar with these tools are simple use it a little bit:
Row offset
Column offset
Row noise for vertical space
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Column noise for horizontal space
Row and column offset for horizontal and vertical space
Row and column noise for horizontal and vertical space
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Populate Agents from Pace Node Then, after you adjusting place node, you can place agent by Miarmy >Placement > Place Or you can delete all placed agent by Miarmy > Placement >De-Place (Delete All Agents) The reasons we provide the De-place function for you is not only we need delete all agents automatically, but also clear/flush the memory. As everybody knows that, Maya has a feature called undo. It means if undo feature enable, the object you delete is not actually deleted, all the date still there. Its a hazard in crowd simulation since it will take huge memory, as well as, the physical stuffs are still there in scene. So please use De-place as much as possible instead of delete manually.
Curve placement
(left:) Place node attach curve (right:) need to switch to curve mode
You need first select place node, then select the curve, chick Miarmy > Placement > Attach Curve
Terrain Attachment + Point placement
Terrain attach is happened in Y direction of unit (place element). That is means no matter what type of placement you are using, they can be attached to terrain. 88 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual For attaching terrain: 1. First make sure a plane-like geometry is zero transformation (clear all translate, rotate, scale values). 2. Select place node firstly, and geometry secondly, then click
Combining with place type, curve and terrain, you can apply any kind of placement scheme.
Terrain Attachment + Curve Placement
Terrain Attachment + Formation Placement
Polygon Based placement Since version 1.5 Miarmy support polygon based distribute placement. We need select the place node firstly then add select polygon, then click Miarmy > Placement > Attach Range Mesh
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Specify the polygon range placement
The polygon placement distribute result
Selection Placement (only place agents from selection) Sometimes there are several placement nodes in scene and we just want to populate our agent from what we want to focus. Then just need to select which you interested and click Miarmy > Placement > Place (from Selected)
Place from selected place node
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Proportion in Place Node
Please take a few minutes to recall the Agent Manager, Original Agent and Multiply Types of Agent. If there are more than one type of agent in scene and all of them have original agent. The 2 conditions should both meet. We can assign proportion for the placement node: Open placement editor:
Select your placement node and this window will update automatically
The proportion Editor
Simply tweak the slider for assigning proportion to your placement node. The total proportion is always sum to 100%. If you dont want to assign proportion for specific agent type, just simply crank it to 0 for locking. Notice the orc agent has been locked.
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Lock down the orc agent type
Click make even for averaging the assignment. (Notice the orc has been locked)
Make even for non-locked agent types locoman and loco
Hierarchical placement Hierarchical placement means that you can place your agent in hierarchical local space instead of world space. For example, you have several battleships in scene, and each ship has some agents on the deck. These agents are walking and doing something, the ships are moving. At this time the agents on deck will naturally moving with ships also. If we put our place node under ship transform node which means a child node of ship node, the agents populated from this node will automatically be the children of ship. These agents will act in their parents local space respectively.
Agents are acting on moving ships
For achieving this, the only thing you need to do is parent your place node to its parent. Like this:
Once you place your agents, they will automatically host to the same parent of place node.
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Hierarchical placement, (left) before placing; (right) after placing Solver Space Technically, take a look at the picture above. They (2 groups of agents) are only separated by transformation space but not solver space. Because Miarmy take local coordinate to solve, the 2 groups of agents may affect each other even not in same world position. (Different world positions maybe the same local position) To separate them totally and never affect each other, we need solver space node. Later, we will talk about the solver space more detail.
The pictures above show the different parenting scheme. The left shows agents separated by transformation space, whereas the right one shows agents separated not only by transformation space but solver space.
Inverse Placement Inverse placement is a process which from the selected agents, create new place node. The new created node will record the information inherit from the selected agents. The inherited information includes: Translate of each place unit Rotate of each place unit Type ID of each place unit Parent of each place unit
Usually pipeline is, firstly you arrange agents by your hands (move them, rotate them, parent them), just like a tactical arrangement, and then select some agents, apply inverse placement by Miarmy > Placement > Inverse Place.
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(up :) select some agents, (down:) from selections inversely create new place node
Please Notice Important: There may be some overlapped placement slot in scene after inverse placement. We highly recommend you clear old place node after inverse place node generating. If you place agent by place node and inverse place node at the same time, the system will prompt you for confirm.
You can use inverse placement to place agent according to your rehearsal just like the picture below:
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Inverse placement result
You may notice the orange cycle placement are arranged by inverse placement
Place Node Data Structure You can arrange the placement by procedural methods. Using MEL or Python script, you can access and modify the placement data easily and directly. We should setup the place type to custom for a place node firstly:
Switch to custom mode
Transformation Info <place node>.placement[<unit id>].agentPlace[<infomation>] <place node>: the shape node name of place node <unit id>: the Nth agent unit <information>: from 0 to 7 stand for: 0. Agent Type ID 1. Translate X 2. Translate Y 3. Translate Z 4. Rotate X 95 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual 5. Rotate Y 6. Rotate Z Example:
Line1: get the agent type from unit 0 of McdPlace2 node Line2: set the translate X to unit 0 of McdPlace2 node
Parent Info You can also specify each agent parent: <place node>.parentSet[<unit id>] Example:
Line3: set the parent for unit 0 of McdPlace2 node
Real Example You can refer it from the placeStatium.txt in the <Miarmy Directory>/samples (the same place store the samples) This code can place stadium:
Miarmy 2.0 Manual After executing the code in above, the result will be:
The result of stadium placement
Visualize placement Sometimes, the small triangular locators of placement node are not enough for setting layout, so we provide a method to visualize how the placement finally will look like. There is group PlacerShape_<agentName>in agent group, just put any mesh node inside with arbitrary hierarchy, all the placement node in scene will display out the meshes of you placed inside. If you found that group does not exist please click Miarmy > Miarmy Contents Check
Add new group repository
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Original placement node
Visualize single geometry sphere
Visualize multiple geometries body parts
Multi type of agents (a human (pink), and a sphere (orange))
Skip flag can used to bypass individual instance Sometimes we dont want to place some individual agents out for some reasons, we can block them place, just by 2 simple steps: 1. Turn the digital placer on, and check which agents you dont want to place out.
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The digital placement holder
2. Mark some agents out by simple MEL command, for example in above picture, we dont want agent 0, 1, 7, and 19 place out, we need mark these agent place extra slot 4 from false to TRUE, and the following pictures show the whole process
Run mel command to block agent placement
Some agents been blocked placement
Animation and Action

Action is one of most important infrastructure for build behavioral crowd animation. We create actions nodes from animation on the rig. Note: here we just introduce the creation process, for usage and details, please refer the Part 6 Action
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Animation to Action Pipeline Suggestion When you creating action node, we suggestion you take the following pipeline. It would be easily for management and further modify. Note: maybe you have better solutions, here just a suggestion. Please take a look at the pictures below. Firstly, we suggest save as each animation file to single file (the first picture). In each file, there is a rig (better be referenced into scene) under the Setup_<agent> name node (second picture). You can freely key frame animation or import animation to this rig. Finally, in each file, there is only one action node and you can export this node to anywhere.
The action create pipeline
All in all, each file contains a single piece of animation and only one action node. It would be easily for management. Create Action Node
Animation on the rig
The action node will be generated for active agent type. The only thing we are going to do is click Miarmy > Actions > Create Action. And you will see some prompt need you fill or confirm:
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Specify an action name
The action setup wizard will pop out for setting your action node up:
If you click Setup, the wizard will begin.
Static: agent stands without transform change (e.g. stand, sit, cheer) Locomotion(Z+): agent walks in z direction straight (e.g. walk, stand to walk, jog, run) Locomotion: agent walks in horizontal space (e.g. walk to left) Turning: agent turning to left or right (turn left, turn right) Ramp: agent go up or go down (go upstairs, climbing)
Cycle: self-cycle animation (e.g. walk, stand, run) Transition Action: middle action between 2 cycle action (e.g. stand to walk, walk to run)
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If you select cycle action, there is an additional attribute cycle range, means the self-transition range, more specifically, if the action is go into the last XX%, the cycle will occur, self-transition. It blends the end selftransition part to the head part of the action by some percent.
As picture above, after playing back green area, the action will perform self-cycle.
Either you select cycle action or transition action. There will be 2 attributes need set up, transition in and transition out. Transition in: When previous action transit to current action, some percent should be smooth blended. This is the entry range of this current action. Like the picture below, when the previous action transiting to current action, 10% of action length should be blended from previous end to current start.
When transiting in, blend with previous action
Transition Out: When current action should transit to next action, only when the current action playback after exit range percent, the current action can transit to next action, otherwise, maintains the self-playback
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Only after 80% playing back, the current action can transit to other actions
Your action nodes will be created in:
You can select one of it and open Action Editor for checking or editing details:
Action editor
The more detail about action and something under the hood will be described in Part 6 Action
Transition Map Building

Concept Action transit from one to another can be 2 methods: 1. Easy Transition 2. Transition Map The easy transition makes your action transit to another directly automatically.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Except Easy Transition, there is another transition method we can apply, it is Transition Map. Transition Map is able to precisely control how one action transit to another, which others action will in between of them. For example, the current action is walk and the target action is stand. If we are using Easy Transition, the action transition will be walk -> stand directly. Whereas if we are using Transition Map, the result will be walk -> walk to stand -> stand, which guild by transition map. Please look at the picture below. Also, the Transition Map can control action blending, action randomization, and then get the feedback from agent playback.
Transition Map screenshot
Note: Transition Map is always showing the contents of active agent. Please make sure you already activate the agent type which you want to edit. Transition Map located in viewport renderer:
You should switch it to front view for viewing it: Transition Map consists of State, ActonShell and connections
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(left:) action shell (right:) state Action Shells are the aliases of actions. They stand for actions but not actions. States are terminals can hook many cyclic actions.
Main Features of Transition Map Naming checking The action and action shell are twins. Engine parses action shells in Transition Map whereas drives agents by actions. So both action shells and actions should exist with right naming conventions.
The runToJog and jogToRun only have action shell without real action, the title of action shell will be red The jog has both action shell and action and can be recognized by engine. The title will be normal black
Precise transition action control Between each 2 cyclic action, we can apply some transition actions between 2 states. To trigger the action, simply put your action name in decision node. All the things are automatically done by engine. The engine can always find the shortest way to get your target action.
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Action group A group of cyclic action can make a signal group, when our logic decision call actionGroup:sit channel the system will automatically random select one of the actions of it.
Action blending One action can blend to another action with blend engine. Not only the action itself, the rate can be blended. Blend is from 0% to 100%. 2 blend actions should have the same number of frames! Call walk->walkHappy in decision node can perform this:
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Exits choice Between 2 cyclic actions
Take a look at the above picture, from walk to stand, there are 2 ways: walkToStandR and walkToStandL, we want to choose one of them in different situation. More specifically, different phase of action should transit to appropriate transition action.
We just need specify the Exist Choices in form of Action Editor, everything will be ok. You may notice the right blue-white bar shows the exit phase.
How to Build Transition Map In Transition Map renderer, switch to Front View:
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Enable Move Tool firstly, and there are 3 types of operations in Transition Map, 1. click-hold for moving nodes
Move the nodes
2. Above pictures, ctrl + click walkHappy, and ctrl + click walk, for connecting
Link 2 nodes
3. Above pictures, shift + click walkHappy, and shift + click walk, for disconnecting
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Break connections
And there are 3 types of Action Connections in Transition Map (enable move tool firstly): 1. The cycle action: a. ctrl + click walk action b. then ctrl + click walk state c. ctrl + click walk state d. ctrl + click walk action
Cycle action host on a state
2. The transition action: a. Ctrl + click walk b. Ctrl + click walkToStand c. Ctrl + click walkToStand d. Ctrl + click stand
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Transition action between 2 states
3. Action Blend: a. Ctrl + click walkHappy b. Ctrl + click walk
Blend action link to an another action
Uncheck the Simple Transition in Miarmy Global:
If you unintentionally enable Simple Transition, the Transition Map will have a background with tip message Simple Transition apear
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Watermarks there in simple transition mode
Easy control transition Map Move Tool Watch Cameras When the users switch to brain viewer or transition map, the system will automatically add the cameras to watch the contents of them. This can avoid the conflict using top and side camera in scene.
Orthographic camera automatically added
Better Move Tool Also we improve the transition map move tools, when we move the state, the related actions will be moved also, and the transition action will move 50% along with the moving vector
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Move together with the states
Move together with the action blend
Decision
Decision node is another infrastructure of agents brain. Please check out the details in Part 7 Logic in-depth and Part 8 Logic & Perception Create Decision node Firstly, you need active the agent type which you want to edit. You can easily create it from Miarmy > Logic Decision > Make Decision
Agent
There is much information on each instantiated agent. Some of them are exist in the form of attributes, located in channel box, whereas some of them in memory and cannot access by regular methods. Notice: the information (attributes and memory data) on agent cannot be saved when you are saving your scene. All of the information is originated from Original Agents. In 2011-2013 Basefount this version of Miarmy, Only muteDynamic attribute can be stored in place node through inverse placement feature 112
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Acting agents Agent attributes
Mute Dynamic. Once enable, this agent can entirely block the dynamics feature, and this attribute can be stored in place node through inverse placement. This is a very important feature for optimizing crowd dynamics, and we will introduce it in detail in Part 9 Optimization Mute Dynamics The others attributes, originated from Original Agent
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Agent scale 0.8(left) and 1.3(right)
Sound range 35(left) and 60(right)
Sound frequency 5(left) and 3(right)
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Vision X 100(left) and 30(right)
Color 4(left) and 8(right)
Compare the left and right attributes differences and agent results
Agent Mode There are 3 modes of agent: Acting mode: controlled by action and logic decision. Dynamics mode: controlled by action and logic decision.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Combo mode: some parts controlled by action whereas another parts controlled by dynamics, such as these feature enable: breakable dynamics, partial dynamics and body dynamics
Agent Memory Data You can check the bone structure and flags on bone through Agent Viewer. Because these data cannot be saved, so we didnt provide any method to modify them. Take a look at the following picture, the tree like list is the bone structure. The bone name is the real name in memory and if you want to fill the bone-specific channel in logic decision node (such as bone upArmR:tx), please use the name in this list. The bone maybe has some flags, such as the root, have @ and * flags. Check the legend on the bottom of the list, the @ stand for the collision detection flag, and the * stand for field affect flag. We will talk about the collision detection channel in Part 5 Logic & Perception, and the field dynamics in Part 7 Physics
Agent viewer, contains bone structure and flags
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Part 4 Logic in-depth

This part explained all the logic engine calculation and procedure. All of them are happened under the hood automatically and it will not need you understand all of them at this time. You can combine with the video tutorials and make everything clear gradually.
Fuzzy Logic
In the world of fuzzy logic, there is no True or False, because the boundary of True and False have been blurred. Instead, we called them active. If true, its 1.0 active, and if false, its 0.0 active, between true and false, its a float point value from 0.0 to 1.0 active, such 0.618 active. Make an example and take a look at the pictures below, in regular logic, an input value is -80, the output should be True, and another input value is -100, the output should be False. But in fuzzy logic, the input values -80 and -100 are neither true nor false. Notice the slope in in the second picture, the input -80 get active value 0.667, and the -100 get the active value 0.333
Regular Logic: Red: False, Green: True
Fuzzy Logic: Red: 1.0 Active; Green: 0.0 Active; Gradient, 0.x Active
So our Miarmy system is full Fuzzy logic system implementation. And all the calculations are based on Fuzzy Active rather than True/False, including sentence test, priority and node active test. Look at an example: This is regular logic we are talking about, something true, do 1, something false, do 2: 1. When hot, turn on fan. 2. When cool (not hot), turn off it.
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Color means fan speed, the dark line is the temperature
Here we bring in a concept called active, ranging from 0 to 1, please take a look at the picture below When false, the active is 0 When true, the active is 1 The active value 0 and 1, represent the true and false
Then, this it is fuzzy logic, it make the boundary blurred:
Color means fan speed, the dark line is the temperature
1. 2. 3. 4.
When cold turn off fan (the active value is 0.0) When a little bit hot, turn on fan (the active value is 0.2) When hotter, turn up fan (the active value is 0.8) Very hot, turn up fan speed to max (the active value is 1.0)
Pipeline
Terminology As we mentioned in the Part 1 Main Concept, in a single decision node, there are several conditions and decisions. In terminology, we are going to call them sentence inputs and decision outputs. There is an input channel in each sentence input whereas an output channel in each decision output. Please distinguish the active and results, the active is a fuzzy logic concept value and it would be and usually in range from 0.0 to 1.0, whereas, the results can be any values, its a variables. E.g. channel tz active is 0.55, channel tz value is 100, and the results is 100 * 0.55 = 55 The calculation result of an input channel is an array, and it would be arbitrary number of results (even 0-length array and no result), we called them channel results 118 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual The calculated active of a single sentence, we call it sentence active The calculated of a decision node, we call it node active After node active, we will get some output channel results, we call them decision results We need solve out the behavior results from decision results, and this calculation process we call it defuzz General Pipeline Our brain node will collect all the information from scene (environment perceptions & agents themselves) and put the information to Miarmy Core Engine. Then our engine will deal with the information and solve out the behavior results, finally drive agents and update the scene in brain post node. The engine is not a node or command, its a piece of code can receive information, solve out the results and send information back
Logic General Pipeline
Engine Process Breakdown 1. Calculate each sentence input channel results 2. Solve out the sentence active from the sentence channel results by fuzzy logic 3. Use sentence active and logic rule and priority among these sentences, solve out the node active 4. Using hierarchical priority ranking system, recalculate the node active 5. Collect all the decision results based on node active 6. Using defuzz engine and decision results to calculate behavior result Please notice the color of the following pictures: Firstly, we need solve out the channel results from the type of input channel
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Step 1: from input channel, calculate the channel results
After getting the values from input channel, we will use the test range, fuzzy value and input type to calculating out the active of a single sentence, we called this sentence active
Step 2: Sentence Active Calculation Pipeline
Then we need use the logic tool and priority among several sentences and to calculate out the node active
Step 3: Node Activate Calculation Pipeline
Using priority ranking hierarchy, recalculate out the new node active
Step 4: Modify node active using priority ranking hierarchy
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Using the active value from each node, and decision output values, we can get many decision results. Then using defuzz method, we can solve out the actual results of each type of channel, drive behavior
Step 5 & 6: using node active and decision results finally get the behavior results, defuzz
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Implementation
Step 1: Get Channel Results From input channel name, we can let the engine calculate the results for this channel, the result is an array, and the length of array is non-fixed, even can be zero.
A sentence of node, Red: input channel
The channel sound.x may return many results based on how many agents in the sound range of current agent. Also maybe it returns nothing. (See sound perception chapter for getting the details the return values of sound.x channel)
Step 2: Fuzzy Logic for a Single Sentence Calculation In the following picture, a single sentence contains an input channel, a true range and 2 fuzzy values.
A single channel in yellow bound, Red: input channel Green Bound: true range Blue: fuzzy values
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Input channel: return a list of values based on channel type Test rule: ID, pre-operator, priority, inverse flag Test range: the full true range without fuzzy blur Fuzzy value for the start and end of test range, plus and minus
Firstly, the input channel will return a list of values from Channel Input Engine base on the information of agent itself and environment. Using input type, we can deal with the list of input results.
The input type have max and average 2 kinds of calculation algorithm: Max: choose the value make the sentence most be activated one Average: take all the results from that array and calculate the average one
Finally, we can get one result value, we call it Channel Result. Please distinguish it with the Channel Results Use the Channel Result being input value and use fuzzy logic to test its output active, this active is sentence active Fuzzy Range And the sentence contains a true range:
True range from -90 to 0 make sentence true
Then and a fuzzy value, such as 30, then turns out the fuzzy range: => (-90 30), (-90 + 30), (0 30), (0 + 30) => -120, -60, -30, 30
Fuzzy range from -120 to 30 make sentence activated
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Then the sentence active value will be: Full active 1.0: if Channel Result from -60 to -30 Non active 0.0: if Channel Result less than -120 or greater than 30 Float point active 0.x: if Channel Result from -120 to -60 or -30 to 30
If using Inf channel (infinity channel), enable, and the fuzzy out will disappear
0 to + infinity in channel
The true range will be like this:
True range: input > 0 true
Then and a fuzzy value, such as 20, then turns out the fuzzy range: => 0 + 20 = 20; 0 20 = -20 => -20, 20
Fuzzy range: input greater than -20 make sentence activated
Then the sentence active value will be: Full active 1.0: if Channel Result greater than 20 Non active 0.0: if Channel Result less than -20 Float point active 0.x: if Channel Result from -20 to 20
Testing that Channel Result with the fuzzy range, we can get the sentence active in this step
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Step 3: Fuzzy Logic between Sentences Calculation Among the different sentences, there are active flags, sentence priority, not flags, logic operators and the ID of each sentence. Using these logic tools and the sentence active of each sentence from previous step, we can calculate out the node active
Yellow bound are logic tools
We can give a logic operator before the each sentence
&&: and operator, ||: or operator, xor: exclusive or operator
You can also using the not flags, sentence priority modify the result, and the calculation rule will be conclusion in Parse Result, use this rule and sentence active from each one, we can finally get the node active
An example of more complicated situation, but usually we dont need that
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After the calculation among these sentences, we will get the node active, in this step.
Step 4: Fuzzy Logic for Priority Ranking and Interfere to Node Active By now, we have already known the node active, every node has its own node active, but if they are rearranging by hierarchy, the node active will be interfered. The decision in higher hierarchy takes higher priority.
A real example of decision hierarchy
Direct hierarchy:
(1 Node Active) will passed to the child, and multiple to the Node Active of child
For example, the node 1, node 2, node 3 active values are: 0.2, 1.0, and 0.5 the node1 active is 0.2, then the 0.8(1-0.2) will be passed to node2 the node2 active is 1.0 and it will yield to 0.8(1.0 * 0.8), and the 0.2(1.0 0.8) will be passed to node3 the node3 active is 0.1(0.5 * 0.2)
So the node active results of the 3 nodes are: 0.2, 0.8, and 0.1 after ranking priority.
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(1 Max Active) will be passed to the child group, and multiply to all of the children decisions
For example the node active values from node1 to node 4 are 0.1, 0.4, 0.7 and 0.5 the max active value of node1 and 2 is 0.4, so 0.6(1.0 0.4) will be passed to group2 and multiple to node3 and node4 so the post-calculated active value of node3 is 0.42(0.7 * 0.6) and node4 is 0.3(0.5 * 0.6)
Grouping and Node Hierarchy Hybrid You also can combine the direct and grouping method together, and the algorithm is the same
Hybrid hierarchy ranking priority
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Step 5 & 6: Output Mechanism - Node Active, Default Decision and Normal Decision Using each node active value, we can firstly get the output channel active of each node, and then solve out the decision results. Just like the picture below, if the node active is 0.2 after sentences calculation. The ry and tz channels are active 0.2 for this specific node. The decision results are ry: 24 (120 * 0.2) and tz 4 (20 * 0.2).
Normal Decision determine output channel based on node active
But please notice, this output channel active (like the 0.2 we just mentioned) is not the final output active for this type of channel, system need also calculate the node active from every node. And finally, system need solve out the ultimate correct active value of a type of channel combine with several active values from every node and the default value of this channel in the default decision. Before continuing, we need now introduce a concept called default decision. Default decision implicitly contains the default value of every channels output. (even there is no default decision, these implicit values exist) The default value means the value which output channel will blend with, when this type of output channel has not been fully activated by any of normal node. One can explicitly specify one or more default values for some specific channels and those default values will take place the implicit ones.
If we want to get the ultimate active value of specific channel, we need combine with default decision node.
Default value will work when this channel is not fully activated
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Please look at the picture above, tz channel has been explicitly re-specified and when there is no any node trigger tz, the tz channel will be 100.0 by default; And if the tz channel is fully triggered by any other node, the tz will take the value from that node; Or if the tz channel has not been fully triggered, system will calculate a blended value base on Defuzz Type Algorithm.
3 types of defuzz algorithm
Average: average result from every normal decision, then average the default one Max: get the max one from result of normal decisions if the max one less than 0.5, get the default one Blend: don not distinguish the normal and default decision, blend the result all.
So far as we know, each node has a node active, and each node has several outputs. The part would a little bit confusion so we will explain this directly by an example. Imagine that we have bunch of decision nodes, and each one of them has several outputs. There must be several overlapped channel names. We need calculate the output active based on the defuzz type. Lets take a look an example, just look at the following 3 nodes, 2 normal decisions and a default decision. We just demonstrate the calculation of channel tz.
2 normal decision nodes with 0.2 and 0.8 active and a default node
For the first normal node, we got: value:20 active: 0.2
For the second normal node, we got: value: 20 active 0.8
The default decision node, we got: 129 2011-2013 Basefount
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We can calculate the result by following rules: Average Type o The default node active is (1 max): 1 - 0.8 = 0.2 o Sum = 0.2 * 20 + 0.8 * 20 + 0.2 * 200 = 60 o Sum of Active = 0.2 + 0.8 + 0.2 = 1.2 o Result: 60 / 1.2 = 50 Max Type: o We get the max active 0.8, the second normal decision o Result: 20 itself (the second normal decision value) o Note: if the max active blew 0.5, we take the default value in default decision 200 Blend Type: o We get the max active 0.8, the second normal decision o o Result: 0.8 * 20 = 16 Note: similar like Max Type but we need multiply the active value.
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Part 5 Logic & Simulation

