Installing the Character Pack

The Golaem Crowd Character Pack is a set of casual maya character meshes with tons of props and motions enabling faster crowd shots creation.
It is included free of charge with Golaem Crowd for people renting or buying Golaem Crowd. You can learn more about it on the Golaem Website.
 

Where to install the Golaem Crowd Character Pack?

The Golaem Crowd Character Pack comes with an auto-extractible installation package.
 
The only required information is the installation directory. The default installation directory is located in the Program Files (or /usr for Linux) directory.
 
However one should be aware that to be able to render on the render farm, all these files should be reachable by the render farm nodes using the provided installation path. It is then advised to install the Golaem Crowd Character Pack on a shared network drive.
 
Command windows may pop during the installation. They will close automatically when the installation ends. To ensure complete and valid installation, one should not close them manually.
 

PACKAGE DESCRIPTION

Crowd Directory

cam/
  • cam files: These files describe the props and shaders repartition in the crowd. This is where it will be decided to have people in t-shirts or jackets, with color blue & red or with textures… It can be generated and customized from the Golaem Crowd Asset Manager tool. There is one file by renderer (e.g. CMO-man_golaem_mray.cam is the .cam file to use when rendering with Mental Ray).
fbx/
  • CMO-man_golaem.fbx: the source geometry used for rendering. It contains the shaders referenced by their name (but not contained) in the character .fbx file. It is referenced in by all .cam files
motions/
  • Ambient
    • s4d/ctr.xml files : motions to be used to populated a place with characters walking
  • Audience
    • Loop
      • s4d/ctr.xml files : looping motions used to add ambiance in a scene
    • OneShot
      • s4d/ctr.xml files : one shot motions to be used to react to event and add behavior variations in a scene
skeletons
  • crowdMan.gsk: skeleton of the Golaem Crowd Character Pack character, exported with the skeleton converter tool.
  • crowdMan.gskm: skeleton mapping of the Golaem Crowd Character Pack character, exported with the skeleton converter tool.
source/
  • CMO-man_golaem_preview.ma: the character to be used for skinned mesh preview (it contains a character with no procedural shaders).
  • Other .ma files: source Maya scene containing shaders for each renderer. There is one file by renderer (e.g. CMO-man_golaemMR.ma is file that should be imported in your scene when rendering with Mental Ray).
sourceimages
  • TGA files: the textures used by the Golaem Crowd Character Pack


Data Directory

This directory contains data files used by the installation package (icons, uninstaller…) as well as the End User License for the Golaem Crowd Character Pack

Moving an installed package

This installation package will extract asset files and automatically set the internal file references (texture path…) to match the installation directory. If one moves the Golaem Crowd Character Pack files after installation, the following file references should be adjusted according to the new path  (or the package re-installed to the new destination):
  • In .ma files
    • Reference to texture files (.tga)
    • Reference to skeleton (.gsk) and mapping (.gskm) in EntityType
    • Motion (.s4d/.ctr.xml) in BeMotionBehavior and BeLocomotionBehavior
    • Reference to asset manager file (.cam)
  • In .cam files
    • Reference to character reference for rendering (.fbx)