Chaos has acquired AXYZ design – a developer of 3D/4D animation software – designed to add realistic people and crowds to architectural visualisations. This acquisition expands a growing ecosystem of real-time visualisation tools, photorealistic renderers and 3D asset libraries that help teams realise built experiences around the world.
AXYZ’s anima 5 software, used by powerhouses like HOK and Gensler, is one of the ways to bring dynamic 3D/4D people into a visualisation. Featuring over 2,500 scanned characters, anima helps designers add high-fidelity digital humans that walk, run, laugh and move to their scenes, giving projects a realistic quality that immerses viewers in a design. With onboard tools for tailoring loops and AI crowds, there’s no better way to bring believable movement into a visual project.
“AXYZ’s state-of-the-art assets give life to projects, so they actually connect with people,” said Chaos CEO Christian Lang. “Anyone that’s been in architecture for a while knows how impactful digital humans are to the design and marketing process. 4D people is the next step in our journey.”
Access to anima will remain unchanged for all new and existing customers. Chaos will continue collaborating with AXYZ, as it continues to build on its recent support of anima characters in Chaos Vantage 2.
“When it comes to visualisation, the Chaos products are unmatched,” said AXYZ design CEO and founder Diego Gadler. “By combining forces, we can move fast and create the type of products that make designers excited to go to work. The best is yet to come.”
Increasing the breadth of digital people has been a top request from customers, particularly in architecture. With the acquisition of anima, Chaos can meet the needs of its customers while setting up new ways to make high-fidelity 3D/4D human character assets more accessible than they’ve ever been. Chaos is currently planning how to best integrate the software with existing products like Chaos V-Ray and Chaos Corona, whose users already use anima on a daily basis.
As architects introduce new ways to explore sustainability, biophilic urbanism and more in their designs, giving stakeholders a sense of how different people might use these spaces will only become more important. In the last few years, AXYZ has also paid special attention to increasing character diversity, so architects can match designs to the demographics of a city.