As far as we know we can use input channel get an array which contains the input results. So different channel channels get the different array based on our channel input engine. And also there are a lot of decision results represented by the output channel, we need transform that to the execute information by our channel output engine and send them to agent.
Logic Presets
There are many presets for building decisions or filling channels, after you familiar with all the concepts, you can use these preset accelerate the brain construction process. Channel Presets Automatically fill the channel contents
Channel presets
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Decision Presets Automatically create decision will logic inside.
Logic decision presets
Interactive with Agent

Some channels can return result based on other agents, let the agent can feel others. They are sound and vision Sound Sound channel is useful and effective ways for knowing the agent nearby and usually used to apply agents collision avoidance. Each of agents has an intrinsic sound range attribute and a sound frequency attribute. Selecting any agent, you may notice it is located channel box:
Sound attributes
Each of the agents has a sound itself. Like this:
The sound range for agent
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Sound channel have some auxiliary option, like sound.x, sound.y, sound.d, etc. No matter what channel you are using, before calculating, sound channel will firstly find the agents in its range, then only calculate result based the in-range agents. Like the picture shown blow, the Y agent can only feel B and C for sound testing, whereas the X will let agent C and A for testing. The agent Y cannot feel agent A and X, and the agent X cannot feel agent B and Y And actually the sound range is a 3D range, means it can feel the agent in top and button of it.
Select the agents in sound range firstly
Note: Theres a concept call subjective and objective, like the picture shown above, when we testing agent Y, the Agent Y is subjective agent, we call it current agent, and this time Agent A, B, C and X are objective agents, we call them others agents. The engine will iterate calculate every agent in scene, and each one of them have one chance being the current agent After getting the agents in the sound range of current agent, it will test them by specific channel and return values. The sound.x will return the degree relative to the current agent. Look at the picture below, The sound.x will return 45 for agent A, -135 for agent B. As for agent C, because the C agent is not in range of agent, so, there is no return. The final result will be an array which contents are [45, -135]. Using this array, we can combine the input type and fuzzy range, we can calculate out the sentence active. Also see the picture below, for example, we are testing is there any agent in my left front, and the fuzzy range is 0 to 90, with a fuzzy value (the red gradient color). The results are [45, -135], So the 45 make the sentence fully active 1.0, and the -135 make the sentence active 0.0, if we using input type: Max, we need find the maximum sentence active. Conclusion, the sentence active will be 1.0 If we are using input type: Average, we will take both sentence active 1.0 and 0.0 and average them, so the sentence active will be 0.5 133 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual The sound.x is testing others agents in horizontal space whereas the the sound.y is testing others agents in vertical space
sound.x channel example for current agent
Take a look at the following picture, the sound.ox channel tests the in-range agents orientation. The agent A, angle is , should be -60 degree; for agent B, the angle is = -160, in this example, the input results contents are [-60, 160] The sound.ox is testing agents in horizontal space whereas the the sound.oy is testing agents in vertical space
sound.ox channel example for current agent
sound.d channel will return the every distances between the current agent and the others agents in sound range. For the following example, only the agent A, B, C can join calculation. Assuming that the sound range of current agent if 25, the input results should be [d1, d2, d3], approximate [18, 16, 23]
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sound.d channel example for current agent
sound.f channel will return the each frequency of agent in current agent sound range. For the following example, the current agent can feel A and B, if the frequency of A is 3, the frequency of B is 5, the input results should be [3, 5]
sound.f channel example for current agent
You may notice, with sound channel, we can easily get the information from nearby agents and response, so its usually can use to aiming target, of avoid close agent.
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Vision Vision channel is useful ways for finding identify far agent. Any agents in current agent vision range can be seen. Each of Miarmy agents has 2 intrinsic vision ranges attribute and a color attribute. Selecting any agent, you may notice it is located channel box.
Vision attributes
Each of the agents has a vision itself. Like this, notice the green frustum, it is the vision range of selected agent
Vision range frustum
You can define these attribute in agent group node, see Part 3 Agent Infrastructure
The same as sound, vision channel also have some auxiliary option, like vision.x, vision.y, vision.h, etc. No matter what channel you are using, before calculating, vision channel will firstly find the agents in its range, and then only calculate result based the in-range agents. Like the picture shown blow, the current agent cannot see agent B, C and D, but cannot see Agent A and E And actually the vision range is a 3D range as well as sound, means it can feel the agent in top and button of it.
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Select agents in vision range firstly
After getting the agents in the vision range current agent, it will test them by specific channel and return values. The vision.x will return the degree relative to the current agent. Look at the picture below, The vision.x will return degree for agent A, degree for agent B, and degree for agent C. As for agent D and E, because they are not in vision range of agent, so, there is no return. The final result will be an array which contents are [, , ]. As shown by following picture, the result approximate is [30, 15, 35]. The vision.x is testing others agents in horizontal space whereas the the vision.y is testing others agents in vertical space
vision.x channel example for current agent
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual vision.z channel will return the every distances between the current agent and the others agents in vision range. For the following example, only the agent A, B, C can join calculation. Take a look at the example picture below, the input results should be [d1, d2, d3]
vision.z channel example for current agent
vision.h (hue) channel will return the each color of agent in current agent vision range. For the following example, the current agent can see A, B and C, if the color of A is 0, the color of B is 2, the color of C is 3, the input results should be [0, 2, 3]
vision.h channel example for current agent
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual You may notice, with vision channel, we can easily get the information from far and in-front agents and response, so its usually can use to identifying and chasing target.
Agent Exclusion Feature Sound channel and vision channel has agent exclusion feature among sentence calculate, this feature can make sure the channel get more precise and natural results. Additionally, this feature is automatically enabled, and user cannot disable it. Usually we need use not only one type of channel for interactive the others agents. For example, sometimes we need test is there someone in my left and near. (So that we can turn right and slow down) As far as we know, we can use sound.x channel to test is there someone in my left, and use sound.d channel to test is there someone nearby, then naturally use AND operator to get the intersection agents. Just like this:
Someone in my left and near
At this time, the agent exclusion feature will be automatically enabled. Please take look at the pictures below, the agents are gradually excluded by the filter and never join the calculation again for the other sentences in the same decision node, and we will finally get the accurate agent meet condition.
From left to right, the exclusion filters respectively are sound range, sound.x and sound.d
Suppose that we didnt have Agent Exclusion Feature and take a look at the following example, the node will get the wrong result (wrong node active)!! Please notice the following second picture, green dot mean there is an agent make sound.x channel test active 1.0 and notice the third picture, green dots mean there are 2 agents 139 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual make sound.d channel active 1.0. Finally, sentence A and B will both active 1.0, the A && B logic expression makes this node active 1.0. The system would mistake there is someone in my left and near. But unfortunately, in fact, there is no agent in the GREEN Zone in third picture! That is means that, actually there is no agent in my left and near. So, without agent exclusion feature, the channel will not very accurate.
Situation without agent exclusion feature
The vision channel also has agent exclusion feature enable. Therefore, between each sound and vision channel, we only need && (and operator). And also we need avoid sound and vision channels are filled in the same decision node, because the sound and vision channels have independent exclusive agent engine. All of them happened automatically and the user will not notice it.
Dynamically Decrease Intelligence Mechanism (DDIM 1.0) In some situation, for optimizing and speeding up of simulation, we need disable some feeling for some agents. And block the others agents feel them. sound.mute (output channel) If this channel is executed, the current agent will disable the sound and also cannot be hear by others agents. vision.mute (output channel) If this channel is executed, the current agent will disable the vision and also cannot be seen by others agents. There is an example we explained more about this in Part 9: Optimization - Lower the Intelligence
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Interactive with Environment

One can create many Miarmy perception contents in scene and organize them to environment. Some channels can return results based on environment, let the agent can feel the contents of the scene and interactive with them, like follow a road, avoid stuff and so on.
Ground Ground channels let agents are able to feel terrains and interactive with them, adapt the shape of terrain, such like follow the height and align the orientation. For making the agents are able to feel terrains, we need mark that piece of plane mesh terrain in Miarmy Terrain Manager. (We highly recommend that you simplify the mesh before marking it terrain) And once a piece of geometry marked terrain, there is a McdTerrainNode connect to this mesh. This node will record some attributes of terrain for physical simulation usage. So you dont need do anything on this node.
Terrain manager and mark terrain
Once marked terrain for a mesh plane, agent will find them when apply ground channels.
Above and beneath the terrain plane mesh
The ground channels will first find the closest terrain and return only one result to input results. Shown as the following picture, in this moment, the agent A can only feel and interactive with terrain 1 and the agent B can only feel and interactive with terrain 2
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Agents are able to feel the closest terrain in scene
The ground channel will return the height underneath the feet of agent. For example and take a look at the following picture, the ground channel will return 3 for first agent, 0 for second agent, minus 4 for third agent and 2 for last agent.
The ground channel example for agents
The ground.dz will return the angle between the Z-axis of agent and the terrain plane of that agent place, for example the following picture, the first agent will return = 35 because the ground in-front is higher, and the second agent will return = -40 because the ground in-front is lower, whereas the third agent will return 0 because the ground in-front is align to Z-axis of current agent.
The ground.dz channel example for agents
The ground.dx channel is very familiar with ground.dz channel, nothing special but testing the X-axis. In following picture, the first agent will return = 40 because the right terrain is higher, and the second agent will 142 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual return = -35 because the left terrain is higher. The third agent will return 0 because the x-axis of agent is align to the terrain
The ground.dx channel example for agents
Once we get the relationship between the agents and terrain, we can move the agents up and down, rotate them forward or backward, and left or right for adapting the terrain
Using with ground, ground.dx and ground.dz, we can align our agent seamless to terrain
Note: the agents can read the information from deforming terrain, but it may not accurate when the deformation is big, because there is a Maya Bug. For avoiding the bug, we just need simply create a geometry cache for that terrain and remove the deformers.
Bound Bound is a kind of perception contents, which can be cubic and spherical shapes in this version of Miarmy and you can key frame it for triggering some event easily, such as triggering a group of agent start to run. (Bound can be any shapes in next version) You can create bound in Miarmy > Perception Contents > Create Bound, and each bound has 2 bound related attributes Bound channels let agents are able to feel bound and test whether in or out side of bound. Its the simplest channel but very useful. 143 2011-2013 Basefount
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(left:) Bound attributes (right:) Spherical and cubic bound
The bound.in channel will return 1 when the agent inside of it while 0 when the agent outside of it. Suppose there are 3 bounds in scene and 5 agents located in different places, so the inputs result will be: return 1 for agent A, C, E return 0 for agent B, D
Bound channel example
Indexing Technique Some perception contents support indexing. The perception contents which can be indexed are: Bound Zone Road Wind
On each one of these perception contents, there usually is an attribute XXX ID, such as Bound ID or Road ID. The channel name can be modified to such as bound[2].in, road[0].x or zone[15].d. If the channel name have ID, it can only percept and interact with the perception contents with the same ID, for example, road[3].ox can only fetch results from the road which Road ID is 3. For example, bound is one kind of them. Please notice there is a Bound ID attribute on each bound.
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Bound ID attribute can be any positive value (including 0)
We can simplify use bound[0].in to test whether current agent in bound which Bound ID is 0. So modified from the previous bound example, the results will be: Return 1 for agent A, because only A is inside of bound which ID is 0 Return 0 for agent B, C, D and E
Bound channel with indexing techniques
Zone Zone is a kind of perception contents created from a little piece of mesh, usually not complex one. And similar like terrain, once a piece of geometry been marked zone, there is a McdZoneNode connect to this mesh. This node will record the Zone ID attribute for this zone.
(left:) any piece of simple mesh can be marked zone (right:) Zone ID attribute on zone
Zone channels let agents are able to feel a geometry zone plane with arbitrary shapes, and return the relationship to the zone. In fact the return results are based on the closest point on zone. So any zone channels will firstly find the closest points from zone, and any calculation is based on these points. The red dot on the edge of zone as shown below:
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Find the closest point, (left) 2D space, (right) 3D space
The zone.x channel will return the degrees between the agents Z-axis and the line from agent to the zones, in horizontal space. Look at the following picture below, the red dots are closest points and the angle and will be the retuned input results, approximate = 80 and the = -140, input results [80, -140] The zone.x is testing zones in horizontal space whereas the the zone.y is testing zones in vertical space
zone.x channel example
The zone.d (zone.d2d) channel will return the distances from agent to zones in XZ plane. Please take a look at the following 2 examples. The first is in the top view, and the agent and 2 zones are all in XZ plane. After agent finding the closest points on plane, zone.d channel will return in distances in XZ plane, the input result will be [d1, d2].
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Example of zone.d or zone.d2d channel in top view
The second example shown this in 3d perspective view, please notice although the agent is in top of left zone but it is in side of it, the distance in XZ plane is actually 0. And the distance from the right zone should be mapped to the XZ plane d2 instead of those grey lines.
Another example of zone.d or zone.d2d channel in perspective view
The zone.d3d channel will return distances in 3d space. Shown as the following picture, (please distinguish this to our previous zone.d2d example) we directly get the results from agent to the closest points of the zone. They are green lines in the following picture, without mapping them to XZ plane. The input results will be [d1, d2]
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zone.d3d channel example in perspective view
The zone.in channel can test whether current agent in the zone area in XZ plane and return 1 if the agent inside of it. Like the picture shown below, the agent A, B, and C is inside the zone area in XZ plane and will return 1 for zone.in channel. For agent D, zone.in channel will return 0 due to that it is not inside of any zone area. If you using zone[2].in for testing them, the agent B and C will return 1 and agent A and D will return 0.
zone.in channel example with/without zone ID, in Top View
The zone.hi can test the heights from agent to the zones. Firstly we get the vectors from agent to the zones, and map those vectors to the Y-axis, like the green lines shown in the following picture, the channel input results should be [h1, h2]
zone.hi channel example in perspective view
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Repel/Forbidden Zone What is Repel Zone There is an interesting extra attribute on Zone object, it is auto repel distance, when this value set greater than 0.1, it can repel agent out from zone without any logic trigger, this is useful when the agents want to get around this zone. Usage All the things are automatically without any logic and But please notice, if the agent already inside, it cannot push out them
Repel zone distance example, the agents already in there will not been pushed out
We recommend combine the obstacles meshes to a single mesh (and delete the history), can accelerate the simulation speed tremendously.
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A more complex example
Spot Spot is another perception content of Miarmy. Its actually a point in 3d space. With spot channels, agents can test distances and directions with the spots and interactive with them, such like follow a spot, or trigger some behaviors near a spot. Additionally, spot support indexing.
(Left:) spots in scene, (right:) spot attributes
Note: you may notice there are some extra attributes on each spot, they are actually belongs to build-in force field, we designed spot with a build-in force field combo due to that in many case we need them both working together. We will talk about this later in Part 7: Physical Simulation build-in force field
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You can create spot in Miarmy > Perception Contents > Create spot, and each spot has 1 spot related attribute. The spot.x channel will return the angle between the Z-axis of agent and the line of agent to the spots (angle between black line and green lines, shown as below). In the following example, the spot.x channel will return degree for spot A, degree for spot B and degree for spot C, so the input results should be *, , +, approximate [45, 130, -70] The spot.x test spots in horizontal space whereas the spot.y channel test spots in vertical space
spot.x channel example
The spot.d channel will return distances between the agent and the spot in 3d space, like the following picture, the spot.d channel will return the input results [d1, d2, d3] from current agent.
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spot.d channel example Road Road is a main perception content of Miarmy. Its actually a point in 3d space. With spot channels, agents can test distances and directions with the spots and interactive with them, such like follow a spot, or trigger some behaviors near a spot. For creating road, just select any curve, and click:
Creating road from curve
Road under the hood Assets Once we create a road, there are 3 kinds of asset been created, they need working together for displaying the road and interacting with agents. Please manage them well and dont delete any one of it, or your road would not working properly. 152 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual 1. Road control curve 2. Road mapping curve 3. Road node Take a look at the following pictues, in the left picture, the selected curve on top of road is the control curve and the blue-arrows-formed road on the ground is the road node. In the right picture, the selected curve on the ground is the mapping curve which is a mapped curve from control curve. It always been set as Intermediate Object (know more about Intermediate Object, please Google Maya intermediate object).
Control curve and mapping curve, the blue flow arrows are road node
Management by Parenting For parenting road to others node ,you just need parent the control curve to other node. For example, you need parent your road from Perception_Set to group1, you just need select curve1 and parent curve1 to the group1, then the rest suff will be automatically moved to group1.
Parenting road process from Perception_Set to group1, only operate on curve1 (the control curve)
Road Visualization by Control Curve Points Arrange well the points on control curve can lead better visualization of the curve, just like the pictures below.
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(left:) A well arranged control curve (right:) a non-well arranged control curve
But please dont add or delete points on control curve, because in fact the control curve is controlling the mapping curve all the time. The road will not working if you add/delete the topology of the control curve.
Road Precision by Control Curve Points The precision of road is determined by the complexity of control curve (before creating)
Usually, a more precise road only can lead better visual result, but the calculation is slower, we not recommend you do that.
Attach Road to Terrain Road can be attached to terrain. Select the control curve and terrain mesh, and click Miarmy > Knowledge Perception > Attach Road to Terrain, your road will be attached to terrain.
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Road has been attached to terrain
Road Mode Road can be 2 modes: flow mode and road mode. Using flow mode, you can roughly constrain a group of agents follow a flow and make them convergence or separate by flow edge direction. Using road mode, you can precisely constrain you agents in road even a portion of road.
Flow mode:
Flow Mode: turn on flow and turn off road
Road mode:
Road Mode: Turn on road and turn off flow
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Usually, you can switch mode by menu item:
Switch road mode in menu item
Note: There would be an update problem here. Sometimes, after switching mode, the road would disappear, like this (picture below, left). You can simply move the control curve little bit, it would be ok. (Right picture)
Flow Mode Attributes Please notice, flow mode is not support indexing techniques,
Flow mode attributes
Flow Width Attribute:
The narrow and wide flows, controlled by flowWidth attribute
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The outward and inward flows, controlled by flowOrient attribute
Flow Edge Attribute:
(left:) 1.0 (100%) edge ratio (right:) 0.3 (30%) edge ratio
Flow Len Attribute:
The long and short arrows length of the flows, controlled by flowLen attribute
When the agent is in flow, it can feel it automatically.
Road Mode Attributes Road mode can use indexing techniques.
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Road mode attributes
Road Width Attribute:
Narrow or wide roads, controlled by roadWidth attribute
Road for perception Road Orientation No matter road or flow mode of the road, the relationship of road orientation and agent orientation is the same, just as the picture shown below. If the road direction pointing to the agents left, the return value should be positive, if the road direction pointing to the right of agent, the return value should be the negative.
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The relationship of road orientation and agent orientation (both road and flow mode, the same)
Road Channels Different mode should use different channel, or they will not work. If you are using flow mode, there is only one channel called road.flow available. If you are using road mode, you can use road.x and road.ox channels.
Firstly, if the agent isnt on the flow, the channel will return blank. For the agents on the road, the channel will return the angle between the agent Z-axis and the flow direction. Take a look as the following picture, the red arrows are the flow direction, and the blue arrow are the agent Zaxis. For agent D, the channel road.flow will return blank, for agent A, B and C, the channel will return = -70, = 30 and = 25.
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road.flow channel example, red: flow direction, blue: agent z axis
The road.x channel will return the position of agent on the road, the middle of the road is 0, and the left and right side of the road are 1.0 and -1.0. In the following example, the agent C will return blank because its outside of the road, the agent A, B and C will return -0.4, 0.2 and 0.5 respectively.
road.x channel example
The road.ox channel will return the angle between the agent Z-axis and the road direction, the red arrow is the road direction and the blue arrows are the agent Z-axis. For the agent C, the channel will return blank, and for the agent A, B and D, it will return = 35, = 0 and = -70 respectively.
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road.ox channel example, similar with the road.flow
Maya Field Agents can feel Maya field directly without any additional setup.
Red arrows are the directions of field and the blue arrow is the Z-axis of agent
Similar the road.ox, the field.ox channel will return the angle between agent Z-axis and the field direction of agent position in horizontal space. In the following example, the channel will return result = 25, = -65 and = -110 respectively, for agent A, B and C.
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Arbitrary Maya field and field.ox channel example
The field.ox is dealing with horizontal space whereas the field.oy is dealing with the vertical space The field.a channel can return the Maya field amplitude from the agent position.
Composition of Forces The force field related channels, like the Maya field, fluid, and the wind, are not support indexing techniques. But they support composition of forces. Imagine that there are several fields in scene. At this time, channels like the field.ox will NOT return an array contain each result from each field. Instead, it will return only one result based on the composition of force field. Like the following example, the 3 red vectors are the initial forces from 3 fields. The orange vector is the composition force of f1 and f2, and the Green vector is the final composition force vector from f1, f2 and f3. Channel field.ox will return angle between the blue vector (Z-axis of agent) and the green vector (Force Composition), which is angle .
Composition of forces f1, f2, f3 => F1+2+3
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Maya Fluid The fluid channels are totally the same as the of Maya field channels, because in fact, fluid is somewhat like the field, we can read field information from fluid, like the direction and the amplitude. So the fluid channels including, please refer the field perception contents. fluid.ox fluid.oy fluid.a
Formation Control Formation control feature is able to make agent feel and perform based on the formation target points. The points in a mesh or lattice can be set as the targets points of formation. Formation Object & Formation Node To use the formation feature, we need firstly flag a formation target object. It can be a mesh or lattice. Select one mesh (or lattice), and click Miarmy > Knowledge Perception > Mark Formation Flag to make the object to a formation object.
Make a mesh to formation object
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Make a lattice to formation object
At this time, you can see that digital number in each point shows that this object has been marked as formation target object. The Node control this digital number display is the formation node. The mesh shape connects into this node, like the picture below:
Formation node, mesh connect to formation node
And some attributes can control the digital number display of formation node
Formation node attributes
Formation Placement Then we can place agent from the formation object, Miarmy > Placement > Create Placement Node From > Mesh (or Lattice)
Create placement node from lattice or mesh
Place notice the created placement node must connect with the same formation control node from mesh or lattice. (This process will be done by system automatically)
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Formation node connect both target object and placement node
IMPORTANT: Mesh > formation node > place node
Once everything has been setup ok, the agents been placed from the placement node will store the information of formation object and the target ID of that point. Each agent stores info in memory. Formation object Point ID in formation object
So each agent has a formation target point, and this point is unique one. In each frame and when the channel call, the agent can find where the target point is and what the relationship with it. Formation Channels Since each agent has a Formation Target Point, we can use logic channel read it and get the direction and distance from it. The name Formation Target Point is too long, so we abbreviate this name to ftp ftp.x channel Similar like sound.x channel, it can return the horizontal degree relative to the agent, if the target point is in agents left, return 0 ~ 180, otherwise on the right, return -180 ~ 0. The example of following picture: if the target point is at A, the return value will be 50. And if the target point is at B position, the return value will be 120.
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The ftp.x channel example
ftp.y channel Similar like ftp.y channel, just in vertical space, especially useful control the formation of birds with lattice type of formation object.
ftp.d channel Similar like sound.d channel, it can return the distance from agent to target point. For example below, If the target point is in position of A, it will return 1 If the target point is in position of B, it will return 0.3 If the target point is in position of C, it will return 1.2
ftp.d example
With the formation control channel, you can easy let the agent follow its target point, and keep the formation changing based on the target mesh/lattice changing.
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Delay Effect Due to the agents are following the target points, the agent usually slower than the target object and follow that. For getting the best result, when were deforming/animating the target object, wed better make it a little bit faster than agent moving but not too much. If the target object is deformed slower than the agent moving, it will make the agents backward. If the target object is deformed too fast, it will destroy the formation shape. So, the best way is make the target object move a little bit faster than agents but not too fast. Just like the following picture. The deforming object is some bit ahead of birds.
Delay Effect
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Multiple Formation Target Objects If you have many formation target objects, please setup them one by one separately. That is means we need mark formation and generate placement node for each of formation object. The usage of formation channels is the same.
Multiple formation objects driving agents
HP & MP HP (hit point) and MP (mana point) are 2 custom variables for arbitrary usage, usually be used to simulate the energy of agent. Each one of agent has some initial HP and MP value after first creating. This value is store in memory and only can be modified by the related channels. You can set the initial HP and MP in McdAgentGroup node and randomize them when initializing. 168 2011-2013 Basefount
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The McdAgentGroup node and the attributes on it
The hp channel for input, it will return the current value of HP inside the agent memory. The hp and hp.set channel for output, it will set the value of HP to the specific value. In most of the cases, we are not use using hp channel like that. Usually, we firstly setup the hp channel in default decision node, make the output type change rate. At this time, the hp for output channel will not set HP value, instead of that, it will change the HP value per second. For example, when the agents are walking on the radiation zone (zone[1].in channel greater than 1), the HP will drop some points(5 points) per-second. And if you want to reset the HP value in agent memory, you need use hp.set channel because at this time the hp channel is in change rate mode, you cannot reset hp value directly by hp channel.
Setup output type to change rate
Agent hp will drop at speed of 5points/second if it in the zone which index is 1
Reset agent hp to 100 if the agent in bound
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The MP and the mp channels are totally the same as HP and hp channels
Lean Lean channel will return the relationship between the agent and the 0 transformation space, using lean channels, you can test is agent tilt up/down or roll left/right Mathematically, it will return the Y component of the X, Y or Z unit axis. Its one of the simplest channels. The unit axis only have length 1, so the result will be [-1,1] lean.x: negative means roll left, positive means roll right lean.z: negative means head down, positive means tilt up lean.y: (not usually use) negative means agent flip down, positive means agent in positive side
Example of lean.z
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Example of lean.x and lean.y
This can be used to control bird flying, if tilt up, flip faster the wings, if head down, stop flip
(Left) flying up, wing flapping, (right) head down, stop flapping
Parent channel, transform space Since version 1.5, Agent can be parent to others transformation space when simulation, and t Sometimes we want to achieve agents walk on vehicle, and when the vehicle move away, the vehicle will take away the agents and the agents will move along with them.
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The agents are in world space We make that plane a zone, and when the agents are on that plane, it will perform parent channel:
Parent channel
After parenting, the agents will go to the pPlane1
And when we click the rest, the agent will come out to original transformation space.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Note: when placement, the agent will record the current parent node to its memory and will return to its parent when we reset the start frame Parent Channels: parent:xxx parent current agent to object which name is xxx parent:0 parent to world space
Notice, the parent object cannot contain scale value!!
Some Transform Channels tx, ty, tz, rx, ry, rz can be filled in input channels now and it will return the value of current tx, ty, tz, tx, ty, tz respectively from defuzzed output channels. For example, this can be used to control bird flying. When the birds is turning, the ry channel will be reflect the birds behavior, we can put ry in input channel, make them lean to left when turning left and lean to right when turning to right.
(Left) turning right (right) turning left
Scene Info The channel frame will return the current frame number. The channel goFrame will return the frame number since beginning of simulation start.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Randomize The noise channels will return a random number from 0 to 1 based on different conditions. You can easily combine this value with fuzzy logic to make your output randomize.
Channels The channel noise.id will return a random number based on agent ID. Each agent has a unique ID in scene once it was placed out. The channel noise.time will return a random number based on current frame number. The value range of the returned random number is from 0 to 1, a float point number.
Usage Example Randomize speed
The bigger activated, the faster the speed, random by agent id
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Random speed
Randomize actions
Random action
Sine Channels Sine is a very simple math tool can return value between 0 and 1 and also its a periodic value. sin(x * frequency), the x is hidden and its the second unit
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Channel with all suffix: control all, means all agents have same phase, all the agents will get the same value, also have same period sin_all() sin_all(<frequency>) for example sin_all(2)
Channel with agents suffix: randomize phase on each agents, different agent will get the different value due to the randomized phase. But all of them have the same period sin_agent() sin_agent(<frequency>) for example sin_agent(1.5)
Note, the higher frequency the faster change the value
Timer Channels We can use timer channels to return a value between 0 and 1 from time to time, There are some parameters we can specify into the timer channels: Seed: assign it for different timer can get different phase results Freq: make the timer playback faster or slower than others There is a sub channel: .bf: this make the timer result back and forth instead of finish and return There are some channels we have _agent extension: _agent: make another seed for different agents. Examples: timer
Example timer channel in sequential 6 time points
timer(seed)
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Example timer(1) and timer(2) channels in sequential 6 time points
timer(seed, freq)
Example timer(1,2) and timer(1,0.5) channels in sequential 6 time points
timer.bf The sub channel .bf stands for back and forth, it will backward playback the timer and return the value like ping-pong playback in Maya time slider.
Example timer and timer.bf channels in sequential 6 time points
timer.bf(step) timer.bf(seed, freq)
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Make another seed for different agents
Example only one timer_agent channel for 2 different agents in sequential 6 time points
timer_agent(seed) timer_agent(seed, freq) timer_agent.bf timer_agent.bf(seed, freq) timer_agent.bf(seed,)
Agent Bone & terrain Channels Agent bones can interactive terrain now by bone channel: joint1:ground footL:ground
The return result will be the same as the regular terrain. If the bone is higher than terrain, it will return positive value If the bone is lower than the terrain, it will return negative value
This is useful when the joint is controlled by IK system, because sometimes we need put our feed on the ground if the feet beneath the terrain. And if there is no terrain detected in vertical space, it will use the default 0 plane.
IK Offset Channels IK is the data in action node can modify the result of animation when assigning data from action node to agent. Currently, we support only IK offset channels from the bone name, such as: 178 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual footL.ik:yOffset For more details about IK, please the IK session in Animation Part
MEL/Python source in Logic Channels We can fill a mel/python command in input or output of Miarmy Channel, this can make your Maya scene interactive with your agents or your agents trigger Maya do something! This can expanding our works to another level The format will be: maya.mel:<mel command or mel proc name> maya.python:<python command or python function>
We highly recommend you just use a predefined procedure or functions For example: maya.mel:getAttr pSphere1.ty; maya.mel:onemelproc; maya.python:onepycommand()
A MEL command in input (complete command)
Note: the return value of this command should be ONE float value, or otherwise, it will not work properly. This also can be output, for example something happened we execute a mel/python command.
Python command in output (predefined function)
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Simulation Space
World Transformation for physical simulation If our agent enable dynamics, no matter where the agents and how the structure like, the agent will enable ragdoll in world transformation space. Including the kinematic primitives, terrains, all of them will join the world space calculation.
Local Transformation for non-physical simulation Except physical simulation, in most case and more interesting, we are dealing with the agent which driven by logic and decisions. As our design, all of the Miarmy agents (not enable dynamics) and perception contents are calculated in local transformation. Our engine will fetch the data such as the rotate of agent, the position of spot, all from their local transformation. So you can easily parent you agents to different transform nodes such as locator nodes make engine calculate them separately. With this feature, you can easily simulate different groups of agent on different moving objects like some battleships.
Simulation in different transformation space
But only using the simple transform node is not enough at all, because the agents in a transform node can feel the agents in others transform node. This may cause the calculation error. Take a look at the following example, we were going to make them moving in different space and not affect each other. However, their local positions are the same. When the engine calculating, the agent A can feel agent B and try to avoid it, also the agent B will avoid agent A.
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Same local positions in different transform nodes
For entirely avoiding agents in one space feel the agents in another space, you can group them to Solver Space Node.
Solver Space Node Technically, the solver space node is the same as locator (without shape node), also a kind of transform node. But our engine can recognize it and calculate the agents and contents inside of it independently. For creating solver space node, you just need simply click Miarmy > Knowledge Perceptions > Create Solver Space.
(Left:) the solver space node, (right:) solver space attribute flag
Once you putting the agents and perception contents inside of solver space node, they will work independently in local transform space. The agents in a solver space node will not feel the agents or perception contents in the others solver space nodes. If you want to parent you agents to a solver space, please parent the place node to the solver space or using inverse place for recording parents name.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The solver space hierarchy The contents in solver space can be parented to any other nodes inside of this solver space node, just make sure the root of them is this solver space. Shown as the following picture, McdSpace1 is a solver space node, you can put different perception contents in different groups in McdSpace1, some spots in null1, and some roads in null2. Our engine can recursively find out the solver space node.
Arbitrary hierarchy under Solver Space node
Join World Attribute There is a special joinWorld attribute on each of solver space. Once you enable this attribute, the engine will take the world transformations of agents in this solver space node instead of normal local transformation. And the agents in this solver space can feel others agents and perception contents in the others solver space nodes which joinWorld attribute been also enabled. Calculate just like they are in world space, but they are actually also the child of each solver space node.
Output Behavior Channels

