Momentum

Exocortex Technologies and Helge Mathee are pleased to announce that Exocortex Momentum 3, the latest iteration of the high speed multiphysics simulator, is now immediately available for Autodesk Softimage 2010, 2011 and 2012 for both Windows and Linux.

Building upon the Bullet-based broad feature set of Momentum 2, Momentum 3 adds massive new features in the area of fracturing, simulation control, quality rendering and workflow.

Floating and node locked licenses are available starting at $499 and upgrade pricing is available for existing Momentum 2 customers. For full details, please refer to the Momentum 3 Purchase Options.

"Momentum provides a great simulation environment that's both simple and accessible. With the Momentum ICE nodes you can really fine tune your simulation, an ability that other solutions just don't have. The built-in tool set is just stellar as well. I can quickly create dependable simulations in a short period of time, thus leaving more time to make variations and spend less time debugging." -- John Kosnik, FX/TD Artist, Blur Studios

Flexible Fracturing

Exocortex Momentum 3 introduces fracturing to its already extensive multiphysics engine. The fracture engine, developed from the ground up by Helge Mathee, is designed around providing Softimage artists and TD's with full control over where and when objects will fracture. Thus, the fracturing engine supports dynamic collision-based fracturing, static user-specified pre-fracturing, real-time shatter filtering as well as self-shattering. The process of fracturing as well as its results is both controlled and queryable via ICE nodes, thus providing a familiar and powerful interface for the deep customizations often demanded during production.

Simulation Control

Momentum 3 provides four new means of controlling your simulations, providing Momentum 3 users even better control over their multiphysics solutions. All of these features come out of user feedback.

• ICE Controls for all Simulation Elements. It is now possible to provide ICE-based per element live control via ICE trees over all Momentum 3 simulations elements, thus letting artists most easily realize their creative potential.
• Force Sculpting. Developed by Fabricio Chamon, force sculpting is an easy and intuitive way to direct explosions through ICE. The key concept is that forces can be sculpted via the specification of a deformed mesh whose dimensions represents the various forces in each direction. One can simply modify the mesh’s deformation the area you want to change the explosion’s forces in that direction.
• Copy Motion. The copy motion modifier allows for one to copy the motion of one object, usually an explicitly animated object, onto portions of a simulated object. This allows artists and TDs to quickly and easily drive portions of a simulation when needed.
• Time Warping. It is now possible to rapidly editing the playback timeline for a plotting simulation simplifying the creation of slow motion “Bullet Time”-like effects, or even allowing for time to run backwards.

Quality UVs, Normals and Motion Blur

Having great fracture simulations is nothing if it is a pain to render them. Momentum 3 has been designed so that its simulation results, even the fracturing results with changing topologies, are easily rendered. This is achieved first via robust support for flexible UV generation on newly created interior faces during fracturing. Secondly, Momentum 3 provides quality user normals that accurately capture the original object's surface, while crisply transitioning to the interior face normals. Lastly, Momentum 3 provides 3D and 2D motion blur even in situations of changing topology.

Revamped Plotting

One of the most oft-used features of Momentum 2 was its ability to plot out simulation results for later use. Momentum 3's plotting engine has been completely revamped to be more robust and to support plotting to file. Having the ability to plot to files means that even if you have complex changing topology or tens of thousands of objects, you will only be limited by the disk space you have on your servers. Plotting to files also is very useful in large VFX studios where simulation is done in a separately separate division from rendering.

...and Polish Everywhere

The tremendously positive response from Momentum 2 has led to a lot of user feedback regarding possible improvements. As a result we have polished all of Momentum for version 3. The most important of these smaller improvements are:

• Top level Momentum Menu. The floating toolbar from Momentum 2 has become a top level menu in Momentum 3. This change reduces on screen clutter and provides for quick access and easy docking.
• Momentum Instancer UV Support. This allows for the use of textures on the simulated instances.
• Non-Uniform ICE Rigid Body Scaling. Rigid bodies in ICE point clouds now support non-uniform scales.
• Dynamic Deletion of Rigid Bodies. Rigid bodies in ICE point clouds can now be deleted during simulations without affecting the quality of the simulation.
• RLM-based Floating licenses. In addition to the standard node lock licenses of Momentum 2, Momentum 3 supports RLM-based floating licenses. We decided upon RLM as our licensing solution because of its already wide adoption in the Softimage community.
• Automatic Crash Reporting. In order to provide the most rock solid and enjoyable user experience, we have integrated automated crash reporting into Momentum 3.

In Depth Preview of Momentum 3 Features

Here is a 20 minute overview by Helge Mathee of the new features available with Exocortex Momentum 3:

Training Materials

As an artist focused company, we know that the latest and greatest technology is worthless if it is difficult to learn or use. Thus we have, in addition to providing a detailed user manual, developed a series of video tutorials, designed and narrated by Helge Mathee himself, that guide you through various scene setups. The tutorials will ensure that you get started quickly with Exocortex Momentum and achieve your desired results.

The full set of tutorial videos is available on this page:

• Exocortex Momentum Tutorial Videos

User Community

To stay up to date with new releases, learn tricks and tips for getting the most of out Momentum and chat with fellow users, Momentum's creator Helge Mathee and Exocortex staff, join us on the Exocortex Momentum Support and Discussion List.

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