Packaging crowd simulation data for real-time integration with USD

Our team has been working hard to push the boundaries of SimCrowds, and we’re thrilled to introduce a Universal Crowd simulation integration with USD (Universal Scene Description) live-sync into a Cinematic Production Workflow!

With this prototype, SimCrowds (developed with Unity) now supports:

✅ Exporting crowd simulations to USD format—perfect for seamless integration into your favorite Digital Content Creation tools like SideFX Houdini FX, NVIDIA USD Composer, Blender, and Unreal Engine.

✅ Massive agent support—integrate up to 10,000 agents instantly, streamlining your crowd-authoring process. Similar scales were achieved using USD, a framework developed by Pixar Animation Studios, in their movie Coco.

✅ Live collaboration—pre-visualize crowd behaviors and synchronize in real-time through NVIDIA Omniverse Nucleus Server.

Key highlights

• Universal USD Integration: Synchronize and visualize assets in real-time within any scene.
• Endless Agent Versatility: Vertex and skeletal animations are supported for unparalleled flexibility.
• Live-sync to Omniverse: Bi-directional obstacle syncing, and Instantaneous crowd reactions.

Why it matters

Our work bridges the gap between crowd simulation and cinematic production, empowering artists to collaborate live, tweak individual agents, and achieve stunning visualizations at impressive frame rates.

Check out the accompanying video showcasing live-sync workflows, agent versatility, and instant visualization.

This milestone wouldn’t have been possible without innovative frameworks, including offline recording and online streaming through Omniverse. With performance gains, scalable agent support, and seamless integrations, we’re excited about the future potential—like leveraging scene-graph instancing for skeletal agents and refining artist-friendly USD outputs.

Outreach

We’d love to hear about any exciting projects you’re working on where we can collaborate—whether it’s a film or series that needs a crowd, an architectural scene, or another creative endeavor!

#Crowd #Simulation #USD #DigitalContentCreation #NVIDIAOmniverse #SimCrowds #uCrowds

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