Transform Speed tx: move some units per second in the x-axis of the agent object tx: move some units per second in the y-axis of the agent object tx: move some units per second in the z-axis of the agent object tx: rotate some degrees per second by the x-axis of the agent object tx: rotate some degrees per second by the y-axis of the agent object tx: rotate some degrees per second by the z-axis of the agent object
Bone Offset <boneName>:tx add offset units in translate X of the bone whose name is boneName <boneName>:ty add offset units in translate Y of the bone whose name is boneName <boneName>:tz add offset units in translate Z of the bone whose name is boneName <boneName>:rx add offset degrees in rotate X of the bone whose name is boneName <boneName>:ry add offset degrees in rotate Y of the bone whose name is boneName 182 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual <boneName>:rz add offset degrees in rotate Z of the bone whose name is boneName
Sound The sound has two channels can be output, they are sound.f and sound.a. By default the frequency and range of sound are the values from McdAgentGroup node. However, you can use the sound output channels to modify them.
(Left :) the McdAgentGroup node; (right :) The default sound Frequency and range on node
Note: if the sound range is 0, means the sound range will take the value calculated from bounding box, see Part 4 Agent Infrastructure Original Agent The channel sound.f in output channel can modify the sound frequency of the agent, whereas the channel sound.a in output channel can modify the sound range.
Vision There is no vision channel for output directly, but there is a color channel can modify the result of vision received.
(Left :) the McdAgentGroup node; (right :) setup the color for this type of agent
The channel color in output channel can modify the color of agent, and change the vision.h results. If the color result is -1 in output, the agent cannot been seen by any other agents.
Aim Constrain We provide a turn-key aiming feature for the bones of agent, which can drive your agent bone aim to target. There are some subtle features of it. 183 2011-2013 Basefount
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Aim channels Preparation for Bone Axis Before generating the original agent, we need setup our rig. If we want to one of the bone aim to target, we need firstly make sure the aiming axis and up vector. In the following pictures show, before generating original agent, please make sure the X (or Z) axis is the aim axis and the Y axis is the up vector. (Note: the other orient scheme is not support for current version of Miarmy)
The X (or Z) should be aim axis and the Y should be up vector
Aim Channel Features Aim Channels The channel conventions of aiming: <Bone Name>:aim<axis><space>-><Target object> <Bone Name>:aim<axis><space>(<percentage>)-><Target object>
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The <Bone Name> should be the segment bone name from agent memory. You can check the real name in agent memory by Miarmy > Agent Viewer The <axis> should be the axis of bone which you want to it aim to target The up vector should be always Y axis (for this current version of plugin) The <Target Object> name should be the unique name in Maya Scene. The dag nodes with the same name in different hierarchy many cause problems.
For example: eyeL:aimX3d->pSphere1 head:aimZ2d->pSphere1
Once the channel is activated, the bone which you specified will turn and aim to the target with a rotation speed gradually. This speed is determined by channel result which range is 0 to 1. Note: the aim turning process is interpolated by Quaternion, so there is no Gimbal Lock.
Gradual Aim Once the bone wants to aim to target, it will aim to target gradually rather than pointing to target directly. Like the following picture, from default pose, the bone point to the target object gradually, and the speed is depending on the output value. 0 make the bone still, 1 make the bone instant point, the value between 0 and 1 (such as 0.4) make the bone point to target 40% each frame.
Gradually aim to target from default to aim pose
Percentage Aim We can specify percentage in aim channel to make the bone aim to right direction but not fully aim to target. For example, we can specify a 60% aim channel like this, eyeL:aimX3d(60)->pSphere1, you may notice the bone will approach to the 100% aim pose but not fully aim to target. Finally, it will stand the pose which performs 60% aim direction between the default pose and 100% aim pose. 185 2011-2013 Basefount
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60% aiming make non-full aim result
Self-restitution Once the sentence is not true (the default output value of each aim channel is -0.2) or the channel result is negative, the bone will restitute to the default pose gradually and automatically.
Returns back to default pose automatically
Aim Space Aim space is simple. In some case, we just want to the bone aim to target in horizontal space, such as our neck. Our head can rotate to any directions but our neck can only rotate in some degree in Y axis:
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Use 3d for the head whereas 2d for the neck
Hierarchical Aim Mechanism This process is entire automatically, and here we just explained what is happen under the hood. When you have multiple bones in the same hierarchy want to aim to the same (or different) target, the order of aim bone may cause problem. Imagine that your hand and arm want to point to the some targets. If your hand point to the target firstly, and then you rotate your arm secondly, after your arm aligning to its target, maybe the previously done hand will not point to right direction. With Miarmy hierarchical aim mechanism, we firstly collect all aim tasks and then execute them hierarchically. For example in the arm tree, its definitely arm will aim to target before the hand performing aim.
Multi Targets Choose Rather than Maya traditional aim constrain, we can make the agent bone to aim arbitrary number of targets, just using simple sentence active: Lets take a look at the following example directly. We want to our agents aim to right sphere when they are in blue bound whereas aim to left sphere when they are in red bound. Just using the bound channels and the indexing technique, we can easily achieve that. head:aimZ2d->pSphere2 (active in red bounding box) head:aimZ2d->pSphere1 (active in blue bounding box)
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2 different targets can be triggered aim by different conditions
The bone will always aim to the target which makes the output the most activated.
Arbitrary Aim Axis and Up Vector Aim channel now extend to arbitrary axis and up vector, The old version before 1.5, we only support Y for default up vector and the aim axis should be X or Z: Aiming: X, upvector Y (default) Aiming: Z, upveotr Y (default)
The previous version no need specify up vector. The up vector is default and must be Y axis. <Bone Name>:aim<axis><space>-><Target object> <Bone Name>:aim<axis><space>(<percentage>)-><Target object>
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual <Bone Name>:aim<axis><upVector><space>-><Target object> <Bone Name>:aim<axis><upVector><space>(<percentage>)-><Target object>
For example the following picture, we need specif the z axis aimming axis and the x up vector, so we need fill the channel head:aimZX->pSphere1 or head:aimZX(60)->pSphere1
Z: aim, X: up vector (not work in previous version before 1.5)
Of causer, if you use the default one without up vector, it still work but use Y for default up vector, it will not change the previously setup. aimX (x for aimming, Y for up vector) aimZ (z for aiming and Y for up vector)
Action We will talk action related channels in details in Part 6 Action
Ragdoll We will talk this in details later, see Part 7 Physical Simulation
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Traffic System What is Traffic System? Miarmy Traffic system tools provide the tool can automatically setup many complex logic and perception stuffs in the crossroad. With traffic tools, we can build many crossroads and link them together by roads and form an interesting system.
Traffic system, crossroads & roads
Features of Traffic crossroad In this version, our traffic system can only control the cars. We made a crossroad node to provide enough information to control the car characters.
A crossroad node
Sockets Type You can choose either 3 or 4 sockets for each crossroad. With the socket type attribute T-Cross or X-Cross.
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Socket type attributes
Left T-Cross and right X-Cross
Socket Angles Each socket can be set for different angle for many non-standard crossroads. By each socket independent attribute.
Socket attributes
The right side crossroad has 2 non-0 angles
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Entry and Exit The ports with color are the entries whereas the blank with a white short-line is the exit
The colorful is 3 entries into the crossroad, where as the
Traffic Lights: The port with green color is stand for this port is green light and let car to pass. Whereas the port with red color cannot let car to pass
Different light have different pass
That traffic light can be controlled by the attributes:
Traffic light control attributes
Light Change Frame: each a span of time, the light change Light Change Offset: offset the start time counter
Road width The entry and exit can set different width for fitting the different road and scene setup. It controlled by the road width attribute:
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Road width attributes
Left wider and right more narrow Left or Right Convention For different county, people have different traffic convention, so we make the crossroad left right switchable. It controlled by the attribute,
Right Free
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The left entry and right entry of the crossroad
Car Stop & Walk Area The different area can make the different The area between red and blue circle: car will stop in this area if meet red light and also inside this area The area between yellow and red circle: people will walk in this area for cross the road (not available in this version)
The 2 important areas
Traffic Quadrants & Lights Each crossroad has 4 quadrants. And each opposite two quadrants are a pair, each pair are perform the same red/green light change.
4 quadrants in crossroad
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Crossroad Under the hood When simulation, were storing many paths and areas information into the crossroad memory. If one agent contains the traffic fuzzy logic channels, we will firstly test the agent inside or outside the crossroad range. If inside, well give the agent some proper information of the crossroad, like the path, entry id, etc. The information will be stored into agents brain. And the traffic channels will return the correct values based on the crossroad information in agent brain. Once the agent outside the crossroad, the information of crossroad in agent brain will be cleared, then, these traffic channels will be disabled automatically and no any return (false). Next session well talk about the traffic channels.
Traffic Channels and Usages Priority
Future of Traffic System In the future, well expanding the traffic system to people control and flyover control
Watch Logic Results

Brain Viewer Using brain viewer, you can check the agent logic status and easy for debugging your agent brain.
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Brain viewer GUI
Please check out the features demonstration picture below, from brain viewer, you can easily watch the brain logic structure and sentence active status, and their priorities and defuzz behavior results.
Features details in brain viewer
The brain viewer should be watched in Top View. If the display not correct, please crank the near/far clip plane for trying to correcting it.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Feedback in Essential Feedback mechanism is an important feature of Miarmy Engine, when simulation, the engine can always feedback the logic and action status from marked agent. For marking the agent, you need just simply select any one of agents. The latest selected agent will be marked automatically. Our engine will do an extra time of calculation for this agent and feedback the result to Brain Viewer and Transition Map. For blocking the feedback, you need disable feedback feature of Engine in Miarmy >Miarmy Global. Once disable the feedback feature, the simulation will speed up about 20%. So we highly recommend you disable this after debugging agents and populating huge number of agents.
Block the feedback from agent
Simulation Extra Tools

