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OnceAnima Alive Synchronizationis connected (states B, C and D) theAnima Alive Synchronization button is enabled. Let’s see what happens when you push that button in each state.

Sync from state B: Connected, not synchronized

• Anima -> 3ds Max / Cinema4D

This state happens is when are starting Anima and 3dsMax app, but you have not yet saved the project in the Anima Designer and there is no Anima project already loaded in your 3dsMax scene. By clicking the Anima Alive Synchronization button in this state, you first will be asked to save the project and then the scene will be sent to 3dsMax.

Sync from state C: Connected, not synchronized

• Anima -> 3ds Max / Cinema4D

The most common way to get to this state is when you have already created and loaded the project you will work on into Anima and you want to send this project to the scene loaded into the 3D app. To do that you simply push the Anima Alive Synchronization button (when you hover it will change from the first icon to the second one).

Then Anima will ask you to confirm the synchronization:

And when you click YES, Anima Alive Synchronization will tell the plugin to load the same scene that is already loaded in Anima. This scene will be loaded into 3dsMax following the import process that you already know, but this time Anima Alive Synchronization will spare you the tedious process of going to Menu>Import and searching the Anima scene path, and you’ll only have to confirm the material preset that you want to use.

• 3ds Max / Cinema 4D -> Anima

But, what if you have a scene in your 3D app with an already imported Anima scene, and what you really want is to load this scene into the Anima application? No problem, we got you covered! In this state, you can also establish the connection the other way around, from 3dsMax to Anima.

Every time that you load an Anima scene into your 3D app with the Anima application open, it will ask if you want to load also there the scene from your 3D app, with a message similar to this one:

If you click YES, then the project and the scenes that were already loaded into the 3D app will be loaded now also into the Anima Designer application.

Sometimes it may happen that this message is shown at an inappropriate moment, for example, if you have been editing another scene and you still have not saved the changes. In this case, you can simply cancel the connection temporally (click X), save the scene where you were working, and then make Anima Alive Synchronization to ask you again that same question. To do that you can go to the Anima Alive Synchronization connection panel in the plugin and click the Sync project button:

You are in this state when you already havesome scenes from the same Anima project already open in the Anima application and in the plugin.

If you already have the same scenes loaded in both applications then you don’t need to do anything more, you’re already completely synchronized. The Anima Alive Synchronization button will be the first one (bright static yellow) and this message will appear if you click it:

Although this workflow has been designed to update the scenes automatically, and the sync process is fairly quick, in some cases the user might find annoying the delay introduced by the synch process. This might happen, for example, when working with very big Anima scenes with thousands of actors.

For that reason, it is also possible to disable the automatic synchronization of Anima Alive Synchronization and force it to be triggered manually, whenever the user needs it to happen. This can be done by unchecking the first option of the Anima Alive Synchronization dropdown “Send updates automatically“.

With that option disabled, the synchronization will only happen whenever the user clicks on the Anima Alive Synchronization button.

Take a look at the video below to see the differences between the standard automatic and the alternative manual update process.

Once you have enabled the Anima Alive Synchronization connection between the Anima and your plugin, you’ll be able to define and select the collision geometries for your simulation directly inside your 3D app and send them to Anima within a click!

Now you can useAnima Alive Synchronization to keep static and animated cameras synchronized between 3ds Max/Cinema 4D and Anima to perfectly control your crowd simulations and character placement.

You only need to enable the Anima Alive Synchronization connection between the Anima and the plugin and all the modifications made to the cameras in the host 3D application will be instantly sent to Anima.

In this video, you will be able to see a real Use Case where Anima and the new Anima Alive Synchronization workflow are used to add 3d people to an exterior architecture project. The complete workflow is shown, starting with an initial sketch, the set up of the model in 3ds Max to use it as a background collision reference, the addition of 3d people, the rendering process, and even the final tuning of the actors in postproduction.