The SOP crowds motion path toolset now supports blending between animation clips based on an agent’s turn rate using the new Crowd MotionPath Arcing Layer SOP.

Parent-child agent setups are supported in the SOP crowds motion path toolset, and along with it are new parameters on the Agent Relationship SOP (Match Parent Agent Scale, Group), Crowd MotionPath SOP (Hide Child Agent Paths), and Crowd MotionPath Trigger SOP (Match Parent Agent’s Trigger). The Crowd MotionPath SOP also adds a new rest_transform attribute on the motion paths.

The second input of the Agent Relationship SOP is now optional. This allows you to reattach child agents to their parents without having to add new child agents into the crowd. See crowd motion path parent-child relationships for an example.

On the Crowd Transition DOP, the Detach from Parent Agent parameter detaches any child agents from their parents after making a state transition. This can be useful for switching a child agent into a full ragdoll state.

On the Crowd MotionPath Avoid SOP, there is now support for time-dependent obstacles (Time Dependent), as well as new options for allowing agents to detect obstacles in their vertical field of view (Vertical FOV, Samples Seed), steering agents in 2D or 3D (Steering Mode), and specifying the agent’s target position (Goal Position, Distance Variance).

On the Crowd MotionPath Follow SOP, the Reference Direction parameter allows you to control the axis that is aligned with the curve tangent, supporting agents that have a facing direction other than the Z-axis.

On the Crowd MotionPath Trigger SOP, the Random Delay parameters allow you to add a random delay to the start of a trigger.

On the Crowd Source SOP, the Orientation parameter can be used to specify the orientation of the plane for the built-in layout options, and the Particle Scale Multiplier parameter scales the agent radius that is used for relaxation.

On the Crowd Transition Test Simulation SOP, the Reference Direction and Reference Up parameters allow you to configure the agent’s orientation.

On the Crowd Procedural LOP, the Offscreen Quality parameter determines how aggressively offscreen agents are optimized by the procedural, and the Bake Skinning for All Agents parameter generates deformed geometry for all agents, not just the agents that become prototypes (and their instances).

On the Agent SOP, a list of layers can now be assigned to an agent instead of only a single layer (Current Layers, Collision Layers).

On the Agent SOP, Agent ROP, and Agent Clip SOP, the Remove Namespaces from Joint Names parameter removes any namespace prefixes from the joint names when importing an FBX file.

The Agent Definition Cache SOP’s input is now optional, allowing an existing cache to be loaded from disk without requiring a connected input.

When using the Agent Definition Cache SOP to load the agent definition from disk, the agent’s initial layers, clip, and clip time can now be overridden using the parameters under Agent Properties. When the Attributes parameter is turned on, the agent’s original assigned layers and current clip are now saved and restored along with the agent’s attribute values.

On the Agent Definition Cache SOP, the Rest Frame parameter allows you to control the frame at which to evaluate the input when saving the agent definition and attributes to disk.

On the Agent Transform Group SOP, you can include the contents of existing transform groups using the Source Groups parameter, making it easier to create new groups.

The Agent Layer SOP now adds any missing blend shape channels to the agent’s rig when adding new shapes.

The Agent Vellum Unpack SOP can now update attachnormal constraints to be attached to the corresponding agent’s unpacked collision geometry.

The POP Steer Path DOP now supports selecting path geometry from a DOP object or from the inputs to the DOP network (Source parameter). Guide geometry can also now be displayed to visualize the path being followed (Guide parameter).

The SOP Crowd Import LOP now supports emission (agents being added or removed during the time range) with the Enable Emission parameter, and the new skelanimation token in the Set Default Values pattern controls whether time samples are authored for animation-related attributes on SkelAnimation prims. The Partition Attributes parameter has also been renamed to Subset Attributes.