Feet Map Generator We can generate feet map based on some specific bones when they walking on the default plane or terrain. Preparations There must be some preparation have to been done before generating the foot map, For holding the area of foot map, we have to build a polygon plane and naming it to McdFootMapBase, and this map should wrapping all the agents inside, of course this mesh can be scale. Notice, this mesh should be poly plane and the width and height MUST be 1.
Must be poly plane and width/height 1
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The McdFootMapBase Mesh
And also we need put a mesh to the FootMap_<agent name> to the Miarmy contents, if not existed this folder, please click Miarmy > Miarmy Contents Check This mesh should be also the polygon plane and height/width MUST be 1 And of course this map can be scale freely Then assign a Targa(.tga) file to this mesh, The texture can be any texture type, but the foot from should be pointing to down, because when we make the map down side, the default UV will make this towards Z direction
Foot map should point down, make default UV point to Z+
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Assign a .tga map to the map mesh (must be tga)
After assigning the map, scale it to proper size, same as foot just cool!
Setup foot map and put to FootMap_<agent name>
Turn on foot man generation flag on the original agent
Foot Map Generation Then we can generate the foot map, but before that, lets take look at some attributes need be setup, Miarmy > Miarmy Tools
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Foot map attribute
Foot map folder: Where the foot maps put in Foot map Name: what name is the foot map Foot map resolution: X/Y pixel unit of the foot map Foot map lifespan(frame unit): how much we need inherit previous frame (we will talk about this later) Foot map height threshold: when the foot less than this value it will generate foot (distance to terrain or default plane ground)
If the threshold set to 2 and the height greater than 2, it will not generate foot print
The red part greater than 2, will not generate foot print
Lets talk about the foot print lifetime. When we generate the footMap(N), we will based on the lifespan and use the footMap(N-1)s data to fade some foot map. That is means, once we setup the the lifespan greater than 1, it will take the previous frame to generate current frame, it will fade out instead of disappear immediately. If you fill 1: 50% will read from previous frame If you fill 2: 67% will read from previous frame If you fill 3: 75% will read from previous frame If you fill 1000: foot prints from previously map will not disappear at all
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Life span result
Use this map generate particle or others effects
Visualization
Visualize HP, MP Data When you select any one of agent, you may notice there are 2 bars on the head. They are HP/MP bar. You can use it for visualizing the information of the internal HP/MP data. Like the picture below.
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HP/MP bar on the head
If you have some logic want to control the HP/MP data, for example, when agent fighting, the HP drop some points each second, these bars can indicate you very clearly how many HPs or MPs remain. And this can improve your productivity. You can turn this off at Miarmy > Visualization > HP/MP Bar Switch
Some HP dropping when fighting
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Visualize Action Transition There are 2 modes for displaying transition status 1. Normal playback: there will be only one bar on the ground 2. Transition in process: there will be 2 bars on the ground
(Left) currently playback (right) in transition Turn of this at Miarmy > Visualization > Action Info Switch Visualize Agent ID There is a little green digit show the unique id of this agent
The agent ID in yellow circle
Bounding box display Mode and Inverse Placement Agents can be display as bounding box and this can speed up the graphic card interactive speed, Were not means the bounding box from Maya, it is the Miarmy Bounding box display mode,
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boundMode attribute on each agent
On each agent, there is an attribute boundMode, when turn this on, the agent will become the bounding box display mode:
(Left) agent display (right) bounding box display
This attribute is support inverse placement. Once you inverse place, all the information will store back to placement node and it will place out the agents with bounding box mode after next time open your scene.
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Part 6 Action
In this part, we will detailed explained how Miarmy Animation and Action system working and under the hood.
Action Infrastructure
Action Node Data The action node contains Action length (integer) The length of this action Action Data (2D array) The pose data of each frame, using this data array and a frame number, we can set the agent pose. Note: the root data in this action data array would be modified after generating of agent transform data. Original Root Bone Animation Data (array) Extract the root bone pose data of each frame from Action Data before generating agent transform data Agent Transform Data (array) Calculated agent locomotion data for each frame from Original Root Bone Animation Data
In this version of Miarmy, the data of actions are stored according to the bone hierarchy. So, the actions drive agents by bone hierarchy. The bone structure of rig and original agent should be the same all the time for the same type of agent. The actions are generated from rig, and these actions can be shared to use among the different types of agents if the hierarchy of them are the same. Note: in the next version of Miarmy, action drive agent support hierarchy + bone name combination method and coming in April. At that time, the action drive agent not only depending on the hierarchy, you can add some extra bones to the Original Agent and reuse the existed action node
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Action Node Attributes for Playback and Transition There are many attributes in each action we can setup them in action editor
Action Editor
Rate The speed of playback for this action Is Final If enable, once agent transit to this action, it will never transit to others in any situation. Like the dead action. Is Cycle If enable, means we dealing with this action a cycle action can be transit to itself. Cycle Filter Only work with cyclic action, blending the end self-transition part to the head part of the action by some percent.
As picture above, after playing back green area, the action will perform self-cycle.
Entry Range When previous action transit to current action, some percent should be smooth blended. This is the entry range of this current action. Like the picture below, when the previous action transiting to current action, 10% of action length should be blended from previous end to current start.
When transiting in, blend with previous action
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Exit range When current action should transit to next action, only when the current action playback after exit range percent, the current action can transit to next action, otherwise, maintains the self-playback
Only after 80% playing back, the current action can transit to other actions
Agent Transform Data Agent Transform Data is generated from you rig root, and stored independently in action node. It's a kind of locomotion data can be applied to overall agent As we all know, we create action from animation, it is a piece of motion in a range. For example a character is walking in scene and we build action data 24 frames. In the below picture, its a walk cycle, no special:
A walk cycle from A to B, for example 24 frames
The normal animation will be from A to B and get back to A, once again, from A to B, repeatedly. We want to apply it to the agents and make the agent move forward in any direction and not in one place. We want to make the agent travel in scene.
Transform the walk cycle A to B to agent locomotion data
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The red line is repeatedly playback animation The yellow line is the action with agent transform data. The movement of yellow paths shown is our purpose. With agent transform data, we can apply the accumulate locomotion to the agent, and our agent can work independently in our scene For this purpose, we need separated the animation in 2 parts: Usage: 1. The action data part is responsible to pose you agent only. 2. The agent transform data part is responsible to move your agent for each frame. The agent transform data actually is an array of velocity value for each frame. So, no matter where the agent is and what direction the agent orient to, we just apply a velocity to it each frame. The result is, the agents can travel in scene anywhere respectively, and not repeat playback. Agent transform data can be several types: The A picture above shows the locomotion type, and B shows the turning type. Static: agent stands without transform change (e.g. stand, sit, cheer) Locomotion: agent walks in z direction straight (e.g. walk, stand to walk, jog, run) Turning: agent turning to left or right (turn left, turn right) Ramp: agent go up or go down (go upstairs, climbing) Action data: the animation pose data of each frame Agent transform data: the root node velocity data can be used to apply to single agent transform.
Miarmy will automatically generate agent transform data for you when you create action. Also we provide tools are able to re-build it or fix it
Click auto fill, you can build agent transform data as preset:
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Fix Agent Transform is used for shifting or rotating your agent transform data: For example1: The standard agent orientation is +Z, but if your animation rig is walking in x direction. After creating action, you can rotate it back to +Z. Just fill 90 in action editor, and click Fix Agent Transform
Fix the agent transform data
For example2 (sample 29 scene file)
The root of agent moved
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Please notice the above animation, from stand to sit, characters root (hip) has been moved, from A to B. However, this action is a static action. When this action transition to sit action, there will be a weird behavior:
The red spot is the origin. The left action is stant_to_sit and right is sit action. You may notice the 1. In stand_to_sit action: the Origin is in the characters feet. 2. In sit action: the origin is in characters root (hip) If the agent transit from stand_to_sit to sit, the action will shift forward, because the 2 action have different origin places. At this time the only thing we need to is move the sit origin to his front, like the picture below:
Fix the agent transform data
The result will move the action entirely forward. The play back transition will now without shift and seamless. Summary: Although the agent transform data is crucial, this data can be actually automatically generated. So, in most of time, you no need to care about that, just choose the right type. Everything will be fine.
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Action Features
Action Trigger Trigger Action by Name Logic: if the agent in the zone area of which the id is 0, perform walk
Trigger action directly by name of action
Action Group Trigger Action Group Random Logic: if the agent in the zone area of which the id is 1, perform one of cheer actions group
Trigger action by action group name
From action group, system can select one of the actions from the group. And make that selected action trigger action. The rule of select is randomization.
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Randomize select one action from action group
Action Group Channels After Miarmy 1.5 we provide some new easy to use channels for action group, user can easily use them randomize your agent behavior actionGroup:XXX (for input) Test is current agent playing action from action group XXX actionGroupSelect:XXX Select one of action from action group and continue playback keep no change, such as some of people run different types but will not change over and over again, some people select runFast, some people choose runSlow and other choose runNormal. Please distinguish this with actionGroup:XXX actionGroupRate:XXX Set playback rate of all actions from XXX action group *:rate Change the current playing back action rate
Choice Rate Action Group Playback Rate See Action Playback Rate Channels
Action Blending You can modify the playing back action by action blend and action rate which you specified in output channel. Action to ActionBlending If the current playback action has blend actions, the blended action will be performed automatically, based on the defuzzed active result of blend channel. The default blend weight is 0.0. Please notice the following things. Blend actions should be the same length as the main action. For example, the length of walkHappy and walkSad should be the same length as the walk action Blend actions can be different playback rate from main action. For example you can make walkHappy faster and walkSad slower in action editor. Our action blending engine can blend the rate of them. Action blend can be more than 1. That is means you can blend walkHappy, walk, walkSad together.
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The closer the the spot, the more walkHappy action will blend
Modify the action by blends
Action Blending Group Action Partial Blending Action Playback Rate Action Rate Also you can modify the speed of the playing back action by action rate channel, also based on the defuzzed active result of rate channel. The default rate is the rate in action editor.
Modify the action by rate
You can increase the rate when the agent is walking down fast and decrease the rate when the agent is climbing. 213 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Action Group Rate Whole Action Rate *:rate Action Channel for Input Action Playback Check Action Group Playback Check Randomize Entry Points When our agents step in to an action, it will start from first frame, this may cause a bit cloning/twinning or boring result sometimes. So after version 1.5, we make our agents can step into action from randomized entry points. We make this very easy to control but the result is pretty much natural. Its useful when our agent transition to some rest pose, like standTalk, agents can start talk freely instead of all firstly frame. For example:
Entry points randomization
The following agents entered the walk action at the same time but different entry points, make this more natural.
Result of randomize entry points
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Subjective Objective Action Synchronization What is SOAS Subjective Objective Action Synchronization (SOAS) is a technology that pairing and syncing agent action. When the agents face to face fighting, subjective agent can tell what his doing to the objective agent and the objective agent will take response precisely and simultaneously based on the subjective action. SOAS doesnt need any complex logic setup, and just 2 SOAS Channels are enough. SOAS channel also have priority control, if another other higher priority action channels activated, the SOAS will be disable automatically. SOAS is usually used when 2 people fighting or such pairing behavior. For example, agent A & B, when Agent A is attacking, the Agent B should defend, whereas the agent A is defending, the agent B should attack. And the defending and attacking behavior must be synchronized.
2 agents are fighting perfectly
Under the Hood The SOAS is action node level feature. That is means that no matter what the agent type is, the feature will work OK. Such as that there are 3 types of agents, each one of them can be both the objective and subjective agent. Also, the SOAS need the help from sound range. The action information can be only passed to others by the sound range. The first step is setup subjective and objective actions mapping relationship, we need specify the relationship for engine know that before simulation.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Once we fill the tell channel into the decision of agents, these agents will tell what its playing back to the other agents in their sound range. Some other agent with hear channel can hear these information and get the objective action if subjectiveobjective relationship established. Then when logic active, it will perform these objective actions, also will try to synchronize that.
Setup Subjective and Objective Action We need firstly setup the Subjective and Objective action in Action Synchronization Editor. In Miarmy > Actions > Action Synchronization Editor
Setup action sync relationship
For example there are 2 types of agents, A & B. The type A is subjective agent, and type B is objective agent. The agent type A has: Attack1_action_A Attack2_action_A Defense1_action_A Defense2_action_A
The agent type B has: Attack1_action_B Attack2_action_B Defense1_action_B Defense2_action_B
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Attack2_action_A >>>>> Defense2_action_B Defense1_action_A >>>>> Attack1_action_B Defense2_action_A >>>>> Attack2_action_B
Behind the scene, these actions subjective/objective relationship information are actually the action nodes connections. The subjective action .syncTo attribute link to the .syncs*<id>+ attribute of objective action. Of course, one action can be objective action of multiple subjective actions. The .syncs attribute is an array attribute.
SOAS Channels tell: This is an output channel and when active, it will tell the other agents what is its playing back action and which frame hear: Its actually an action channel, also output. It will make agent hear they others tell it. And find out the objective action if heard one is subjective action. If active, it will try to play back that objective action, and try to synchronize subjective action tell:<id> Sub channel id just simulates the frequency of tell, letting the agent can tell different type different information. The function is similar like the tell channel. If you dont specify this sub channel, it will be default 1 hear:<id> Same as hear channel, but it is only able to hear the agent using the same sub channel id.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual SOAS Channels Priority The SOAS channels also have priority. When an objective action is activated by SOAS Channel, but there is another action activated by any other channels have higher priority. The agent will try to transit to the higher priority one instead of SOAS controlled one. For example, if two channels hear and escape are activated together, but the escape have higher priority. The agent will try transit and perform escape action.
Future of SOAS The SOAS of Miarmy is not perfect yet, if the agent is too dense, the tell channel will tell many different agent with the same information, or some agents will hear many information from multiple agents. It only work perfect with 1 VS 1 scenario, like the picture below.
1 VS 1 scenario
In the future, well make the SOAS more precisely based on sound degree limited or closest one algorithm etc.
Hook up Custom Attributes Except rotate and translate animation channels, sometimes we want to hook some extra animation to the bones of agent and let them playback/animate with the action. For example, there is a blend shape animation happening on a joint/action, we want to hook it to the agent and join the simulation, then after simulation, fetch the result back for later user. (Such as creating deformer or facial animation) Enable this Pipeline By default this feature will be totally disabled, if you want to use it, please firstly enable a hidden attribute in McdGlobal node of your scene. Click Miarmy > Miarmy Ready! It will select the McdGlobal Node, and then please manually turn that attribute on in Maya Attribute Editor.
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Manually turn on the hookCustomData attribute on in McdGlobal Node
IMPORTANT: Before both 1 creating action and 2 creating original agent, please always enable this attribute.
Creating Action Some joints in the animation rig may contain some custom attributes, for example, like the below image, there are many user defined attributes and animation on joint1
Maya custom attribute channels
Please make sure all the Action Nodes will be created from the SAME Rig with exact the SAME custom data scheme. Of course also make sure enable hook custom data attribute in McdGlobal Node. At this time, when we creating the action, these attributes and values, including animations, will be automatically stored inside action node.
Creating Original Agent Before creating the Original Agent, you need enable hook custom data attribute in McdGlobal Node. And after creating the Original Agent, these custom attributes will be hooked up on Original Agent.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual But If you already have original agent and dont want to re-create original agents, you need firstly active the editing agent type in Agent Manager, then click Miarmy > Original Agent > Upgrade for upgrading/adding these custom attributes. You may notice that if everything all right, the number of custom data will be recorded in original agent bone. And we will use this attribute to allocate memory when building agent. You can double check if these attribute existed and have correct number
(Above) without custom data, (below) contain 3 custom data
The number of custom data will be stored. And when original agent building agent, the data will be used to allocate exact memory in agent, for example, 3, it can allocate 3 float data in agent memory. Notice: these data will only be linear interpolated between animations, no quaternion or other interpolated methods.
Simulation When simulating, these custom data in action node will be assigned to agent bone just like the translate and rotate of the bone. Also transiting and blending normally. When creating agent cache, these data will be also written into the Agent Cache, Character Cache etc After simulation, you can fetch these data to drive the deformer, or anything you like. For fetch these data, please refer the Single Character Cache Part of this document (Press Ctrl + F to search). 220 2011-2013 Basefount
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Single Character Cache Introducing a concept called single character cache. Regular Miarmy Cache: 1 frame 1 file, each file contains data of all agents, use this drive all Agents each frame SC Cache (Single Character Cache): 1 character 1 file, each file contains all frames data for this character. Use this drive Original Agent or Middle Rig Note: character cache is not simply rewrite, but convert/transform all the agent data to Maya format data, that can assign and drive to Maya joint directly. It will improving driving speed tremendously.
Changed: Previously before version 2.0, our system cannot store data for end joint, now we changed many code for making our system can extend to end joint both in action creating, agent cache or driving etc. Custom data pipeline is now totally changed in version 2.0, now it is much more stable and will not causing crash when many aspects.
Main Usage: This is the fastest way to fetch agent data and you can use this bake the middle rig and export FBX (if you have your own tools). We can bind muscle, fur, nCloth, or hair on original agent or middle rig, and simulate this rig several turns, each one of them and export render data like geometry and creature FX contents like hair, fur, ncloth, etc
Make Single Character Cache The single character Cache will be converted from Miarmy Agent Cache, so we should make agent Cache firstly. Ensure the agent cache is able to playback OK and confirm the frame range you need, then open Miarmy > Miarmy Tools, and hit Convert Agent Cache to Character Bone Cache, please wait these process need some time and it will write new single cache like the right picture below, you may notice these cache is based on each character, each one, contain all the Maya joint and custom attributes animation, use these can drive original agent or middle rig Notice: The agent cache path need writable. Because the converted out SC Cache will be put into the same directory of agent cache
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Convert Agent Cache into SC Cache
Then let us use these cache drive our character
Drive Original Agent Need de-place agent, because this time, the agent can be disable,
Enable drive and specify the character ID
Left: original pose, right: driven by character cache
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Driving original agent using cache id 15
Middle Rig We call it rig because its nothing to do with the original agent and agent. Original agent contains information used to generate agent but useless for baking and exporting FBX etc also it contains dynamic joints and shapes, its heavy. Otherwise middle rig only contains the bone chain and the custom data on that, its much simpler and lighter. Also if we want to export FBX or something like this it will be faster and correct. Just click Build middle rig, our system will build a middle rig based on your original agent. Note: cannot build in referencing mode
Differences between Original Agent and Middle Rig The bones of Original Agent only contain number of attribute. Whereas the bones of Middle rig contain the custom attribute entities and the animation.
Original agent contain only the number of custom data
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Middle rig contain all the custom data
Skip Animation Calculation for Some Bones Sometimes we dont want to some useless joints calculate because they are not important for final result, such as some fingers or toes, or some extra deformers on arm or legs. Calculate the joint will spend time especially when transition, blend or self-cycle, because we need fetch data from action node for each agent, and them using some algorithm to get the result, finally assign them to agent. Hands and fingers are small but have many joints on them, need almost the same time as the body parts. In most cases due to the shot, we dont need to assigned actions to them, so we can block the animation on them. For example, lets disable the animation on arm of following agent:
Skip animation on shoulder and arm
Them when the animation is started:
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(left) skip animation on arms (right) normal situation
Action Drive Agent

Pipeline
The process which we find next action
Recalling the previously part, from output results of logic calculation we can get some action outputs. And finally we find the biggest activated one, we call this target action. Take a look at the above picture. Then, from the target action, we will find out the next action by the action search method. Once we solve out the next action, this is the action we need transit into. If the transition condition meets, the agent will transit in to it. Note: the next action might be the currently playing back action itself.
Getting the Target Action As far as we know, after logic engine calculation, we can get a list of output results. It contains many repeated channel outputs and output values. Then we need use the defuzz algorithm and the default decision node to get the behavior result. For example, after input channel engine calculation, we get some decision results from many decision nodes, as the following first picture show. 225 2011-2013 Basefount
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The process of getting target action
Parsing out the Next Action From the target action, we need solve out the Next Action firstly. There are several methods to solve out next action By Simple Transition In Simple Transition Mode (Setup in Miarmy Global), if your current playing back action is stand, and the target action solved out from logic engine is walk, the next action will be walk directly, because our engine can skip the transition map and transit from current action to the target action simply and directly.
By Transition Map If the simple transition mode has been disabled, means we are in transition map mode. Suppose the current playing back action is stand, and the target action is walk, our system can automatically find the nearest action in Transition Map if you setup them correctly. The search result action will be standToWalk in the following example.
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Transit from stand to walk with transition map
By Transition Map and Action Exits There may be several actions in next action results, for example, take a look at the picture below. If our agent is transiting from walk to stand, our system can find 2 next actions walkToStandL and walkToStandR from transition map. By default, the system will choose the first action to transit in.
(Upper) Search engine can find 2 nearest next actions from transition map; (Lower) exits in action editor
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual In action editor, if we specified for walk action 2 exit actions, then depending on the phase of current playing back, our system can choose the exact one next action. Like the above 2 pictures, if current frame in walk action is 5 to 10, the next action will be walkToStandL, whereas if the current frame in walk action is 18 to 22, the next action will be walkToStandR.
Action Transition After action searching, we can find the next action. Then we will determine whether we need our agent transit to next action or still playback current action continually. If the current playback is before exit range (red cursor), the action will continue playback itself, whereas the current playback is exceed the exit range (green cursor), and also the next action is not itself, the transition will begin.
Transition from current action to next action
After transition, the next action will be the current playback action and store in agent memory. Please notice this process is automatic, here we just explained what happened under the hood.
Action Transition Visualization

Except logic feedback, our engine is able to feedback action playback status to Transition Map. The feedback is based on the marked agent, for marking an agent, just select this agent, as same as the Brain Viewer. Also see Part 6 Logic & Perception Feedback in Essential
The pictures below show the process of transition. The red or orange dots are the phase indicator for the playing back actions. There are 3 types of status in transition process. Cyclical playback status:
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Cyclically playback the run action
Transition in process status:
Transition in process, from run to the runToWalk action
Non-Cyclical playback status:
Playing back the runToWalk action, non-cyclically
Go into cyclical playback status again after transition:
Transition complete, cyclical playback walk
You can also disable this in for Miarmy > Miarmy Global > Stop Feedback. For details, Part 6 Logic & Perception Feedback in Essential
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Action Proxy List

Action Proxy List is a node contains a list of action names. The action name can be any type of actions, cycle action, transition action or blend action. This list is able to override brain logic and play actions in itself as your arrangement. It means if you create and enable the action proxy, any of logic will be ignored. The agent will perform the actions in list sequentially just like pre-defined rehearsal. We usually can use the action proxy list to test action continuity.
Action Proxy Editor
Action Proxy Node always located in ActionProxy_<agentName> group, and only one action proxy node can be created for each one type of agent.
Action proxy node
And you can edit it by Action Proxy Editor. If you want to disable the proxy list without delete it, please turn off the enable attribute of it.
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Disable without delete action proxy
Note: in this version of Miarmy, in action proxy list, if the next action is the same as current one, they will transit by entry range and exit range mechanism instead of cycle range. We will fix this in next minor upgrade.
Story List (Logic Drivable Action Proxy List)

Sometimes users want to achieve more precise control agent actions easily or arrangement a set of actions happened by plan, for examples: 1. Action Precise control Example: an army square need precisely controlled. Walk 7 steps forward, hold and turn left, and go ahead 5 steps etc... This sequence of action is not easily controlled by others logic 2. Actions Combination and freely Change Example: When dancing or exercising, there are lots of separated actions need to be combined together, similar like example 1. We introducing Story List, its a list contains many actions and it can be triggered by logic channel them playback this list of actions sequentially, more specifically: There can be many story list nodes for each type of agent, and each one contains a list of actions, when triggered, the agent will playback the action one by one inside, and ignore the transition map.
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Story list of agent type
We can use logic channel to activate it any time, like the others channels, story list have the active value and we always choose the greatest value to perform story list.
Story list in decision node, in bound[1], trigger story list: sto1
The story list can be set interruptible or not, if set not interruptible, the agent once entry this story list, it will play every action inside and not go out until finish all. Ignore any other logic etc
Default is non-interruptible
Note: the proxy list is higher priority than story list
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IK System
IK system is a part of action node and it can modify the result of action pose for agent when the agent is playing back this action. Or another words, modify the result of animation when assigning data from action node to agent. IK is the information store in action node, it can be multiple IK in single action node and each one of IKs needs some inner data 1. 2. 3. 4. Name of end effector level of Bones end effector moving target curve (IK data) IK rotation curve (IR data)
These data can be created in action editor, just specify the end effector name and the bone number above that end effector, then click the Create button, the IK data and the IR data will be created
Create IK in action node
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The end effector and 2 level bone
IK data: this data store the end effector position in agent transformation space, when this data exist, we will use this data to modify the bone change IR data: this data store the end effector rotation in agent transformation space, when the bone pose modified, we need keep the
Lets see the following images to explain the IK and IR data in calculation process: The first one is the rest pose, and this foot is the end effector, the lower leg and upper leg are 2 level of IK, when this leg is playing back animation, the leg will controlled by IK system. Please take a look at the second picture, the IK has some offset to up, notice the blue and orange arrow, the blue is correct rotation (the same as first picture) of the end effector, and the orange is the incorrect one because it will keep the local rotation in side its parent (lower leg) In third picture, the IR data is responsible to fix that rotation to correct blue direction
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The IK calculation process
Once we created these data successful, we can control the IK now; Just by IK offset channel on the leg:
Ik offset channel
<boneName>:ik.<axis>Offset The following 3 picture is modified by the IK offset which values are: 0, 3, 6
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footL:ik.yOffset = 0 footL:ik.yOffset = 3 footL:ik.yOffset = 6
This is very useful when the agent walk on the uneven terrain or slop, we can make the foot always on top of the terrain and not penetrated into ground. (If it penetrates into ground, we can use IK offset to move them up)
IK lock Sometimes we want to lock the end effector to world space for a while in the action playing back, for example walk action. We want to lock the IK end effector to world space when the action frames the foot on ground avoid its slip. IK lock is happened in some frames range in the action node, so we need specify it in action node. Each IK maybe have different range of lock down
The IK lock data specified GUI
You can specify the frame range which you want to lock your IK in the float field, 236 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual The red area means in that frame, the IK will lock there 100% The yellow area means in that frame, the IK will lock there some percent and blend with the normal IK positions of IK data
The red 100% lock and the yellow fade out to animation
Or you can fill that by automatically calculate, our tool will collect the height of end effecter for all the frames in action node and calculate the min and max height of it, we can auto fill that data if the end effect below to some percent of range:
Automatically
Auto fill result of the left foot IK (when the foot lower than 10% average)
Auto fill result of the left foot IK (when the foot lower than 10% average)
If the IK been locked in world space when playing back, our system will display a locker for it: 237 2011-2013 Basefount
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IK locker on the foot (red) Notice: the action node created before Miarmy 1.5 Alpha 1 cannot add IK info to bone.
Part 7 Physics
From design, we planned integrate NVIDIA PhysX engine into Miarmy. Miarmy now can easily handle more than 5000 agents and more than 100,000 rigid bodies on a Windows HOME level PC. In our design, all the physical contents are calculated directly in PhysX engine and we just display them in Maya, so, there is no any bottle neck between PhysX and Miarmy when simulation in process.
Enable Dynamics
Dynamics Types You can easily enable agent ragdoll-like dynamics by decision channels. Basically, there are 4 types of dynamics channels, they are: 1. Full body dynamics: enable dynamics for every part of agent 2. Detach dynamics: break a bone and its sub tree bones from agent, but keep the rest of agent controlled by animation. 3. Partial dynamics: enable the sub tree dynamics from a bone, but keep the rest of agent controlled by animation. 4. Body dynamics: enable dynamics for every part of agent except the root bone. The illustration of each type of dynamics, the blue block are the bones controlled by action whereas the orange blocks are controlled by dynamics.
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Normal status
(1) Full body dynamics (2) Detach dynamics, (3) Partial dynamics (4) Body dynamics
Note: in this version of Miarmy, the (3) Partial Dynamics and (4) Body Dynamics have some problems due to the Bugs from PhysX engine. The NVIDIA is fixing it and we believe that they can fix it soon, and we will update this part as soon as they fix it. For details please refer the following link: http://forums.developer.nvidia.com/devforum/discussion/3191/bug-physx-3-1-jointstrange-movement-video
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Dynamics Channels The channel dynamics.active can enable full body dynamics for the agent.
Full body dynamics
The Channel <boneName>:dynamics.detach can enable partial detach dynamics for agent. The dynamics will be enables from the specific bone and its sub tree, and break from that bone. This is easily simulate the zombie like character walking and being shot. Example: neck1:dynamics.detach shoulderR:dynamics.detach
Detach dynamics (head, arm, head + arm)
The channel <boneName>:dynamics.active can enable partial dynamics from the specific bone and its sub tree, but not detach from main agent. The main agent will be still controlled by action and Logic Example: torse:dynamics.active shoulderL:dynamics.active (upLegL:dynamics.active) 240 2011-2013 Basefount
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Enable partial dynamic from torso3 and shoulderL
The channel bodyDynamics.active can enable every bone of agent except root bone. And you can control the root by animation and the rest of bones will perform dynamic simulation. Just like you are waving a Nunchaku, the handler of it is controlled by animation and the rest are controlled by dynamics. You can constraint each of agent to a particle and write some expression to control them.
Body dynamics enable except root bone
Pre-build RBD Objects and Visual Clue

