Video - https://youtube.com/shorts/osdrwN5Eee8
I tried different approaches: the closest result I got was with AI Move To using a unique offset for each character. The most unclear part is how to create such organic movement so that the crowd always tends to move toward a circular shape. It would be really helpful to hear another opinion!
Hey, cool question! Most likely the crowd wasn’t built by placing every single character one by one. Usually people use tricks to make it look full without killing performance. A common way is to have just a few character models with shared animations and then duplicate them with small variations, so they look different when packed together. Sometimes animators also use simple textures or flat shapes for the people further in the background, since you don’t notice the detail from a distance.
For really big scenes, tools like Niagara or animation sharing can spread the characters out and randomize their timing so it feels natural. Up close you might see a handful of actual 3D characters, but as it pulls back, most of the “crowd” is just smart reuse of the same assets. It’s all about mixing a few real animations with a lot of visual tricks to sell the effect.
What kind of crowd are you aiming for—like a stadium, a battle, or just background atmosphere?
I would love to get the same result - circle shaped crowd which collides with environment, but still trying to keep a circle shape
Look into the assassins creed Paris game - unity.
The game is trash, the bugs are infinite, but the way they built the crowd and how they explain the logistics behind it is farily solid.