Massive Software Used by Digital Dimension in HBO's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Custer's Last Stand Brought to Life with Autonomous Agent 3D Animation Software

Wednesday 27 June 2007

Massive Software’s Artificial Intelligence–driven animation system, Massive, has been utilized visual effects and animation facility Digital Dimension for the HBO film "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." The movie, which aired May 27, is based on the book by Dee Brown, and chronicles the displacement of the American Indians during the westward expansion of the U.S.

Digital Dimension used Massive to complete overhead shots for a scene at the beginning of the film depicting Custer’s last stand at the battle of Little Big Horn, a sequence crucial to explaining the brutality of the U.S. military throughout the rest of the movie. The opening shot of the scene features 500 riders on horseback and 1,500–2,000 people running on foot through an Indian encampment populated with hundreds of teepees, all created in Massive. The practical shot covered a small encampment of 40 teepees and around 100 extras. The scene pans over the landscape, following the growing stream of riders on horseback in a continuous shot leading to 200–300 U.S. soldiers on foot on a plateau surrounded by nearly 800 Indians riding on horseback, also entirely created in Massive. Ninety–eight percent of the final shot was computer–generated imagery, with the vast majority of that realized in Massive.

Development of Massive agents focused on the production of two agent types–a U.S. soldier and an Indian on horseback–each capable of executing between 70–80 separate actions. Variations of these agents provided the basis for the people running on foot through the camp in the beginning of the scene, as well as for populating the entire battle sequence.

The U.S. soldier agent had three main stances: prone, kneeling and standing, each with actions facilitating movement between the stances as well as actions for loading and firing weapons from each stance, wrestling with jammed weapons, yelling commands to fellow soldiers, looking around frantically, three to four different dying behaviors and more. Digital Dimension used motion capture to record performances from a live horse and rider for the Indian on horseback agent. The horse and rider were each captured separately and then integrated into one agent with about 40 distinct actions for the horse and between 20–30 different actions for the rider.

Justin Mitchell, Lead Massive Technical Director at Digital Dimension, looked for a way to subtly ground the Massive agents in the final shot to create a realistic tableau of the crucial battle scene. "We output terrain maps from the agent horse’s feet in order to create tracks so that the wearing away of the terrain was actually based on the motion of the Massive agents, and the agents naturally created worn paths based on where they walked."

Mitchell describes the dynamics used for the final shot, noting that it was not originally planned to animate soldiers navigating their way through the circling horses. However, he says, "We were able set up a system so that as soon as a soldier came in contact with a horse he would get trampled and die. This enabled us to avoid creating a complex system of avoidance that was not practical on this project. To realistically portray the riders on horseback dying we used mo–cap, but right before they hit the ground we made the agents dynamic so they could hit the ground and roll and also get trampled by horses behind them. Because we were using Massive’s dynamics none of the deaths felt canned–they were all very unique, which was exactly what we were looking for.

"Muzzle flashes were also generated in Massive using morphs. "Whenever an agent would go through the action of firing a gun, it would trigger a morph of pre–built muzzle flashes that would pop momentarily from the end of the gun and then quickly retract," Mitchell explains. "In addition, We were able to export position data from Massive to trigger the emission of smoke from 3Ds Max. "We also used a lot of cloth–all of the horses have blankets, tails and manes that are cloth, and all of the Indians’ clothing is cloth–it’s amazing how quickly we can apply Massive’s cloth to thousands of characters and have it work, especially with agents that have such drastic behaviors–it’s just incredible."

Digital Dimension has also recently used Massive on Sony Pictures’ Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Paramount Pictures’ Charlotte’s Web and Twentieth Century–Fox’s Live Free or Die Hard.

About Digital Dimension

Located blocks away from Warner Brothers Studios, in Burbank, California, Digital Dimension specialize in 3D animation, motion graphics, and visual effects for the film, television, and interactive industries. The company, founded in 1995, has earned a Visual Effects Society and four Emmy Awards, as well as wide acclaim for providing innovative animated computer imagery.

About Massive

Academy Award–winning Massive is the revolutionary 3D animation system that incorporates procedural animation and artificial intelligence. Massive is used by animation and visual effects artists to explore the new world of creative opportunities that AI–enabled characters make possible. Agents are 3D characters that have a fuzzy logic AI "brain" and the natural senses of sight, sound and touch which enables them to interpret and react autonomously to the world around them. Agents can be just about any character you can imagine from humanoids, birds, animals and insects to inanimate objects such as cars.

The intuitive interface of Massive allows artists to interactively control and direct agents providing highly realistic, directable and emotive performances.

About Massive Software

Massive Software is the leading creator of artificial intelligence–based 3D animation systems. Massive was founded when Stephen Regelous programmed a unique piece of software for director Peter Jackson to make creation of complicated visual effects scenes involving hundreds of thousands of digital characters a practical reality. Regelous garnered a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2004.