Before us diving into the others dynamics features, we need deeply understand a very important concept. That is pre-build RBD objects In many cases (collision detection, cloth enable etc.), we need create some pre-build the RBD objects in agent memory and let our animation bones drive these internal RBD before really physical simulation. In this time, you cannot see agent perform physical behavior, but actually the physical contents are there and controlled by action.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Firstly, lets take a look at that when these pre-build RBD objects will be created and why we need them, and how can we know/detect their existence. Then we will introduce you how can you optimize and avoid our engine create these pre-build RBD objects if our scene doesnt need them. When these conditions, these pre-build RBD will be created in agent memory: collide channel in input RBD collide check in input cloth enable partial dynamics body dynamics broken dynamics
We created them because we need these RBD to: collision detection hold cloth attach points or collide with cloth drive the partial dynamical chain
If there are internal pre-build RBD created, you can simply switch to the wireframe mode to check their existence. Just like the picture below, the bone with dot/small point is exact pre-build RBD inside its memory. Please notice there also a cross, which will be talked about in collision detection session.
If there are internal RBD in agent, system will mark dot into the Bone
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If collide enable, everyone has their own pre-build RBD internal
The pre-build RBD objects will take memory, so please keep check them if youre working on the scenes with physical features. If not nessecery, please make sure they will not going to be created.
Fully Pre-build RBD Objects for Dynamical Once we enable partial dynamics or break dynamics. Except the dynamic parts, the rest of agent bones have pre-build RBD object there in agent memory. For example the following picture, the orange parts have been enable dynamics but the blue parts are driven by action. However, the blue parts also have RBD object there in agent memory
The blue parts also have inner RBD objects in memory
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Collision Detection
Mark Collide The first and most important is mark the collide bone, only collide bone can generate collision event or receive collision status. To mark the collide bone, please select the bones on the Original Agent, and enable specific collide feel flag of each bone. If you dont remember what is bone which marked feel collide flag, please refer Part 3 Agent Infrastructure bone flags
Mark collide feel bones
Pre-build RBD Objects for Collision Detection We are using the PhysX feature for checking collision, so, if there is collide related channels in input sentence, system need create pre-build RBD object in agent memory. These RBD objects are controlled by action and the user may not notice them. Our system will use these RBD objects for collision checking and returning check result. Our system will only create Pre-build RBD for the marked bones and make them check collide. You can visualize check these RBD objects directly from the wireframe mode, in the previously session, we mentioned that the bones with dot inside is the RBD bone existence. Also, you may notice there is a cross sign inside, that is means, No only this bone contain pre-build RBD, but also this bone can feel collide.
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The cross sign means this bone can feel collide
Collide Check Channels Using collide channels, we can detect the bone collision status of agents. The collide channel including: collide collideBy:<Bone Name> collideAt:<Bone Name> riCollide riCollideBy:<Bone Name> riCollideAt:<Bone Name> Note: The bone will not check collide with terrain, only interactive with them. And the bone also can check collide with kinematic primitive objects, which will be explained in Part 7: Physical Simulation Kinematic Primitives Using collide channel we can check the collision status for the bones which marked feel collide from the current agent. If the bones which marked feel collide are colliding/overlapping the others RBD, the channel will return 1, otherwise, return 0. Just like the picture below, the head, chest, stomach and arms bones have been marked feel collide flag,
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Head, chest, stomach, arms have been marked feel collide flag
Lets take a look at an example below, for the agent 1, the collide channel will return 1 because the chest is colliding with the hand of agent 2, whereas, For the agent 2, the collide channel will also return 1 because the bones marked feel collide is also collide with the chest of agent 1.
collide channel will return 1 from both agent 1 and agent 2
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Using collideBy:<Bone Name>, we can check whether a bone which name is <Bone Name> collide with the bones marked feel collide of current agent, for example: For the agent 1, collideBy:lowerArm will return 1 because the chest bone of current agent is colliding with a bone which name is lowerArm For the agent 1, collideBy:head will return 0 because no matter chest, stomach or head is not colliding with the bone which name is head For the agent 2, collideBy:chest will return 1 because the lowerArm is colliding the chest of agent 1.
collideBy:lowerArm will return 1 for agent 1 and return 0 for agent 2 collideBy:head will return 0 for both agent 1 and agent 2 collidBy:chest will return 1 for agent 2 and return 0 for agent 1
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Using collideAt:<Bone Name>, we can check whether the bone name is <Bone Name> from current agent colliding with any else bone from others agents. No matter the bone <Bone Name> whether or not marked feel collide flag. Look at the following example: For the agent 1, the collideAt:chest will return 1 because the chest is colliding with a bone For the agent 1, the collideAt:head will return 0 because the foot is colliding with a bone For the agent 2, the collideAt:lowerArm will return 1 because the lower arm is not collide with a bone
Collide at channels for
The ri prefix is use to reserve information of collide. The information will contain the collision direction and velocity. riCollide riCollideBy:XXX riCollideAt:XXX
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The reserved information contain the approximated collision direction and the relative velocity
The collision info reserved when checking collide
We can apply a pulse force on to it when enable dynamics, with the channel dynamics.active.force. The force direction will along with the reserved vector and the force strength will be the defuzzed value of the channel.
Optimization The pre-build RBD will take huge memory if you have huge number of agents in scene. See Part 9 Optimization Mute Dynamics
Dynamics Features
Physics Global Miarmy > Physics Global
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Step Time and Sub Step Step time is the time span of physical simulation in a single Maya frame. By default, in each Maya frame, the PhysX simulate and increase 0.1 second for updating physical contents. Sub step is the number of steps in each simulation time span. For example, if sub step is 4, and step time is 0.1, each time PhysX simulate, it will simulate 4 times and each time takes 0.025 second. Increase sub step can achieve precise simulation result but take more time to calculate. Lets take a look an example, when the agents are pushed by force field, the different sub step lead to different precise level.
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Sub step from left to right: 1, 2, 4
Disable sub-tree simulation (skip finger and toes etc) Sometime we dont want to our agent simulate the finger dynamics or some subtle parts that because it will waste much time also cause problems. There is an attribute on original agents can skip these parts. This can speed up for the dynamic simulation and reduce the problem occurring. We can now only disable the marked bone and its sub tree, we cannot skip simulate in the middle of dynamics, because its impossible for physics engine.
Upgrade it if not existed (disableDynSubTree)
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Make on the flags on these parts
Under simulation
The agent cache is working no any problem
Gravity VS Mass You may encounter these situations: The object from high place falling slow Explosive effect not much
If the agent from high place falls to ground slowly, it means the gravity not enough. At this time you need increase the gravity. On the other hand, if you increase the mass of agent body, there will be no any change. You can just recall the famous story about Galileos 2 balls.
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Increase the gravity
If the force field like explosive force effect agent not much, mean the object is too heavy. At this time, you need crank down the density for decreasing the mass of the agent bones. Mass = volume * density, the volume is the bone shape itself.
Decrease the mass
Galileo, he is probably best known for a story in which he dropped two different size balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa at the same time, and the two balls hit the ground at almost the same time
(Left) Leaning Tower of Pisa, (right) Galileo
Joint Move Inertia When agent moving, there is a speed, and when the agent turn to dynamics bodies and start to simulate, it need inherit this speed. For example a man is running and sudden enable dynamics and jump, it should continue moving forward when this man is in the sky. Just like cannon.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual After Miarmy 1.5, we add this inertia momentum in agent memory when each frame simulation, and apply this speed on the rigid body when the dynamics turn on. Please take a look at the following picture, the agent in bound, it start dynamics simulation, before the turn on dynamic, the agent is moving, and when it enable dynamics,
Inertia momentum
This feature is automatically performed, so there is no switch on and off.
Terrains and Default Terrain In the previous Part 5 Logic & Perception, we talked about the terrain interactive with agent by logic channel. In addition, the marked terrain can interactive with dynamical agents, automatically. Dynamical terrain can be any shape, even deforming when simulation. 254 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual The only thing need to do is mark your terrain in Terrain Manager. Please notice: If the terrain is deforming or moving when simulation, please mark the isAnim flag in Terrain Manager. Our system can update the shape of it every frame. If the terrain is a plane, you can mark the isPlane flag for accelerate the calculation.
Dynamical agents interactive with terrain
Please notice the geometrical terrain has edge. If the agent position exceeds the edge range, the agent will fall down to the abyss.
Fall down to abyss if outside the terrain range
There are some attributes on the terrain: Dynamic Friction: friction when object moving on terrain Static Friction: friction want to prevent object move on terrain Restitution: you can consider it bounce capability
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Terrain attributes
If there is no marked terrain in scene, our system will build a default terrain. The default terrain is actually an infinite ground plane primitive. And its attributes are located in Physics Global.
Default terrain plane
Attributes of default terrain plane in Physics Global
If you intentionally dont want any terrain in scene, you need check on mute terrain in Terrain Manager, then you scene will never create any terrain any more. And the existed terrain will be ignored.
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Ignore exist terrain when mute terrain check on
You can use check collision between agents and kinematic primitives using channel collideBy:_TERRAIN_.
Maya Field Miarmy agent can interactive with Maya field not only from logic input channels, but also directly in dynamic simulation. When the agent dynamics enable, the agents can directly affect by Maya field. But please notice the field can only affect the bone which marked fieldFeel. You need setup the fieldFeel flag on the bone shape of original agent. For reviewing the original agent and agent type, please refer Part 3 Agent Infrastructure
Mark fieldFeel on bones of original agent
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Maya vortex field affecting dynamical agents
For fine tuning the dynamical result, you need just change the attributes in Maya field node itself.
Force Field General Rules Force Composition No matter currently we are talking about Maya Field, or further we are going to introduce Maya Fluid, and buildin force field, all of them drive agents by Force Composition. For example there are several Maya fields in scene, and our agents can feel the composition force result of them.
Speed Threshold And, no matter Maya fluid, field, build-in force field, they will apply force to the RBD object only when the speed of this RBD slower than the speed threshold. Another words, once the RBD object exceed the speed threshold, our system will not apply force onto it any more.
Speed threshold value in Physics Global
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Force Multipliers Sometimes, maybe your Maya field not only driving Miarmy Agents, but also controlling the particles. At this time, change the magnitude of Maya field will effect both on agents and particles. However, maybe the particle result is OK you dont need change it. At this time we provide the Field Multiplier for exclusively change the result on the agents. If the magnitude of a field is 100, and the field force multiplier is 6, the force applied to the agents will be 100 * 6 = 600 from this field.
Field Multiplier in Physical Global
Maya Fluid Because Maya fluid can be represented by field, the Miarmy agent can interactive with Maya fluid directly also when the agent dynamics enable. The process is the same as Maya Field.
Maya basic fluid affecting dynamical agents
Build-in Force Field In the previously chapter, we talked about the spot node, its a kind of perception contents. Actually, it can be a force field as well. When you change the Feel Mode attribute to onlyField mode, the spot will become a buildin force field.
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(left) Feel mode change to onlyField (right) the force field specific attributes
If the agent enable dynamics and some of bones marked fieldFeel enable, the agent will be affected apply force inside of the bound.
Push field
Pull field
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Vortex field
Build-in force field attributes: Field Type: can be push, pull and vortex Bound Radius: control the radius of bounding sphere or bounding cylinder Bound Height: (only vortex) control the height of the bounding cylinder Factor: (only vortex) the force multiplier when the agent far from center of cylinder
Combo We designed spot and build-in force field together because in many cases we need them work together. Firstly we need switch the Feel Mode attribute to both
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Combination of force field and spot
Suppose we are building an explosive scene. We can use spot logic trigger agent enable dynamics and use force field push them out form bounding sphere. At this time, the combo of spot and force field is much easy to operate. Like the picture shown below, after using spot.d channel enable agents dynamics, these agents will be naturally inside the bounding sphere, and immediately they will be affect by that force field and been pushed out from the bounding sphere center.
Combo example spot trigger dynamics, force field push agent out
Kinematic Primitives Kinematic primitive is a kind of static RBD objects can be controlled by user animation or constraint. Our agent can collide with them automatically if they enable dynamics.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual You can scale, rotate, translate and key frame the kinematic primitive anytime. Or you can parent, constrain them to anywhere. In this current version of Miarmy, only 2 types of kinematic primitives supported, they are Box and Sphere. For creating them, just simply click Miarmy > Physics > Kinematic Primitives.
Kinematic Primitive example
You can check collision between agents and kinematic primitives using channel collide or if you want agents exclusively check collide with kinematic primitives: collideBy:_ KINEPRIM_.
Check collide by collideBy:_ KINEPRIM_ enable dynamic + keyframe kinematic primitive
The logic in the above example
Cloth simulation
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Cloth simulation
Notice: NVIDIA rewrote entire PhysX cloth system, and the latest cloth will be simulated in an independent solver space and not join the rigid body collision. Its much faster than previous version (the more clothes the faster, at least 10 times faster and more). But the cloth feature is not fully been finished all by NVIDIA, such as collide with ground, cloth friction and so on. We will provide more features later in next version.
Creating Cloth 1. Put your cloth geometry directly under the Geometry_<Agent Type> group 2. Make sure your cloth do not contain tweak info 3. Select attach points and bone shape box of Original Agent, click Miarmy > Physics > Cloth Setup > Attach Cloth 4. You can continue add attach points to different bones from the single cloth
Step 1: put you cloth to Geometry_<Agent Type>
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Step 2: Make sure you clear the tweak info on cloth mesh
Step 3: Attach points to bone shape box of Original Agent
Tip: if your geometry mesh has tweak info, but you dont want to change the topology (shape) of that mesh, you can simply add a cluster deformer to the mesh and then delete history from the mesh, the 2 steps will help you clear the tweak info on the mesh but will not modify the points position Once your setup complete, and place your agents from placement node, the clothes will appear.
Cloth Attributes There are several clothes attribute for uniformly control all clothes in Physics Global. And these attributes 265 2011-2013 Basefount
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Cloth attributes in Physics Global
Solver Frequency: Solver frequency specifies how often the simulation step is computed per second Stiff Damping: damping coefficient for stiffness of cloth Cloth Density: the mass for each particle on mesh Vertical Stretch Stiffness: stiffness for holding the length in vertical space Horizontal Stretch Stiffness: stiffness for holding the width in horizontal space Shearing Stretch Stiffness: stiffness for holding the shape Bending Stiffness: stiffness for resisting shape bend
Note: because the cloth feature is under a major rewrite by NVIDIA, some features are not very stable. Please use it carefully.
Cloth Collision on Bone If we want to our cloth collide against with the bone, we need set the flag in original agents firstly.
Turn on collide cloth flag on bone shape
The cloth in PhysX 3 can only collide with capsule, so our system will create an approximate capsule based on the shape of cubic bone. Each cubic bone has 3 dimensions which are X, Y and Z. Our system will choose the longest dimension for the capsule length and the second longest for the radius of this capsule. Just like the left example below. Then once we enable simulation, the cloth will collide against the bone, like the right picture below.
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Approximate collision object from cubic bone
Cloth affected by Wind Cloth can only affect by wind force field. The wind can be created in Miarmy > Knowledge Perception > Create Wind.
Cloth affected by wind
The wind will blow to the direction which its arrow pointing. And the magnitude will be the value between (magnitude + noise) and (magnitude noise). In the following example, the wind magnitude result will range from 0 to 100. (50-50, 50+50)
The wind attributes
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual More realistic Cloth Simulation and Cloth Collision After PhysX 3.2, there are many new features in cloth simulation especially points random force. We apply that force on the wind, so it can make the cloth simulation more realistic:
Particle random set to 300 on attribute jitterMag
PhysX 3.1 cloth
PhysX 3.2 with random particle force
Of course if you turn the jitterMag off, it will return the result of version 1.5
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Mute Dynamics There is a muteDynamic attribute on each agent. Once we turn this on, the agent will never enable dynamics and will not join the collision detection, the pre-build RBD object will never been created. In some cases, using this feature properly, it will save tremendously amount of memory for you as well as speed your simulation up. See some real example in Part 9 Optimizing. Additionally, this attribute cannot save with scene, if the agents have been deleted and placed out again, these attribute will change back. So, you need enable muteDynamics first and use inverse placement to store these data to a new place node.
Rigid Body Dynamics Emitter Miarmy provide an interesting emitter can emit the rigid body dynamics, we call them RBD emitter. The RBD object emit from this emitter can interactive with agents, terrains, kinematic primitives and Maya field/fluid, also the Miarmy force field.
RBD emitter example 1
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RBD emitter example 2
This emitter can be created from Miarmy > Physics > Create RBD Emitter, the emit type for current version only have Plane, it consist of a plane and a direction pointer to the emit direction. Like the picture below:
The RBD emitter
The RBD emitter can be freely transformed, translate, rotate or scale is no any problem. Scaling bigger to emit the rigid bodies scatter. The RBD objects will be always emit from the plane area.
Scale freely
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Rotate freely
The rigid body emitter have some attributes can be adjusted to achieve different emitting result, and most of the attributes can be keyed frame.
RBD emitter attributes
Emitter ID: control the color of object emit out. (we will extend this feature later)
Emitter ID: 2 (left) 6 (right)
Display mode: control the constant color or diffuse color
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Display Mode: plain (left), normal (right)
Contact event: control the how the rigid body interactive with the scene element, we will talk about this in next session because there are some concepts need clarify before talking this. Rate: control the number of emit each frame
Rate: 1(left) and 50(right)
Rotation speed, rx: 0.0 (left) rx -0.2(right)
Box shape attributes XYZ adjust the dimension of XYZ of rigid boxes.
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Box shape attributes: x:1 y:10 z:1 (left) x:5 y:5 z:5 (right)
The sphere and sphere shape is not available in this version, even the attribute still there. Well add sphere shape later;
Rigid Body Contact and Leave to Agent In the previously session we skip the contact event attribute of RBD emitter because we have to talk about some new concept on collision and collision query.
3 types of contact behavior for RBD emitters rigid bodies
Collision Group There are 2 kinds of rigid bodies in Miarmy: 1. The regular rigid bodies (agent ragdolls, kinematical objects, and terrains) 2. The rigid bodies emit from RBD emitters There is a concept call collision group in PhysX engine. If the objects are put in different groups, we can make them not collide at all. If you set the RBD emitters to dynamics mode, we will put the 2 kinds of rigid body to the same group, and they will collide each other and can be normally interactive each other. If you set the RBD emitter to ignore, different groups, and they will not collide. we will put the 2 kinds of rigid body to the
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Collision Detection Query PhysX have another concept called Collision Detection Query, when we using collide or collideAt channels in decision node, we are actually need query the collision. As our design, we filtered 2 situations when query collision: The RBD emitter rigid bodies cannot be detected by the agents The agents cannot query collision from the terrain.
Inverse perception Instead of letting the agents query collision with RBD from emitters, we make an inverse perception. We designed letting the RBD query collision with agents, and if collide, it will tell the agents and automatically hold there. We introduce rbdCollide channel, this channel will return value bigger than 1 if the RBD objects from emitter hit the agent body part. Its not agent query collision from RBD objects, its these contact objects tell the agent, so we call it inverse perception. And this channel only work when we set to mode for the RBD emitter.
Firstly, the RBD objects will hold on whatever it contact if set to contact
The RBD objects hold on ground
If you dont think it reality, you can make 2 RBD emitter and make one dynamics
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Combine 2 emitters
When the RBD hit the agent body, it will leave the agent body when it contact
Agent dynamics hold on body automatically
This time the hold RBD object will tell the agent, I contact you and the rbdContact channel will be true, then you can enable the dynamics for the agent
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RBD object interactive with agents
A simple arrows rain example scene
Render RBD Emitter Bake to Instance We provide a simple tool can bake the RBD emitter objects directly into the polygon mesh instance. Please make sure the RBD emitter has been cached along with the agents. Then just select one of the RBD Emitter and one polygon mesh then click Miarmy > Physics > RBD Emitter > Bake RBD Emitter, our system will duplicate and key frame the polygon mesh automatically for you. Please notice we are duplicating the mesh as instance mode, so if you think the shape is not perfect, you can tweak one of the duplicated meshes and the others will be modified simultaneously.
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Baking RBD emitter to Polygon Mesh Instances
Read from MEL and Deal With Please read this from Chapter 9 Development MEL: McdSimpleCommand -exe 35;
Agent Bone Particle Emitter (Action Phase based) Agent bone can emit Maya particle since Miarmy 1.5. Sometimes our agents will emit some bullets, lasers or magic ball when they performing some specific action. We provide this tool can emit particle to scene, we call this agent particle emitters. You need first create an empty particle shape for hold the particle
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Empty particle shape without any particle
We can mark this particle associate the action name, bone name and frame range, we can do that assignment in Miarmy > Particle Emit Manager
Agent particles emitter manager
Select particle node and click Mark Emitter
The emit part
The particle emitting attributes
Emit particles from head to particle shape when agents playing walk and action frame is 5 to 8,
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Emit particles result
We can also emit particles from particle, and create weapon like stuffs.
The head emit particleA, and the particleA emit particleB And user can do any job on that particle also, for example add PP attributes, or anything VFX artiests familiar.
Also can be adjusted by any attributes
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Part 8 Render
Agent Cache
Lets firstly check out the agent cache before rendering. One can easily and fast create Miarmy Agent Cache for storing the simulation data of agent bones to external files. Then, using the agent cache files, artists are able to real time drag the time slider back and forth for getting the directly visual feedback. Agent cache is one file for each frame. It contains the simulation data in this frame. Usually the simulation data is the bone rotates and translates, also the cloth information if there are clothes on agents. The extension name (usually called format) of cache file is .mmc, and the naming convention is <CacheName>.<Frame Number>.mmc, e.g. scene001.26.mmc. Only with render cache, we can apply motion blur render.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual a. Cache folder: the cache file located b. Cache name: the name of cache files 2. Click Miarmy > Miarmy Tools 3. Enable Cache in Miarmy Global
Step 1: fill right information
The cache files in d:/abc folder
Agent Cache for Bone Rotate Only Default, we only record the bone rotate info to the cache files. It can save lot of time in the process of reading and writing. And there is a special usage for cache files. In dynamic simulation, sometimes for some agents, the simulate result is not very precise. Some joints will not convergence very good. But since our cache is not going to record the translate data, after writing out the cache and when the agents read cache file back, the joint separate situation will disappear automatically.
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(left) simulation time and separated, (right) read cache from file and convergence
Agent Cache with translate In some cases (we listed them below) we need record the bone translate info. For storing the translate info on the bone, the only thing we need to do is enable isCacheBoneTranslate feature in Miarmy Glboal before creating cache.
Enable record translate before making cache
The situations we must enable record translate: Logic channel contains offset translate Some parts separated from agent when dynamics enable (like drop sword and shield)
Agent Cache with cloth If there are clothes on agents, our system will automatically record them.
Agent Cache Format Miarmy cache is a binary stream, which contain the format. <numberOfAgent><numberOfCloth>(<numberOfIndex1><numberOfVertex1><numberOfNormal1>)<Index><V ertex><normal>..<numberOfIndexn><numberOfVertexn><numberOfNormaln>< Index >< Vertex >< normal >)<agent1 root>,<agent 1 bone><numberOfCustomData1><customData1><customDatak>, (<repeat cloth n>)<agentn root>, <agentn bone><numberOfCustomDatan><customData1><customDatak> Out engine will compare the agent number between the first data in cache file and the number of agent in scene, and if they are not equal, the cache will not be read and setback pose to agents.
Command Line Caching Many task of Miarmy can be done in batch mode or command line. That is means we can do our job without open Maya, and this can save much time and memory of loading Maya editor and drawing OpenGL stuffs etc. 282 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Also these command line task can be assigned to simulation/render farm and let the machines to do that without human resource.
Command Line (Batch) Simulation We know that after caching agents, the crowd scene can be the real time. At this time we can summit the agent caching tasks to our machines instead of waiting on your machine. Before run command line, we have to do some setup: 1. The scene can be simulated normally 2. Setup the exporting path and file name correctly 3. Pre-test some frames and check is that cache can be generated properly.
Setup the agent cache path and name properly (Miarmy Tools)
Re-direct your start position into the Maya bin and Run command McdBatchAgentCache Platform Windows Linux Command Line mayabatch d:/test.ma command McdBatchAgentCache maya batch file /usr/test.ma command McdBatchAgentCache
If everything all right, the cache (.mmc) file will be created in specified folder.
Render Solutions
There are 6 types of render solutions for Miarmy, the renderman plugin and mesh drive. Mesh Drive: using this solution, you can use arbitrary renderer to render you scene out. This method will actually duplicate render mesh out in Maya scene. Renderman pluing: using 3delight API, we dedicated designed a renderman plugin for exporting scene to 3delight renderer or to the RIB file, with procedural primitives. Mental Ray: V-Ray: 283 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Alembic Geometry Cache FBX Export
Since we already introduced the Mesh Drive in above, from here, we will focus on the renderman plugin solution.
Render by Miarmy Mesh Drive

