Mayhem - Frequently Asked Questions Page

Here are answers for some of the questions I've received by e-mail or on various web boards.

Q. What are the statistics for your Mayhem video?

- I used a dual 2.8GHz Xeon machine with 2 GB of memory (though development actually started on my old dual 1GHz machine ... now retired)
- There are roughly 1.5 million polygons in the largest crowd scene
- There are 1200 independent animated characters
- Each character is a fairly low detail model - approx 1200 polygons (see them here)
- To render all the different bits of mayhem video footage took around 4-5 days
- Rendering time took from 8 secs to 1 min 50 secs per frame (depending on shot)
- The rendered resolution was the same as the video (420x210)

Q. Could you add a third group of soldiers in there?

Oh, that's a fun idea! Humans, Orcs and the Scourge all meet in one big badass punch up. And then a battalion of space marines lands in the middle and really spoil everyone's day... Not a problem. The characters don't care who they go after or how they whack each other.

Q. Where is that music from?

The music is "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff.

Q. Will Mayhem be released as a commercial plugin?

These are early days - I haven't thought of releasing Mayhem as a commercial plugin yet. However, would I like to see Mayhem as a plugin or integrated within Character Studio Crowd? Absolutely! Who knows what the future will bring ... I'll keep you all posted ;-)

Q. I have a project Mayhem could help me with! Are you interested?

Please contact me and let me know what you are up to. Unfortunately my schedule is getting pretty tight with new work just now so I may not be available. But I am certainly interested in hearing what work you are trying to achieve. I've also been able to give pointers to some folks about how to do stuff even without Mayhem, so do please drop me a line!

Q. Will Mayhem Maxscripts be released into the public domain?

Sorry, but that won't be possible. It would be awesome to give this stuff to the 3ds Max / CG community, but these are really tough times, folks. This work is helping me pay the bills right now.

Q. Where are the Mayhem maxscripts to download?

I'm really very sorry. If you've been referred from a site that says the maxscripts are here for you to download, then they've got their facts wrong. Some webmasters really should check the content of the pages that they're linking to sometimes. Tsk, tsk, tsk...