Concept One can generate geometries for each one of agent directly in Maya, and use Miarmy Agents to drive these geometries. These geometries are driven by agents rather than the regular ways such as skinCluster joints or geometry caches, and all the processes are happened in Agent memory layer instead of Maya Script layer, so it is relatively faster than regular deformation method.
Driven Mesh Rendered by Mental Ray
Features: The Driven meshes are actually Maya meshes and can be rendered by any type of renderer or plugins directly in Maya! Such as Mental Ray, V-Ray, Renderman for Maya Interactive display geometries, OpenGL or viewport 2.0 In not far future, these meshes can be applied Blend Shapes feature
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Optimizing Mesh Drive before Implementation As you see, Mesh Drive indeed creates geometries (Maya Mesh Node) in scene, so it can be very slow if your character is complex or number is too large. It is actually a render feature instead of animation feature so we provide the following suggestions for optimizing your crowd scene: Linux is highly recommended This feature is very memory consuming, please use the machine with big mount of memory (more than 4G, and recommend 8G+) Make Agent Cache before using mesh drive Make your mesh simpler if you have large number of agents Keep down the geometry number for each single agents (each agents may contain several geometries) Change the start and end agent ID for partial display agent geometries Warning: this feature would be relatively slow in Maya 2011 Windows version, but faster in Maya 2012, and the fastest on Linux System.
Generate (Duplicate) Mesh In this process, our script will duplicate all of the geometries for each type of agent, and optimize them, and then duplicate for each placed agent with the random geometry rules. All the process is automatically.
Mesh Drive Feature GUI
Steps breakdown: In the first step, system will duplicate the Geometry_<AgentName> group for each type of agent and rename them (add MDG_MDG_ prefix), then put them out of Miarmy_Contents. We called them template groups. The structure inside of this group is naturally same as the Geometry_<AgentName>
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The geometry group in Miarmy Contents to be duplicated
Step 1: Duplicate a copy out and rename optimization automatically
In the second step, system will automatically delete the all of the history and intermediate shape nodes for all of the geometries in the template groups.
Step 2: the grey ones, the trash intermediate shape nodes need to be deleted
In the third step, system will use random geometry rule to duplicate geometries for each one of agents, and group them into a new group MDGGrp_<AgentName>. You may notice the geometries are arranged sparsely without any hierarchy because they are the already selected ones by the random geometry rules.
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Step 3: duplicate meshes for each of agent obey the random rule we talked able in previously
In the last step, system will pair geometries in agent memory <AgentName> and MDGGrp_<AgentName>, please check out the Pairing session below Pairing In this session, system will pair the geometry pointers in agent node to the mesh nodes in scene. After this process, system will not have to re-search the geometries from crowded scene for agents again in time iteration. And the speed will be much faster. Technically, it is a process establishes a map relationship between the memory of agent and the scene meshes. Please take a look at the picture below. After this process, the pointers in memory of agent will point to the real meshes in scene.
Agent -> Maya Geometries Memory Mapping
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Enable Mesh Drive If the mapping relationship has been established, each time the agent pose been updated, the meshes in scene will be deformed by the Miarmy agent.
Left: dynamic + force field, Right: viewport 2.0
Render by Renderman
For rendering image, we dedicated provide a render plugin for previewing image, rendering image sequence or exporting RIB file. This plugin is based on 3delight API, so you need install 3Delight Studio Pro before using these features. Download from the following link and only 64bit: http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php?page=3DSP_download
3Delight Configuration Before using Renderman plugin, you need install 3delight correctly. You can easily check whether your 3delight correct by click Miarmy > 3delight Setup > Check Renderer Status. If the result is not fine, please reinstall 3delight and reinstall Miarmy can solve this
Result is fine
The check render status script will check the following things: 1. Whether The 3Delight.dll in Maya bin is correct version 288 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Whether install 3Deligth Whether install correct version of 3Delight Check shader path Check whether shaders has been compiled Check setup DL_DISPLAYS_PATH
Manually Setup Renderer (Windows) If you are familiar with the windows system, you can please setup your render by following steps, it should be make your image can be rendered out. Close Maya Re install 3delight 10 64bit firstly Copy the 3Delight.dll from 3delight bin folder (e.g. F:\Program Files\3Delight\bin) to the Maya bin folder (e.g. F:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2012\bin) Open Maya and load Miarmy Click Miarmy > 3delight Setup > Compile Shaders
Pipeline The render pipeline is fairly simple and clear. There is an internal loop based on all the agents in scene, the original agent will match to the agent in current iteration, and then export the geometries from original agents to the engine, finally we will send the scene information like the geometries, lights, shaders and so on to the render engine. The engine will render out the image based on the scene description info.
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Internal render pipeline
How to Render If the renderer setup correctly, you can create something and light them up then click Miarmy > Render Preview (i-display). Once the stuff rendered out, it proof that your renderer is ready for duty.
The simple render test
Render Agents For rendering agents, we need firstly make sure the original agent have geometries been skinned on it. And the Geometry_<Agent Type> group contains these geometries.
Original Agent with geometries skinned on its joints
And you need place the agents out from place node(s).
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Test render
Random Geometries Rule We already know that the render engine need fetch the geometries in Original Agents. We can easily re-arrange the structure of these geometries in Geometry_<agent type> group for achieving randomizing. There are 3 rules for making the geometries random: 1. The geometries directly under the Geometry_<agent type> will be always rendered. 2. And if there are several sub groups, and these sub groups are children of a root group, and this root group is directly under the Geometry_<agent type>. We will choose all the geometries in one of sub groups even there still have hierarchy in sub group. Notice, there may be no geometry in sub group. 3. If the geometries under a child group of Geometry_<agent type>, one of these geometries will be rendered.
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Random rules example. One of the items in green bound will be selected.
Please check out the above picture, 1. The items in the first orange bound will obey rule 1 The system will choose one of the geometries from the green bound. For example, head_Mesh2, l_arm_Mesh, l_shoe_Mesh, r_arm_Mesh and r_shoe_Mesh will be all selected. 2. The items in the second and third orange bound will obey rule 2 The system will choose one of the groups in green bound, and then fetch all the geometries out from that group. If that group doesnt have geometry, the system will not fetch anything, whereas if that group has further sub hierarchy, the system will fetch all the geometries from all sub hierarchy, for example, in set1 will be chosen, and all the geometries in set1 and sub hierarchy will be all selected. 3. The items in the fourth orange bound will obey rule 3 The system will choose one of the geometries in green bound. For example, the shirt_Mesh1 will be selected.
Notice the cap, pants and t-shirt geometries
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Texture Naming Convention and Random Textures We can randomize the textures just by the texture name. If you make your texture names by the following rules, system will random texture for your geometry automatically without any further setup. Correct naming convention for automatic random texture: <Texture Name>_<padding>.<format> 1. Need at least an underscore before numbering 2. Only single padding number 3. Sequential numbering If your texture names are correct, you just need fill the first texture name in the Image Name attribute. Example: if you assign pants_color_1.tif in your Image Name attribute, the system can automatically parse out the Green name in the following example.
Assign image name in texture file node
pants_color_1.tif pants_color_2.tif pants_color_3.tif pants_color_4.tif
pants_color_1.tif pants_color_2.tif pants_color_0.tif (cannot read, not sequential) pants_color_4.tif (cannot read, not sequential)
pants_color_1.tif pants_color_2.tif pants_color_03.tif (cannot read, not right numbering) pants_color_04.tif (cannot read, not right numbering)
Incorrect naming:
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual pant_color1.tif (no underscore, cannot reach) pant_color0001.tif (no underscore, cannot reach) pant_color_001.tif (non-single padding, cannot reach)
Once we parse out all the possible textures, for example, from pants_color_1.tif, we found pants_color_2.tif, pants_color_3.tif and pants_color_4.tif. Then, the system can automatically random select one of it based on the agent. For example, pants_color_2.tif will be selected. And the pants_color_2.tif will be sent to the render engine.
Random textures
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Render Global Once you know how to render the image out, you can adjust the attributes in Render Global for fine-tune the image quality.
Render global
Texture generate and path accessible Due to that the Renderman need generate the .tex file for each of texture, please make sure the directory you put your textures is writeable. Or you need pre-compile the .tex file and put these file on sever. Please notice the following figure. You may notice each texture file has a .tex file counterpart.
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The .tex file in the same folder of texture
Multi cam render Our system will automatically render image from all renderable cameras, if you want to render stereo multi can, please just setup in Maya Render settings. If you have several renderer cams, the Renderable Camera in Miarmy Render Global will change to All Render Cams (Stereo & Multi) automatically. And you dont need to setup them again here.
Render multi cam
Preset shaders You can directly use Maya shader and its instinct features to render the scene, our render plugin will automatically translate the Maya shader to Renderman shader parameters, then render image out. Just like 3Delight for Maya or Pixars Renderman for Maya. We only support 3 types of preset shader of Maya. They are Lamber, Blinn and Phong. You can use Miarmy > Rendr Preview (i-display) for directly rendering image out.
Lamber / Blinn / Phong rendered by 3delight preset shader
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Preset shader supports the following feature, and all of them dont need you setup, just give them Maya Shader:
Only need setup Maya shader
Note: If you render image by Miarmy > Render Preview (i-display), the preview image will be the first pass in Miarmy Render Global. Whereas if you render images by batch Miarmy > Render Extra > Render batch to Image Files, the render plugin will render all the images in each pass. For example like the following picture, if you check Shadow and Occlusion passes, and when you preview render, only shadow pass will be rendered out for current frame. And if you render image batch to files, all the images for every frames and every passes will be rendered to specified path.
Render passes in Miarmy Render Global
Beauty Pass Our system directly support these shader features:
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The preset shader feature
Displacement Map Miarmy render plugin doesnt support bump map. Instead, it supports displacement map. The only thing need to do is link a Maya displacement material to the shading group node. Because Renderman based on micro polygon, the displacement map is faster and better then bump.
Creating displacement material
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Fill the displacement map
Displacement map
Displacement Map Intensity You can directly change the alpha gain parameters for tweaking displacement intensity:
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Displacement Bound If you are using high intensive displacement, there may be some render error on it like the following left picture. For solving this, you need add a displacement bound attribute to the geometry. Miarmy > Render Extra > Add Displacement Bound Attribute
Shadow Pass You need enable depth shadow map in light attributes
(left) maya viewport (right) Shadow pass
Render Ambient Occlusion: The occlusion quality can be setup in Render Global OCC samples
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Occlusion pass
Depth Pass Controlled by near and far clips
Depth shader controlled by camera near and far clip. (Left) frustum (right) render result
The shader located in 3delight shader path. They are: McdBumpy.sdl McdDOF.sdl McdGatherAO.sdl McdSpotlightInv.sdl McdTxtPlastic.sdl
And the source codes are located in Miarmy installation place.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Self-defined Renderman Shader You can create Renderman shader shell and link them to external renderman shader. In current version, we only support
RM shader shell
Click Browse to select shader, Expand Extra Attributes for displaying the attribute of the shader Click Update RIB for updating the Shader String. Click Reload for clear all attributes and set to default.
The emboss shader example
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The render result from brick shader with different parameters
Displacement Map is the same as surface map, but it need connect to Displacement mat. attribute.
Connect a McdRMDispMat shader to node
Displacement map and render result
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Prman Rib Export, support .slo for custom Shader Since version 1.5, the rib exporting can directly support prmans .slo shader,
Fill .slo and our system can hook them for you Know Issue Sometimes in some platforms, the node attribute editor for displaying shaders attributes is not updating correctly, we still cannot find out why but there is 2 solutions can bypass it:
This attribute may disappear, so you cannot modify the data in shader
We found these attributes are existed but just not display correctly, Solution 1 is duplicate the attribute tab by clicking Copy Tab
Click copy tab and clone a new tab the new tab
Solution 2 is adjust the attribute in channel box (but cannot change the string type of attributes)
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Adjust the attributes in channel box
Light Usage & Shadow Lights Miarmy support 4 types of lights for lighting. But only support Spot light for shadowing.
Available lights
Shadow Need enable shadow Map and resolution should be 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, and 8192.
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Need enable shadow Map and resolution should be some specific value
Ray trace shadow Since version 1.5, our build-in render plugin support Ray trace render, this method can save time and hard disk spaces for exporting shadow map, and much easier to setting up.
Currently, we are only support directional light of ray-trace shadow . And you have to enable the Use Ray Trace Shadows to turn the shadow on, while the Shadow Rays can control the sampling value of render man light shader.
And the final result is much better;
3 types of ray trace method Ray Trace Shadow All: render all diffuse and shadows
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Ray Trace Shadow Agent: only render the shadow on agents
Ray Trance Shadow Terrain (render only terrain shadows)
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Motion Blur Notice: motion blur only can work with agent has cache There are 3 types of motion blur in Miarmy renderman plugin Camera motion blur: blur when camera moving Transform motion blur: blur entire agent by its root movement Deformation motion blur: blur based on the deformation of the geometries
Deformation motion blur have more accurate and better result whereas transform motion blur is faster, usually you need choose one of them but dont enable them both. The first is a camera attribute and you can enable it in render setting page:
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3 types of motion blur in Miarmy Render Global
Camera motion blur (camera is rotating)
Transform motion blur (blur entire agent)
Deformation motion blur (blur only deforming parts)
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual You can change the motion blur quality by Pixel Sample attributes in render global
Pixel Sample results
Renderman Procedural Primitives Reason The reason of using procedural primitives is pretty simple: save space of hard disk. Under the hood Traditional Renderman RIB file will contain the all geometry details in file for rendering the scene, each single geometry will be included in each frame of RIB, sometime this will using huge amount of hard disk, for example you have 10000 agents with 100000 piece of geometry its impossible store them in hard disk directly. Procedural primitive is a feature can insert these geometries information in render time and discard them automatically after rendering. So it will save your hard disk, but not accelerate your render. The Pipeline 1. We firstly export some information on hard drive, we call them agent assets. The agent assets actually are some information of Pre Bind pose and geometries. 2. Then export RIB file with special block instead of geometry block (means, the RIB will not contain geometry information any more) 3. When rendering, system will call a McdRunProgram to read that special block in RIB and generate right geometry info and replace it with the geometry block.
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Left: transitional rib approach, Right: procedural primitive approach
Agent Assets Content The agent assets will be automatically export to hard disk when export RIB and its location will be the same as the RIB
They are 3 types of files 1. Agent Main File: a. Agent bone number b. Bone names and structure c. World inverse matrices of each bone 2. Original Geometry Files: a. The rib file of original geometry 3. Weight List files: a. Each line contains current point weight list (bone id and bone weight) b. (the number of lines equals to point number) 311 2011-2013 Basefount
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Agent Assets Structure Each scene contains several agent types, each type have severl geometries.
The colorful words mean folder and white names mean files
Rib Tags Format: Procedural "RunProgram" [ "<RunProgram Folder>/McdRunProgram" "MiarmySession: <agent assets folder>/ProcPrimAssets <agent type id> <geometry type id> <motion blur> <shutter open> <shutter close> <pose data[12] * number of bone> ] [<xmin>, <xmax>, <ymin>, <ymax>,<zmin>,<zmax>(bounding box info)] The bone without weighting, we will not export their pose, instead, we put an asterisk there *, one * standard for 12 zeroes, this can save much hard disk space. Example (with motion blur and 4 bones, 2 no weighting)
Procedural "RunProgram" [ "D:/Users/Yeah YANG/Documents/Visual Studio 2008/Projects/McdRunProgram/x64/Release/McdRunProgram" "MiarmySession: d:/pp/abc/ProcPrimAssets/ 0 0 1 0.000 0.500 0.83873 0.00000 -0.54454 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.54454 0.00000 0.83873 0.34956 0.00000 4.77319 0.54429 0.00000 -0.83889 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.83889 0.00000 -0.54429 1.18829 0.00000 4.22864 * * 0.83873 0.00000 -0.54454 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.54454 0.00000 0.83873 0.69913 0.00000 4.54638 -0.54429 0.00000 -0.83889 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.83889 0.00000 -0.54429 1.53786 0.00000 4.00183 " ] [ -1.0337217 2.0822851 -2.220446e-16 2.220446e-16 3.163023 6.1564216 ]
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The McdRunProgram under the Hood The McdRunProgram is a Renderman plugin can read the agent assets and rig tags, then generate the geometry, and put the result in memory in render runtime. This program actually implements a very simple skinning algorithm to bind the agent geometry and calculate the right position of each point and right direction of each normal (Note: if using sub-division mesh, no normal need to be calculated). Then put the results to stream (in memory)
Source Code The McdRunProgram is an open source program written by Basefount Team and exclusively open for our formal testers and customers. If you need, please contact us.
Note: The preview render is using procedural primitive automatically and will not generate agent assets If you render image from Maya directly, it will automatically use procedural primitive and will not generate agent assets files.
Renderman Extra Rib Attribute (internal or custom) We provided 2 extra types of render attributes: 1. Arbitrary string attribute 2. Build-in attribute Arbitrary String Attributes: Select any geometry and click Miarmy > Render Extra > Add/Del Custom Attributes > Add Custom String Attribute, There will be a new attribute (string type) added on your selected object
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Fill whatever you want and split the string by (blank Sign)
Then, the output rib will hook the attribute you specified (notice the blue font)
------------------------ rib example ------------------------- AttributeBegin # { Attribute "identifier" "name" [ "|pSphereShape1" ] Attribute "user" "uniform string creatureType" [ "lion" ] Attribute "user" "uniform string creaturePart" [ "head" ] Attribute "displacementbound" "sphere" [ 1 ] ShadingInterpolation "smooth" Surface "McdTxtPlastic" "Ks" [ 0 ] "Kd" [ 0.8 ] "Ka" [ 1 ] ---------------------------------------------------------------
Build-in Attribute There are also some attribute will write to rib if user nee them:
Build-in Renderman attributes
Agent Index: the index of agent, (0, 1, 2, 3<Number of Agents>) Body Index: the index of body in each agent Agent ID: an unique id between 0~1 randomly assigned to agent, each frame is stable Body ID: an unique id between 0~1 randomly assigned to body, each frame is stable Points Velocity: write each point velocity to primitive attributes (only motion blur)
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Rib preview for build-in attributes
Rib preview for points velocity
Hierarchical Subdivision Mesh We can export hierarchical subdivision mesh after version 1.5, when we add the subd flag to polygon mesh. There will be an extra attribute asHiSubd for turn this subd to hierarchical subdivision mesh. This kind of subd can solve some problems when the edge has shrunk:
Hierarchical subdivision mesh
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Command Line (Batch) Exporting RIBs With the similar operations we can export Rib file to hard disk by the command: 1. The scene can be export RIB normally 2. Setup the exporting path and file name correctly 3. Pre-test some frames and check is that RIB file can be generated properly.
Setup the rib exporting path and name properly (Render Global)
Re-direct your start position into the Maya bin and Run command McdBatchExportRib Platform Windows Linux Command Line Mayabatch d:/test.ma command McdBatchExportRib Maya batch file /usr/test.ma command McdBatchExportRib
If everything all right, the RIB (.rib) file will be created in specified folder.
Misc New Layers:
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Color pass
RGB Light Pass (can re-light)
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Normal pass render (can re-light)
Split render Reason When the scene contains several thousand agents and each agent contains several geometries, our machine may meet the bottleneck. At this time, we need separate the render job to several parts and finish each part one by one and finally combine the results. We do this using split render. Under the hood Split render is actually going to split screen to different parts and render each parts one by one, and each part will output a picture. Then, we need combine them in post-production software. The splitX and splitY attributes are used to specify how you need split the render screen. The calculation is based on bounding box of the agent, in original agent. The agent with break dynamic bones (such like the solider dropped the sword ) will be rendered in every split part
For example in following 2 pictures, we split the screen 3 by 3 to 9 parts, and our renderer will render each part of them.
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Split the render screen 3 by 3 to 9 parts
Split screen and separate the agents
Render Result The render result naming convention will be: <Frame Name>_<pass>__<part X>_<part Y>_.<Frame Number> The image can be rendered out fast also without any bottle neck:
The result of split render
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Procedural Primitives Reason The reason of using procedural primitives is pretty simple: save space of hard disk. Under the hood Traditional Renderman RIB file contains the all geometry details in file for rendering the scene, each single geometry will be included in each frame of RIB, sometime this will using huge amount of hard disk, for example you have 10000 agents with 100000 piece of geometry its almost impossible store them in hard disk directly. Procedural primitive is a feature can insert these geometries information before rendering in memory and discard them automatically after rendering. So it will save your hard disk, but not accelerate your render. The Pipeline 4. We firstly export some information on hard drive, we call them agent assets. The agent assets actually are some information of Pre Bind pose and geometries. 5. Then export RIB file with special block instead of geometry block (means, the RIB will not contain geometry information any more) 6. When rendering, system will call a McdRunProgram to read that special block in RIB and generate right geometry info and replace it with the geometry block.
Left: transitional rib approach, Right: procedural primitive approach
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Agent Assets Content The agent assets will be automatically export to hard disk when export RIB and its location will be the same as the RIB
They are 3 types of files 4. Agent Main File: a. Agent bone number b. Bone names and structure c. World inverse matrices of each bone 5. Original Geometry Files: a. The rib file of original geometry 6. Weight List files: a. Each line contains current point weight list (bone id and bone weight) b. (the number of lines equals to point number)
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Rib Tags Format: Procedural "RunProgram" [ "<RunProgram Folder>/McdRunProgram" "MiarmySession: <agent assets folder>/ProcPrimAssets <agent type id> <geometry type id> <motion blur> <shutter open> <shutter close> <pose data[12] * number of bone> ] [<xmin>, <xmax>, <ymin>, <ymax>,<zmin>,<zmax>(bounding box info)] Example (with motion blur and 2 pose):
Procedural "RunProgram" [ "D:/Users/Yeah YANG/Documents/Visual Studio 2008/Projects/McdRunProgram/x64/Release/McdRunProgram" "MiarmySession: d:/pp/abc/ProcPrimAssets/ 0 0 1 0.000 0.500 0.83873 0.00000 -0.54454 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.54454 0.00000 0.83873 0.34956 0.00000 4.77319 0.54429 0.00000 -0.83889 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.83889 0.00000 -0.54429 1.18829 0.00000 4.22864 0.83873 0.00000 0.54454 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.54454 0.00000 0.83873 0.69913 0.00000 4.54638 -0.54429 0.00000 -0.83889 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.83889 0.00000 -0.54429 1.53786 0.00000 4.00183 " ] [ -1.0337217 2.0822851 -2.220446e-16 2.220446e-16 3.163023 6.1564216 ]
The McdRunProgram under the Hood The McdRunProgram is a Renderman plugin can read the agent assets and rig tags, then generate the geometry, and put the result in memory in render runtime. This program actually implements a very simple skinning algorithm to bind the agent geometry and calculate the right position of each point and right direction of each normal (Note: if using sub-division mesh, no normal need to be calculated). Then put the results to stream (in memory)
Source Code The McdRunProgram is an open source program written by Basefount Team and exclusively open for our formal testers and customers. If you need, please write contact us.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Subdivision Mesh Subdivision mesh is an powerful feature of Renderman, our render plugin support it! Once you mark a subd flag on geometry, our renderer will take this geometry subdivision mesh instead of polygon mesh. For adding subd flag to geometry, you need simply click Miarmy > Render Extra > Add Subd Attributes. You may notice the hard edge on mesh will disappear and the antialiasing is perfect.
(left) Maya viewport (mid) polygon mesh (righ) subd mesh
Extra attributes As Subd On The object will be rendered as subdivision mesh instead of polygon mesh Interpolate Boundary On If enable, the subdivision mesh should interpolate all boundary faces to their edges
(left) Maya viewport (mid) disable interpolate boundary (righ) enable interpolate boundary
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Matte You can add background color matte to some objects for skip there render but still leave the alpha channel there. You can simply click Miarmy > Render Extra > Add Matte Attribute.
(left) maya viewport (mid) render result (right) alpha channel
Fetch Agent Render Information from Miarmy to Your Own Pipeline Fetch Joint Information By menu Item
Select any agent, and click Debug Tools > Agent Match, you original agent will align/match to the agent, no matter cloth or broken joint part, animation or dynamical, the result should be perfect matched. Click Debug Tools > Agent Return for put your Original Agent to initial pose.
Match Original Agent to agent, then you can fetch joints info from Original Agent
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual By MEL/Python Command The agent match process can be done by script, 1. Select any one of agents 2. Run McdAgentMatchCmd -mm 1; MEL script for matching Original Agent to selected agent Put the Original Agent back to origin: 1. Run McdAgentMatchCmd -mm 0; MEL script for putting all Original Agent to origin and T-Pose
Fetch geometry information By MEL/Python command Run McdGetRenderGeoCmd -rec 0; MEL command. The system will return an array which contents are: <agent name1><geo1><geo2><geoN><#><agent name2><geo1><geo1><geo2><geoN><#> For example: # Result: [u'McdAgent1', u'head_Mesh2Shape', u'l_arm_MeshShape', u'l_shoe_MeshShape', u'r_arm_MeshShape', u'r_shoe_MeshShape', u'l_leg_MeshShape', u'r_leg_MeshShape', u'shorts_Mesh5Shape', u'shirt_Mesh1Shape', u'#', u'McdAgent2', u'head_Mesh2Shape', u'l_arm_MeshShape', u'l_shoe_MeshShape', u'r_arm_MeshShape', u'r_shoe_MeshShape', u'capShape', u'l_leg_MeshShape', u'r_leg_MeshShape', u'shorts_Mesh5Shape', u'tshirt_MeshShape', u'#', u'McdAgent3', u'head_Mesh2Shape', u'l_arm_MeshShape', u'l_shoe_MeshShape', u'r_arm_MeshShape', u'r_shoe_MeshShape', u'pantsShape', u'tshirt_MeshShape', u'#', u'McdAgent4', u'head_Mesh2Shape', u'l_arm_MeshShape', u'l_shoe_MeshShape', u'r_arm_MeshShape', u'r_shoe_MeshShape', u'capShape', u'pantsShape', u'shirt_Mesh1Shape', u'#', u'McdAgent5', u'head_Mesh2Shape'
Command Line (Batch) Exporting RIBs With the similar operations we can export Rib file to hard disk by the command: 4. The scene can be export RIB normally 5. Setup the exporting path and file name correctly 6. Pre-test some frames and check is that RIB file can be generated properly.
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Setup the rib exporting path and name properly (Render Global)
Re-direct your start position into the Maya bin and Run command McdBatchExportRib Platform Windows Linux Command Line Mayabatch d:/test.ma command McdBatchExportRib Maya batch file /usr/test.ma command McdBatchExportRib
If everything all right, the RIB (.rib) file will be created in specified folder.
Render by Mesh Drive

The Old Mesh Drive 2.0 (Obsoleted) Mesh drive 2.0 is a feature from version 1.5 ~ 1.5.8 and now is obsoleted. The History of Mesh Drive The evolution from Mesh drive 1.0 to mesh drive 2.0, now is mesh drive 3.0 Mesh Drive 1.0 (Still Available) Need place agent Need Duplicate Mesh Need Calculate Agent to Joints Need Agent Cache Mesh Drive 2.0 (Obsoleted) No need place agent Need Duplicate Mesh Direct Drive Joints from Cache (faster) Need Joints Cache
NEW: Mesh Drive 3.0 For more fast and stable batch render, we provide a better mesh drive render methods, the new feature of Mesh Drive 3.0: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Put to render farm directly without commands, just like a normal Maya file. (site license needed) With Render layer or re-assigned shader information save-able. Save about than 40~50% memory (need save and reopen file) 3~5 Times Faster than Drive Mesh 2.0 when drive mesh Can export Alembic Cache, Maya Geometry Cache directly & correctly 326 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual 6. Save scene directly, even with tons thousands of geometries, no hard disk needed (Dynamic loaded Miarmy Cache) Compare between Mesh Drive 2.0 and 3.0 Mesh Drive 2.0 Cannot save geometry Not support Render Layer Not support Re-assign shader to geo Directly Save Support Render Layer Freely re-assign shader to any geometry 3~5x speed improvement Save 40%~50% memory (need save & reopen) Render farm need command call Cannot correctly export Alembic To be continued Under the hood Cache The new mesh drive 3.0 will export 2 kinds of very small files for storing the scene information and use them to drive the mesh. They are: 1. The joint data of each original agent, we call them Miarmy Bone Cache (the extension name is mbc). This is different from Miarmy Agent Cache, agent cache is storing the agent bone data whereas the Miarmy Bone Cache store the Original agent bone data for each agent. The Miarmy Bone Cache will be one frame one file. 2. A file contain the scene agent types, we call the agent type list file. Only need one file for a scene. Drive pipeline 1. Before driving, our system will firstly duplicate (or generate) the geometries for each agent base on the agent type list file. 2. Then we will create a node dedicated for controlling the driving session, this node will store the information of pairing for accelerate the driving process. 3. When the system driving the meshes, it will read the Miarmy Bone Cache for a specific frame and use original agent to drive meshes. Mesh Drive Node The mesh drive node control everything, the mesh drive node are controlled by time node, it will find and read the cache, calculate the geometry shape, then plug that shape to inMesh of duplicated shape The DG connection should be the following 2 pictures: Directly put file to render farm Correctly export Alembic and Maya Geo Cache
Mesh Drive 3.0
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And the whole scene should be like this, there is only one Mesh Drive node in scene:
One mesh drive node rule them all
Render Usage Preparing in Maya 1. Place agents 2. Make agent cache and enable cache. 3. Setup Cache files store path in Miarmy > Render Global > Other Renders Tab
Output agent bone cache folder (.mbc)
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual 4. Make bone cache and agent type list file together by Miarmy > Other Renders > Mesh Drive 3.0 > Export Cache 5. Save your scene! Make sure the batch render can run. At this time you can choose whether render in Maya or directly render in batch mode. (Submit to render farm) Method 1: Render in Maya 1. Need de-place agent firstly. (delete all agents) 2. Make sure your original agent is there in scene. 3. Duplicate Meshes by Miarmy > Other Renders > Mesh Drive 3.0 > Duplicate Meshes and Randomize Texture 4. It will start to duplicating and them automatically random texture, usually, we need select Duplicate Random
2 method for randomize texture
5. After that, your meshes will be there in origin of scene
Duplicated agents meshes
6. Enable Mesh Drive by Miarmy > Other Renders > Mesh Drive 3.0 > Enable Drive Mesh 7. Open your script editor to watch the progress
Progress will show in script editor
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Driven meshes
9. Render that use any type of renderer, motion blur all is OK!
Render results
Method 2: Render in Batch Mode This feature can render scene without open Maya and also you can submit this render job to Render Farm. If you want to do render farm setup, you need site-license of Miarmy. All renderer support Since the mesh drive 3.0, we can directly save the scene out and submit your render job to the render farm without any setup And then you can render it by command line:
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Maya command-line batch render
Render it in Maya interface:
Maya interface batch render
Export Usage Except rendering, the Mesh Drive 3.0 is also a good exporting tool. Due to the internal data transfer method improvement than 2.0, the Mesh Drive 3.0 can export geometry to Alembic and Maya Geometry Caches directly and correctly, or others. Export Alembic Select all geometries and export with Maya exporter
Export V-Ray Mesh Select all/some geometries and export with V-Ray exporter User Miarmy > Other Renderers > Mesh Drive Exporter > Export Mesh As V-Ray vrmesh (Single Frames) / (All Frames)
Export Mental Ray Proxy Select all/some geometries and export with Maya exporter User Miarmy > Other Renderers > Mesh Drive Exporter > Export Mesh As Mental Ray Proxy (Single Frames) / (All Frames)
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Benchmark Test Machine 8GB DDR3 RAM Intel i7 Core Agent bones & Meshes About 20 bones 7-11 geometries randomly 1600-1800 points need drive Result For 5000 agents: 1 second to build joint cache per frame, 6MB/Frame hard disk space 30 seconds to duplicate meshes, up to 1.9GB Memory (RAM) 10 second to drive mesh, up to 3.5GB Memory (RAM) 1.5 minutes to render (production quality 1280* 720) Memory spend is about 5GB batch mode is faster and save about 330 MB memory save and re-open your scene can save about 30% memory
For 8000 agents: 3 second to build joint cache per frame, 10MB/Frame hard disk space 1 minute to duplicate meshes, up to 2.9GB Memory (RAM) 30 seconds to drive mesh, up to 4.5GB Memory (RAM) 3 minutes to render (production quality 1280* 720) Memory spend is about 6.8GB batch mode is faster and save about 350 MB memory save and re-open your scene can save about 30% memory
Memory Usage: The 8GB can hold at most 8000 agents in one Maya scene which contains about 64000 geometries.
Fortunately, the RAM is very cheap, 16GB RAM need about 100USD only. Conclusion & Suggestions Mesh drive is memory depending feature, the more memory you have, you got faster to render, so increase memory if you want to use this method to render 332 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual The speed of Mesh drive is depending on the number of points, so if your scene contains a lot of agents, please make your geometries simpler, it will be much faster.
Render By Arnold
Since version 1.5, Miarmy support Solid Angle Arnold Render (http://www.solidangle.com) with Procedural Primitive DSO approach. The McdArnoldDSO (written by Basefount) is Open Source to our customers and the confirmed beta users.
General Introduction Our tool can export all the agents render information out to an Arnold .ass file to the disk you specified. Then, we can create one Arnold StandIn object in Maya and link that ass file against with this StandIn object. After setup some parameters, we can directly use Arnold for Maya (mtoa.mll) render plugin to render them out.
Arnold Procedural Primitive Notice: this part is the explanation of Procedural Primitive under the hood. It can make users understand better. You can skip this part and directly go to part the tools and the pipeline if you just want to render image. Reason The reason of using procedural primitives is pretty simple: save hard disk space. Under the hood Regular Arnold ASS file contains the all geometries detail (points, normal etc) in file for rendering the scene, each single geometry will be included in each frame of RIB, sometime this will using huge amount of hard disk, for example you have 10000 agents with 100000 piece of geometry with 200 frames, its almost impossible store them in hard disk directly. Procedural primitive DSO is a feature can insert these geometries information in render time and discard them automatically after rendering. So it will save your hard disk, but in some case, it will not accelerate your render. The Pipeline 7. We firstly export some information to hard drive, we call them agent assets. The agent assets actually are some information of Pre Bind pose and original geometries etc... 8. Then export ASS file with special block instead of geometry block (means, the ASS files will not contain geometry information any more)
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual 9. When rendering, system will call a McdArnoldDSO to read that special block in ASS and generate right geometry info and replace it with the geometry block.
Left: traditional ass approach, Right: procedural primitive approach
Agent Assets Content The agent assets will be automatically export to hard disk when export ASS and its location will be the same as the ASS files. You can setup it at Miarmy > Render Global > Other Renderers Tab
Setup paths in Render Global
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual 7. Agent Main File: a. Agent bone number b. Bone names and structure c. World inverse matrices of each bone 8. Original Geometry Files: a. The element of original geometry (nsides, vidxs, nidxs, uvidxs, vlist, nlist, uvlist) 9. Weight List files: a. Each line contains current point weight list (bone id and bone weight) b. (the number of lines equals to point number)
Accelerate Middle Data The DSO program will read the text file, get each string line and parse them into data based on every piece of mesh. But the process of string parsing in C++ is very slow, for accelerating them, we store some binary data file intermediately to the middle file folder, this can save huge amount of time when rendering. It can bypass the string reading and parsing process. If your middle file path is not writable in render time, the render cannot be accelerated. And if your middle file is correct and writable, you can see some files generated in the middle file folder
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Middle Data Format The middle data is named as miarmy_arnold_mid_data_<agent type id>_<geom id>, and in each one of middle data file, it contain one type of geometry of agent. For example: miarmy_arnold_mid_data_1_3 This middle data is no extension name and it is the binary format data,
Arnold render intermediate accelerate data
The format inside Middle Data is ordered as the following sequence: <Number of bones> (size: 1) <Bone Original Poses> (size: bone number * 12)
ASS Tags Format: procedural { name <object name> min <xmin>, <xmax>, <ymin> (bounding box info) max <ymax>,<zmin>,<zmax> dso "<DSO Folder>/McdArnoldDSO.dll" declare G_assetsPath constant STRING declare G_middlePath constant STRING declare G_agentID constant INT 336 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual declare G_geoID constant INT declare G_poly0_subd1 constant INT declare G_motionBlur constant INT declare G_motionShutter constant FLOAT declare G_poseData constant STRING G_assetsPath "<assets path>" G_middlePath "<render acceleration middle file path>" G_agentID <agent id> G_geoID <geometry id> G_poly0_subd1 <0 is polygon, 1 is subdivision mesh> G_motionBlur <0: not motion blur, 1: with motion blur> G_motionShutter <motion shutter, default 1> G_poseData "<pose data[12] * number of bone> " shader <shading group name>.dagSetMembers }
Example:
procedural { name pSphereShape10 min -4.552 -0.237 -4.552 max 4.552 9.314 4.552 dso "D:/Users/Yeah YANG/Documents/Visual Studio 2008/Projects/McdArnoldDSO/x64/Release/McdArnoldDSO.dll" declare G_assetsPath constant STRING declare G_middlePath constant STRING declare G_agentID constant INT declare G_geoID constant INT declare G_poly0_subd1 constant INT declare G_motionBlur constant INT declare G_motionShutter constant FLOAT declare G_poseData constant STRING G_assetsPath "d:/abc/arnold/ProcPrimAssets/" G_middlePath "d:/abc/arnold/TempMiddleFiles/" G_agentID 1 G_geoID 0 G_poly0_subd1 0
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G_motionBlur 0 G_motionShutter 1.000 G_poseData "0.00020 0.68235 -0.73102 -0.00008 0.73102 0.68235 1.00000 -0.00008 0.00020 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00002 0.88383 0.46780 0.00080 0.46780 -0.88383 -1.00000 0.00035 -0.00072 0.00130 4.41827 -4.73345 -0.00079 0.30211 0.95327 0.00012 0.95327 0.30211 -1.00000 0.00035 -0.00072 0.00120 8.24556 -2.70769 0.99999 -0.00044 0.00100 0.00044 1.00000 -0.00029 -0.00100 0.00029 0.99999 -0.00370 6.39036 3.14616 " shader initialShadingGroup.dagSetMembers }
The McdArnoldDSO under the Hood The McdArnoldDSO is an Arnold plugin (.dll in Windows) can read the agent assets and rig tags, then generate the geometry, and put the result in memory in render runtime. This program actually implements a very simple skinning algorithm to bind the agent geometry and calculate the right position of each point and right direction of each normal (Note: if using sub-division mesh, no normal need to be calculated). Then put the results to (in memory)
Source Code The McdArnoldDSO is an open source program written by Basefount Team and exclusively open for our formal testers and customers. If you need, please write contact us.
Note: The preview render is using procedural primitive automatically and will not generate agent assets If you render image from Maya directly, it will automatically use procedural primitive and will not generate agent assets files.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The tools
The mental ray features
We provide some tools for achieve this MR proxy render: Setup Current Frame: export only current frame render info out Setup Scene Sequence: export every frame in time line Export Shader Ass Files: only export shader information on all geometries of Original Agents
The Pipeline Export ASS Before render we need export agent geometry to ASS file by the Setup Current Frame or Setup Scene sequence tool, please notice that if we want to export all frames sequence, the agent cache should be made before exporting. After exporting, you should be able to see some files been exported to the folder specified in Render Global.
Exporting assets and render contents
Motion Blur For render motion blur, you just need enable the motion blur in Arnold Native Settings, and make sure the Shutter Size is 1 (because we cannot support float point frame motion blur)
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Setup Motion Blur directly in Arnold Global
Create Standin & Setup After exporting, you need create an Arnold standin object and do some setup, please notice, only 1 standin object need to be created. For different frame, you can animate the frame attribute on that standin object whereas the frame sequence will be changed to #sign in Path field.
The .ass files in export directory
Standin setup
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Render By Mental Ray

General Introduction Our tool can export all the agents render information out to a Mental Ray .mi file to the disk you specified. Then, we can create one Mental Ray proxy objects in Maya and link that .mi file against with this Mental Ray Proxy object.
What is Mental Ray Proxy Object, Please Refer: http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2013/en_us/index.html?url=files/GUID-BA0141FB972F-4DA4-AEAC-20B82048D52F.htm,topicNumber=d30e654067 Know the Limits at this time: Cannot using namespace referencing pipeline Cannot randomize texture Cannot Render Motion Blur
The tools
The mental ray features
We provide some tools for achieve this MR proxy render: Setup Current Frame: export only current frame render info out and port the proxy in maya Setup Scene Sequence: export every frame in time line Export Shader MI Files: only export shader information on all geometries of Original Agents 341 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Replace MI Shader to Current Setup: replace shader only but not export geometries again Link existed MI Sequence: create proxy planes in Maya and port the render into Maya Clear MI Files: delete all the exported stuff in the target folder Enable Update Render View: register a render pre MEL to export current frame before click the render button Disable Update Render View: unregister the render pre MEL command
Render Pipeline and Assets Organization: Preparing Before exporting MR proxy, we need specify which place will put the assets, and this folder should be existed in your hard disk / server, please setup this in Render Global
Specify the MR exporting path in Render Global
Our system export the geometry and material data to disk firstly then using proxy object porting them back to Maya for render. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Export material on all original geometries (check the following picture) Iterate frame and export geometries data (in this process, system will rename the geometries) Combine all the geometries data from step 2 and to a single file (check the following picture) Generate a dedicated proxy file Import MR Proxy based on the file created from step 4, and we host the proxy file on a piece of plane. We will key frame the visibility of the plane from step 5. (check the following picture)
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Exporting results
Then our MEL will port the proxy file in miProxy folder and hook each of them to different polygonal plane. For example there are 7 frames, and there will be 7 planes. Also our MEL will automatically key frame these planes on their visibility channels make them only show up in right frame,
Proxy file need port to Maya
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The plane object hide/unhide each frame
At this time, when you click render button, the render will be automatically done in Maya:
Render preview Replace Shader without Exporting Geometries Again Once we export proxy, the material will be export and hook up the geometry also, so if we want to render our geometries with others shaders (such as Occlusion or normal), we need export the materials and replace these information in MI files. Notice: replacing is only available for sequence exporting. Replace Principle, Miarmy now only support: multi materials to single material replacing (Lamber1, phone1, lamber3 etc => occlusion shader) 344 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual single material to single material replacing (Occlusion shader => normal shader)
So we suggestion exporting the color/beauty pass out and save as the file to different version for replacing shader and render others passes Replace Shader Pipeline and Assets 1. Export all Shaders of all geometries to another shader file 2. Re-generate a bunch of small proxy file hook new generated material MI files 3. Replace that files in Maya proxy host plane
New exported materials and proxy files
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Render result
Render By V-Ray
V-Ray archive Support Miarmy can export V-Ray Mesh file (.vrmesh) and port them back to maya for V-Ray Rendering. The whole process is based on the build-in MEL command from V-Ray itself. Preparation Firstly, you have to install V-Ray for Maya correctly vrayformaya.mll Secondly, the agent cache should be created and drive agent correctly. Then, the export folder and file name should be specified in Render Global
Specify the V-Ray Mesh folder and file name
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Pipeline & Assets We export V-Ray mesh by each agent for a time range. More specifically, each agent will exported to one V-Ray Mesh file contains frame in timeline. 1. Drive agent by single cache system which use agent cache but drive only one agent 2. For each agent, we export selected objects for a range of time The assets of V-Ray proxy is very simple, just a vrmesh file in target folder (specified in Render Global)
V-Ray Proxy assets
Under the hood The proxy file will be automatically porting scene after creating, the MEL provided by V-Ray itself can automatically link the shader for you.
V-Ray proxy shape nodes
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual One proxy shape is linking to a single vrmesh file, but it can hold more than one meshes. Each mesh can link against a shader, like the picture show below, it controlled by V-Ray material node
The structure of V-Ray mesh file
V-Ray proxy material node
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The render result
Replace Shader We can replace shader for the V-Ray proxy without re exporting geometry again. Just select any shader and click Miarmy > Other Renderers > V-Ray > Replace Shader Replace Principle, Miarmy now only support: multi materials to single material replacing (Lamber1, phone1, lamber3 etc -> occlusion shader) single material to single material replacing (Occlusion shader -> normal shader)
So we suggestion exporting the color/beauty pass out and save as the file to different version for replacing shader and render others passes
(Left) select shader (right) replace result
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Alembic Cache (Geometry Cache)

Alembic Cache Export Alembic cache is a new and small geometry cache file format developed by Locus Film and Sony Imageworks. Maya 2012 SAP and Later version of Maya support this directly. The extension name of this kind of cache is .abc. In addition, this kind of cache can be read by Houdini and others 3D package in future. For more information, please refer http://www.alembic.io/updates.html Miarmy can export alembic cache for each agent in a range of time, more specifically, we export cache for: One agent one .abc file, Each .abc file contains many geometries Each .abc file is a range of time, so the result .abc file will be the same number of agents
Before making Alembic Cache, we MUST create agent cache firstly. Because the system will read some information from agent cache when creating Alembic Cache Then we need specify where the .abc cache we want to put in. We need specify this in Miarmy > Render Global > Other Renderers Tab > Alembic Cache Setup
Setup Alembic Cache Path and Name
Export cache
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Usage: Create Alembic Cache: create alembic cache for all agents in scene (auto pass hidden one) Import Alembic Cache: auto import all alembic cache based on the name exporting and the frame of timeline
After exporting
Then, import the cache in scene, it can playback well:
Importing Alembic cache
Export FBX
(See Character Cache)
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Bake Bone + Geometry

Bake to Bone Animation User can easily bake agent to Maya joint characters using Miarmy Bake tool, this bake tool will firstly duplicate the joints structure for each agent and them bake each one of them based on the agent animation. Note: this tool need do the agent cache firstly.
This tool is useful when: sometimes we need refine the animation or geometry for specific actor in shot, and want to bake them back to real character in Maya, and add some deformers or rigs or even fur/hair.
Bake tool GUI
Usage: Bake Agents to Maya Actor (All): bake all agents in scene Bake Agents to Maya Actor (Select): bake only selected agents
Baking result
Directly Get Simulation Data Using MEL/Python Before Miarmy 1.5, you need read agent joint data through agent match and read data from original agent. Its really slow for production, now we provide a new approach which can read the data directly from agent: 352 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual Please select the agent you want to read, then: Run a Maya command McdAgentMatchCmd -mm 3; And this MEL will return an array,
For the returned array, the first and second element are <Agent ID> and <Agent TypeID>, with the agent type id you can use it to find which agent group Then the following data for each joint: <tx> <ty><tz><rx><ry><rz><sx><st><sz><Custom Data Number><1st Custom Data><Nth Custom Data> <tx> <ty><tz><rx><ry><rz><sx><st><sz><Custom Data Number><1st Custom Data><Nth Custom Data> <tx> <ty><tz><rx><ry><rz><sx><st><sz><Custom Data Number><1st Custom Data><Nth Custom Data>
The red element is dynamically, means its number is based on Custom Data Number The joint order is based on maya order:
The order of data in returned array is the same as Maya hierarchy
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Know the limitation: Please notice, all the fetched data are represented in rotation order XYZ because our original agent is built in all XYZ order, if you want to change, please refer the following c++ code, it can help get the rotation value of others orders.
void McdSimpleCommand::rotOrderTest(){ // execute: 22 // for example: // we set 60, 60, 60 in XYZ order // we want to get rotate of XZY order: MTransformationMatrix::RotationOrder rotOrder = MTransformationMatrix::kXZY; double rotBuild[3] = { 60.0 * TO_RAD, 60.0 * TO_RAD, 60.0 * TO_RAD}; MTransformationMatrix testTMat; // we set 60 60 60 in XYZ order testTMat.setRotation(rotBuild, MTransformationMatrix::kXYZ); testTMat.reorderRotation(rotOrder); // reorder it to XZY double rotFetch[3]; testTMat.getRotation(rotFetch, rotOrder); // fetch out result in XZY // the result should be: // 3.694 // 73.886 // 25.665 }
Part 9 Optimization
This part is a guide for optimizing and speeding up Miarmy in production. Crowd simulation sometime is a heavy job, brings much uncomfortable frustration. So, the optimization is very crucial for ease your job. In this guide, we are going to explain which part is low efficiency and introduce how to avoid them or take alternative approaches. Also, we provide many useful methods may be faster or better to achieve your same result. We hope this guild can help you to save a lot of your precious time.
Low Efficiency Channels Optimization

Vision The vision channels have to parse out which agents in its range firstly and this process is exponential type of calculation, therefore, in current version of Miarmy, vision channels are not very high efficiency. There have some situation you may need vision: 2 armies facing together, seek enemies and fight when near Follow a target agent or object. Avoid an agent or object.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual In the first situation, when 2 armies are involved in a battle, there are 2 phases. They are Rush and Fight In the rush phase, 2 armies will rush each other, but only the front lines need higher AI for seeking enemies and fight or collide, the rest of agents just need avoid each other. Checking out the following picture, the agents in red bound need higher AI for seeking enemies and fight, whereas the agents in blue bound even dont have opportunity to fight. So we can use DDIM (Dynamic Decrease Intelligence Mechanism) to block the vision for the agents in blue bound. It can tremendously accelerate your simulation speed.
Rush time, disable vision in blue bound
Or we can choose another solution. As the following picture shows, the pink and orange agents in frontlines will have precise collide and fight logic, and the green and yellow agents just need using sound channels avoid each other. This solution is better because you we can even simply the actions and Transition Map for lower AI agents. And simply transition map can save your time.
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Rush time, pink and orange is higher AI agents whereas green and yellow agents has lower AI
In Fight Phase, the agents are near each other we can just use sound channels for detecting and aiming to enemy and controlling fight. Here you can bypass the vision channel directly.
Battle in progressing, can totally disable vision
In the second situation, when the agents are following or avoiding something, we highly recommend make agents to follow/avoid target using spot or zone. Following/avoiding spot or zone will be much faster than the solutions with vision channel.
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Follow spot by spot channels
Future Solution: We are trying to use CUDA to make the calculation parallel in future, and we are still trying to using more robust agent filter feature to speed up the vision calculation.
Collide Family Channel & Pre-build RBD Object All the collide-family channels (like collide, collideAny and so on) will make the system create pre-build RBD objects in agent memory because the collide-family channels are based on the PhysX RBD object.
5000 Agents in Maya by default (1.5 sec per frame calculate, sound + spot follow)
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5000 Agents in maya with collide-family channels (about 3 extra seconds for updating kinematic RBD in agent memory); Yellow boxes are the pre-build RBD display by PhysX Debug Node
Collide Any Channel The collideAny channel will check every bone of current agent, whereas the collide channel will only check the flagged bones. So, if the agent contains 100 bones and 10 of them are flagged, collideAny channel will spend 10 times of time than collide channel to calculate result. collideAt channel has the fastest speed, because it only check one bone.collideBy channel has the same efficiency with the collide channel.
Bounding Box Display

Sometimes when there are too many agents your scene and the viewport is difficult to orbit, you can switch to bounding box display.
(Left) bounding box display (right) agent segment display
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Solver Space
If you make sure the agents in different area or floors will not interactive each other forever, youd better separate them in different solver space, it can save lot of time to calculate and easier to management. If your agents are in different vehicles and the vehicles are moving each other, such like several battleships, you should group them in different solver space.
Create solver space and put place node inside
Easy Transition
Sometimes, using easy transition can same lot time for you. Pre-vis Simple shot, agents have each solo action, factory operator, walking crowd, etc Agents are far from camera will not been noticed by audience
Optimizing Crowd Dynamics

With properly setup, Miarmy is able to support more than 5000 agents enable dynamics at the same time. Using Spot or Zone Trigger Dynamic Sometimes we need use a kinematic object like some cars/rocks to collide crowd agents. We suggest that you use the zone/spot channels for activating dynamics instead of collide channels. Like the picture below, in the car scenario. The green kinematic primitive is a child of that blue zone geometry plane. We use the zone.in channel trigger dynamics active then the dynamics agents will naturally collide with the moving kinematic primitive.
Use zone.in channel to trigger dynamics
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual With the same theory, in the rock scenario, you need use spot.d or bound.in for triggering enable dynamics, and there is a sphere kinematic primitive been a child of bound node.
Use bound.in channel to trigger dynamics
Mute Dynamics On each agent, there is a muteDynamic attribute on it. Once we turn this on, the agent will never enable dynamics and will not join the collision detection, the pre-build RBD object will never been created. In some cases, using this feature properly, it will save tremendously amount of memory for you as well as speed your simulation up.
Mute dynamics for the agent din blue bound and inverse placement
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual For example, in the above picture, the car (green kinematic primitive) is hitting into the crowd agents. Some agents (in the yellow bound range) will be enable dynamics and hit away. For improving the reality, we need check collision for the nearby agents (in the blue bound range) hitting by the coming dynamic agents. If the agents (in blue bound) hit by dynamic agents, the dynamics will be enabled. As we know, the agents will collidefamily channels will created pre-build RBD Object in memory. However, there are still lots of agent we dont want them to become dynamic ones, because they are far from the accident. We want to disable dynamic them totally forever for saving memory and time. We need select them and enable mute dynamic attribute. However, the attribute changes cannot be saved with scene, if the agents have been deleted and placed out again, these attribute will change back. So, you need enable muteDynamics for these agents first and use inverse placement to store these data to a new place node.
Aggregate Optimization Aggregate is the latest feature of PhysX, its a mechanism can speed up the collision detection tremendously. The More agents in scene, the more times you save. In physical simulation, the rag dolls are consisted of a group of rigid bodies and dynamic constrains. The collision detection in regular circumstance is based on each one of rigid body. Lets make a very simple example: There are 2 agents, each one contains 10 bones. If PhysX engine checks collide for them, they will check each bone whether have collide others bone, so there should be 10 by 10 (divide 2) possible pair of collide need to (10 * 10 / 2 = 50 times) check. But sometimes if there are several hundreds of agents, this process needs to be simplified. PhysX offer an aggregate mechanism: Aggregate have 2 main features can speed up for above process: Grouping for agent level: group all bones of one agent to an aggregate and assign it a bounding box, the agent is the first level, and the bodies inside are second level. When checking collision, the rigid objects will test that bounding box in first level, if collide against bounding box, it will go into for checking inner bodies in second level. Disable self-collision: all rigid bodies in one aggregate can disable collide each other and just leave the dynamic constrains control the dynamics
In Miarmy since version 1.5, the aggregate will be default and automatically created when agents enable dynamics (Notice: only available for the agents have less than 128 bones) Lets take a look at the following example: When then rigid body check collide, it will firstly test the red bounding box then test the inner rigid bodies, the bounding box is able to fit the size automatically.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual The arm in yellow circle will check bounding box and it collide one bonding box, then only check collide with the bodies in bounding box. The arm in green circle will only check collide with the bounding box, no further possible collide, just ignore it
The red bounding boxes are aggregates; it can dynamically fit the size
By default we disable the self-collide in aggregate. You need turn that on if you need it, in Physics Global
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Part 10 Expanding Guide

This part is Undergoing, to be continued
Scripts
Build your own logic Preset Build your own channel Preset Build your own automatic original agent setup pipeline Build your own automatic action creation pipeline Particle Express for Hybrid Dynamics Effects Command Line Tasks Many task of Miarmy can be done in batch mode or command line. That is means we can do our job without open Maya, and this can save much time and memory of loading Maya editor and drawing OpenGL stuffs etc. Also these command line task can be assigned to simulation/render farm and let the machines to do that without human resource.
Command Line (Batch) for Developer The users know MEL and Python can easily modify/create command line operations for any task run in batch mode and extend the Miarmy capabilities. Let us introduce how it works: 1. It need a MEL command which name is the same as the procedure name 363 2011-2013 Basefount
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The MEL file start the command, the proc name same as file name
2. The McdBatchAgentCache is a wrapper will call McdBatchAgentCacheDoIt python command.
Initialize the python command in McdInitMiarmy.mel
3. In McdBatchAgentCacheDoIt() python command, we do what we need: a. Place agent b. Set to start frame c. Playback everyframe d. Do the task (exporting cache, rib, etc) 4. Please check the script: McdBatchAgentCacheDoIt.py At <Miarmy Directory>\Basefount\Miarmy1.5\maya\scripts
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API
Write your own Field Node Render Fur Use Miarmy Engine Drive Maya Character
Miarmy Reference
Callback Functions
After Load Miarmy After loading Miarmy, system will run a script jot which name is McdInitMiarmy. If you dont want to automatically run this script, you need delete the contents from this file in you Miarmy installation place. Before Save Before saving, system will unhide original agent group nodes and all place nodes. After Save After saving, if agents have been placed out, system will hide original agent group nodes and all place nodes.
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual Selection Change Update python window for selected relative nodes, for example you are editing decision, and once the selected object changed, and if new select one is decision node ,the python GUI will be updated. If your new selected object is agent, system will mark feedback agent to engine and recalculate, then results will be put to Brain Viewer and Transition Map. Before Duplicate If there is any agent, place and road node in your duplicate list, they will be unselected before duplicating and system will prompt out.
Reserved MEL Command

There are some MEL commands which reserved:
Cloth
The cloth feature of the NVIDIA PhysX SDK allows for simulation of items made from cloth, such as flags, clothing, etc. This is accomplished by providing a mesh that is used to define a set of particles (vertices). The topology of the mesh allows the SDK to construct constraints between the particles that mimic how cloth can bend and stretch. In addition, cloth particles can be pinned to shapes and global positions, such as attaching a flag to a pole.
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There are two main types of cloth constraints: Stretching - applied to maintain distance between each particle that is connected by an edge in a cloth mesh. The strength of this constraint is assigned using the SDK; specifying a small stretching constraint factor allows the particles to move apart more easily and gives the impression of more stretchy cloth, such as lycra. Specifying a larger constraint factor makes the cloth stiffer, like denim. Bending - applied to maintain the angle along an edge in a cloth mesh, either by constraining the angle directly or by constraining the distance between the pair of particles on either side of the edge (see the diagram below). An example of a material that would use a low bending constraint for simulation is cotton, while a substance such as paper or cardboard would use a high bending constraint.
Channel Reference List

Input Channels Sound: see details in Part 5 sound session sound.x sound.y sound.d relative directions to others agent in horizontal relative directions to others agent in vertical distances between others agent [-180, 180] [-180, 180] [0, 367 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual sound] sound.ox sound.oy sound.f Vision: see details in Part 5 vision session vision.x vision.y vision.z vision.h Road (indexing enable) See details in Part 5 Road road.flow road.x road.ox road[id].flow road[id].x road[id].ox angle between agent Z-axis and the flow field agent position in the road angle between agent Z-axis and the road angle between agent Z-axis and the flow field <id> agent position in the road of which index is <id> angle between Z-axis and the road whose index is <id> [-180, 180] [-1, 1] [-180, 180] [-180, 180] [-1, 1] [-180, 180] relative directions to others agent in horizontal relative directions to others agent in vertical distances between other agents (maya unit) color ids of agents in vision range [-180, 180] [-180, 180] [0, inf) [-1, inf) relative orientations to others agents in horizontal relative orientations to others agents in vertical frequencies of agents in sound range [-180, 180] [-180, 180] [0, inf)
lean Channels lean.x lean.y lean.z Terrain Channel ground ground.dx ground.dz test the distance to the terrain beanth the agent test the degree between agent's x axis and terrain (tilt left/right) test the degree between agent's z axis and terrain (uphill or downhill) (-inf, inf) [-90, 90] [-90, 90] the projection of agent x axis to y axis of [-1, 1] agent space the projection of agent y axis to y axis of [-1, 1] agent space the projection of agent z axis to y axis of agent [-1, 1] space
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual test the distance to the terrain beanth the agent bone which name is <bone>
<bone>:ground
(-inf, inf)
Geometry Channels geo.hi:<mesh> geo.dx:<mesh> geo.dz:<mesh> Move or Rotate Speed tx ty tz rx ry rz Moving speed speed bound channels bound.in bound[<id>].in Spot channels spot.d spot.x spot.y spot[<id>].d spot[<id>].x spot[<id>].y the distances to the all spots the horizongtal degree related to all spots the verticle degree related to all spots the distances to the all spots which id are <id> the horizongtal degree related to all spots which id are <id> the verticle degree related to all spots which id are <id> [0, +inf) (-180, 180) (-180, 180) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) whether in bound whether in bound which id is <id> (-inf, 1] (-inf, 1] return the moving speed of agent [0, inf) move speed of translate x, per second move speed of translate y, per second move speed of translate z, per second change rate of roate x in degree, per second change rate of roate y in degree, per second change rate of roate z in degree, per second (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) similar as "ground" channel but test polygon mesh similar as "ground.dx" but test polygon mesh similar as "ground.dz" but test polygon mesh (-inf, inf) [-90, 90] [-90, 90]
Zone (indexing enable) zone.x zone.y relative positions represented by angle in horizontal relative positions represented by angle in vertical [-180, 180] [-180, 180] 369 2011-2013 Basefount
Miarmy 2.0 Manual zone.in zone.hi zone.d3d zone.d (or .d2d) zone[id].x zone[id].y zone[id].in zone[id].hi zone[id].d3d zone[id].d (or .d2d) whether in area of zone height relative with zone distances from agent to closest points distances from agent to closest points in XZ plane same as zone.x, only can feel zone whose index is <id> same as zone.y, only can feel zone whose index is <id> same as zone.in, only can feel zone whose index is <id> same as zong.hi, only can feel zone whose index is <id> same as zone.d3d, only can feel zone whose index is <id> same as zone.d, only can feel zone whose index is <id> 0 or 1 (-inf, inf) [0, inf) [0, inf) [-180, 180] [-180, 180] 0 or 1 (-inf, inf) [0, inf) [0, inf)
Follow Master master.d master.x master.y Formation Target Point ftp.d ftp.x ftp.y Wind (work with composition of force field) wind.ox wind.oy wind.a Maya Field (work with composition of force field) orientaion relative with composition of wind in [-180, horizontal space 180] orientaion relative with composition of wind in [-180, vertical space 180] amplitude of composition of wind [0, inf) the distance to the master the horizontal degree related to master the vertical degree related to master [0, +inf) [-180, 180] [-180, 180] the distance to the target point the horizontal degree related to target point the vertical degree related to target point [0, +inf) [-180, 180] [-180, 180]
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field.ox field.oy field.a Maya fluid (work with composition of force field) fluid.a fluid.ox fluid.oy
orientaion relative with composition of fluid field in horizontal space orientaion relative with composition of fluid field in vertical space amplitude of composition of fluid field
[-180, 180] [-180, 180] [0, inf)
amplitude of composition of fluid field orientaion relative with composition of fluid field in horizontal space orientaion relative with composition of fluid field in vertical space [-180, 180] [-180, 180]
MEL/Python Script maya.mel:<mel cmd> maya.py:<python cmd> Collision Detection riCollide riCollideAt:<bone> riCollideBy:<bone> collide collideAt:<bone> collideBy:<bone> check collide for flagged bone (reserve info if collide) check collide for bone whose name is <bone> (reserve info if collide) check whether the flagged bones collide by bone whose name is <bone> (reserve info if collide) check collide for flagged bone check collide for bone whose name is <bone> check whether the flagged bones collide by bone whose name is <bone> 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 run and test result of MEL command run and test result of Python command (-inf, +inf) (-inf, +inf)
RBD Emitter rbdCollide Noise noise.id noise.id(<seed>) return a random number based on the id of agent return a random number based on the id of agent, random again by seed (0, 1) (0, 1) check RBD emitter emited object contact agent body 0 or 1
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual noise.g noise.g(<seed>) noise.time noise.time(<seed>) noise.time(<seed>, <frequence>) noise_agent.time noise_agent.time(<seed>) noise_agent.time(<seed>, <frequence>) gradiently change a noise value gradiently change a noise value return a random number based on the time return a random number based on the time and random again by seed return a random number based on the time and random again by seed and frequency return a random number based on the time and agent id return a random number based on the time and agent id , then random again by seed return a random number based on the time and agent id , then random again by seed and frequency (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1)
Sine Function sin_all() sin_all(<freq>) sin_agent() return sine result based on time range return sine result based on time range, use <freq> control the cycle period return sine result based on time range, offset random sine phase by agent id return sine result based on time range, offset random sine phase by agent id, <freq> change period [-1, 1] [-1, 1] [-1, 1] [-1, 1]
sin_agent(<freq>) Timer Channels timer timer(<sd>) timer(<sd>, <freq>) timer.bf timer.bf(<sd>) timer.bf(<sd>, <freq>) timer_agent timer_agent(<sd>)
from 0 increase by second, and return 0 if reach 1 from 0.x increase by second, and return 0 if reach 1 from 0.x increase by <freq> * second, and return 0 if reach 1 from 0 increase by second, when reach to 1, decrease by second. Back and forth from 0.x increase by second, when reach to 1, decrease by second. Back and forth from 0.x increase by second * <freq>, when reach to 1, decrease by second. Back and forth same as timer, random start value by agent id same as timer(<sd>), random start value by agent id
(0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1)
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual same as timer(<sd>, <freq>), random start value by agent id same as timer.bf, random start value by agent id same as timer.bf(<sd>), random start value by agent id same as timer.bf(<sd>, <freq>), random start value by agent id
timer_agent(<sd>, <freq>) timer_agent.bf timer_agent.bf(<sd>) timer_agent.bf(<sd>, <freq>)
(0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1) (0, 1)
id id.agent id.type id.place id.inPlace Self-Variable hp mp Scene Info frame goFrame Action <actionName> actionGroup:<Group> return true if the current playback action is <actionName> return true if the current playback action belongs to action group <Group> 0 or 1 0 or 1 get current frame get frame number since simulation start [0, inf) [0, inf) get hp value from agent memory get hp value from agent memory (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) return agent id return agent type id return place node id which place this agent return agent id in place node [0, +inf) [0, +inf) [0, +inf) [0, +inf)
Traffic Channels traffic.x traffic.ox traffic.green traffic.enter the distance from the internal path of crossroad the degree ralated to internal path of crossroad whether meet green light in crossroad light zone whether enter of exit the crossroad [0, +inf) (-180, 180) 0 or 1 0 or 1
Output Channels Sound 373 2011-2013 Basefount
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sound.f sound.a Vision color Move or Rotate Speed tx ty tz rx ry rz Aiming <bone>:aim<axis><upVector><space>(<percent>) -><target>
set the frequency of agent sound set the range of agent sound
set color of agent (if -1, others cannnot see it)
move speed of translate x, per second move speed of translate y, per second move speed of translate z, per second change rate of roate x in degree, per second change rate of roate y in degree, per second change rate of roate z in degree, per second
(-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf)
percent aim to target, see aiming session
(0, 1)
<bone>:aim<axis><upVector><space>-><target>
100% aim to target, see aiming session
(0, 1)
Self-Variable hp mp hp.set mp.set set hp value or hp change rate (in change rate mode) set mp value or mp change rate (in change rate mode) set hp value (in both mode) set mp value (in both mode) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf)
DDIM 1.0 (Dynamically Decrease Intelligence Mechanism 1.0) vision.mute sound.mute disable vision for itself and also let others cannot see this agent disable sound for itself and also let others cannot feel this agent by sound [1] [1]
Ragdoll dynamics.active dynamics.active.force enable full body ragdoll enable full body ragdoll and apply a pulse force from collide reserved info [1] [0, inf)
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Miarmy 2.0 Manual enable body dynamics with root bone kinematic control enable dynamic from boneName enable dynamic from boneName and break joint
bodyDynamics.active <boneName>:dynamics.active <boneName>:dynamics.detach
[1] [1] [1]
Action <actionName> <actionName>:rate *:rate actionGroup:<group> actionGroupSelect:<group> actionGroupRate:<group> trigger actioin modify action rate if this action playing back modify all action rate in scene playback speed rate trigger one of action in action group <grou> randomly select one in action group <group>, and playback selected one all the time, play cycle change the playback speed rate for all actions in action group <group> [0, inf) [0, inf) [0, 1] [0, 1] [0, 1] [0, inf)
actionBlend blend-><actionName> blend->blendGroup:<group> Blend <actionName> to the linked actioin in Transition Map [0, inf)
Blend each action which belongs to <group> to [0, inf) each linked action in Transition Map
Bone Offset <boneName>:tx <boneName>:ty <boneName>:tz <boneName>:rx <boneName>:ry <boneName>:rz MEL/Python Script maya.mel:<mel cmd> maya.py:<python cmd> Action Pair Sync tell hear tell other what action this agent perform hear and perform the sync action [0, +inf) [0, +inf) 375 2011-2013 Basefount run MEL command run Python command [0, +inf) [0, +inf) set the translate X in bone offset set the translate Y in bone offset set the translate Z in bone offset set the rotate X in bone offset set the rotate Y in bone offset set the rotate Z in bone offset (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf)
Miarmy 2.0 Manual tell other what action this agent perform, channle is X hear and perform the sync action, only can hear agent channel is X
tell:<channel> hear:<channel>
[0, +inf) [0, +inf)
parenting parent:<object> parent:0 IK Channels <boneName>:ik.xOffset <boneName>:ik.yOffset <boneName>:ik.zOffset <boneName>:ik.tx <boneName>:ik.ty <boneName>:ik.tz move the ik end effector <boneName> along x axis by offset move the ik end effector <boneName> along y axis by offset move the ik end effector <boneName> along z axis by offset set the ik end effector on <boneName> translate X to a value set the ik end effector on <boneName> translate Y to a value set the ik end effector on <boneName> translate Z to a value (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) (-inf, inf) parent agent to the object which name is <object> parent agent to the world space 0 or 1 0 or 1
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Miarmy 2.

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

BASEFOUNT TECHNOLOGY (HONG KONG) LIMITED 3 2011-2013 Basefount

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Part 1 Main Concept

Miarmy Human Logic Engine Concept

Decision Node Pipeline

Blue bound for conditions and yellow bound for decisions

Decision node priority ranking pipeline

Priority ranking by hierarchy

Agent Brain Instantiate

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

The same brain in different condition, brings out different behaviors

Miarmy Contents, General Group

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Extra attributes on McdAgentGroup node

Agent Group Structure

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

A rig been referenced to scene under Setup Group

The agent type name is casual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

A simple setup and placement

Test render by mental ray and 3delight

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Solver setup and contents creation

Green: reset, Yellow: update, Red: will break simulation

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Part 2: Menu Items

It will try to fix the naming in specific group.

Maya 2012 Import

Miarmy 2.0 Manual Enable mesh drive for update meshes.

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Render Extra (sub menu)

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

After setup, the rig has been generated.

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Logic and Decision

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Create PhysX force field Kinematic Primitive

Un-Link Miarmy Disconnect Miarmy from this Maya

New Icons GUIs and Credits Special Thanks,

Main GUI and tools created by Thana

Add action proxy

(left) Main GUI, (right) Miarmy GUI, they will sync

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Specify action and get ready for action shells creating

After some re-arrangement, it can be listed in Map

Created action shells

Miarmy 2.0 Manual

Mark action group for multiply action shells

Part 3: Agent Infrastructure

(Left:) single chain rig; (right:) non single chain rig

(Left:) joint name non unique; (right:) joint name unique

Select the non-unique name of joint

Miarmy 2.0 Manual