Japanese website 4Gamer.net has published an overview of GDC 2010 session called “Physically Simulated Clothing by CCP (EVE Online) Using NVIDIA APEX“, we were specially interested in.

Led by Vigfus Omarsson and Snorri Sturluson from CCP, this talk was focused on APEX Clothing system integration with in-house engine, supposed to be used in Incarna add-on for EVE Online.

Using a nice custom character as an example, full clothing authoring pipeline was demonstrated.

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In recent interview to Xbit Labs, Ashutosh Rege, the worldwide director of developer technology at Nvidia, denies accusations of bribing game developers for implementation of GPU PhysX, stated by AMD.

Such claims were given by Richard Huddy, AMD’s senior manager of developer relations, in his interview to THINQ.co.uk website:

“What I’ve seen with physics, or PhysX rather, is that Nvidia create a marketing deal with a title, and then as part of that marketing deal, they have the right to go in and implement PhysX in the game.”

Following responce from Nvidia Ashutosh Rege

“There could be no deal under which we would cash somebody in for using PhysX“

“What we do when we add GPU PhysX engagement with the developer is that in no shape or form we do anything harmful for the rest of the platforms, those that do not support GPU PhysX. It is just an additive value to our GeForce customers and eventually it boosts game experience on the PC”

Source: Xbitlabs.com

Update: additional commentaries from Nadeem Mohammed, Director of PhysX Product Management:

Once PhysX is selected and the developer plans to have a PC version, we will work closely with them to provide whatever engineering and technical assistance to make the PC version as good as it can be – and hopefully that includes pushing the edge on special PhysX effects which may require GPU acceleration for best performance.

We will “invest” our time, energy, expertise and technology to make good games into great PC titles – if that’s what AMD is talking about then sure they are right!

Source: PCGamesHardware.com

Recent provoking claims by AMD regarding GPU PhysX and all hype around Open Physics Initiative are causing me some Deja Vu feeling.

Why ? Because, actually, hardware accelerated PhysX was criticized by AMD/ATI throughout it’s lifespan (more or less). Let’s take a retrospective look at escalation of the conflict:

In June 2006, just after Ageia PPU launch, ATI unveils their GPU physics processing conception called “Boundless Gaming” (also known as Asymmetric Physics Processing) based on Havok FX engine (technology was supported by Nvidia as well).

X1900 XT GPU was promised to deliver over 9x performance of a PhysX PPU card and games augmented with Havok FX physics were supposed to come out in 2007.

Result ? Havok FX died with Intel aquisition of Havok company, no games were released, 16 titles with Ageia PPU support from hardware PhysX side.

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It seems that next “2011″ product line from Autodesk will rely on PhysX SDK in more intensive manner than before. We already wrote about updated PhysX solver in Softimage 2011, and now PhysX plug-in integration is listed in new features set for Autodesk MotionBuilder 2011, character animation software package.

Rigid-body and ragdoll simulations can now be calculated using the Nvidia PhysX plug-in, a feature of particular benefit to games customers using the PhysX middleware.

As you may notice on the screenshot, PhysX SDK 2.8.3 is used for the integration, and apart from rigid body solver plug-in provides cloth simulation features.

Autodesk Softimage is well known 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing solution. Rigid body physics system in Softimage has moved to PhysX SDK with version 5.0, and old physics core wasn’t upgraded since than.  However, according to latest press-release, upcoming Softimage 2011 will finally include updated PhysX components

PhysX 2.8.3 — Helps artists create meshless deformations in ICE with the latest NVIDIA PhysX rigid body library. Provides new support for springs and dampers. New library also offers accelerated performance when using the optional addition of an NVIDIA CUDA enabled graphics processing unit (GPU).

Interesting detail – since hardware acceleration support is promised with clear definition of PhysX SDK as “rigid body” solution, it seems that GPU rigid body solver is going to be used.

Update: confirmed via Softimage wiki – “Support for CUDA acceleration for PhysX Rigid Body Dynamics (including ICE)”

You see ? Only two months passed and I was able to fix it

Small patch for Dark Void title emerges today – it’s purpose is to resolve issues with PhysX mini-driver, called “Game System Installer”, which was able to corrupt existing PhysX System Software installation (my personal experience), and cause other problems.

From nzone.com:

An earlier version of PhysX System Installer, called “Game System Installer”, was inadvertently provided and subsequently incorporated into the released version of Dark Void for PC. This version is not compatible with some accelerated PhysX configurations and features, most notably the ability to turn on the medium and high PhysX setting within the game.

Please use the new PhysX System Installer patch below which will automatically cleanup and update the PhysX subsystem to resolve this issue.

You can download PhysX System Software patch here (36 mb)

Please note, retail version of Dark Void requires main PhysX patch to be applied firstly.

GDC 2010 (Game Developer Conference) is just about to start, and is going to be rich on PhysX related content this year. Apart from session on APEX Clothing integration with EvE Incarna we mentined previously, featured talks will include “Authoring Physically Simulated Destruction with NVIDIA APEX” and “Taking Fluid Simulation Out of the Box: Particle Effects in Dark Void“.

You can read session descriptions via provided links, but actually not only this has catched my eye. Nvidia GDC 2010 page was updated with schedule of presentations, that are going to be demonstrated at Nvidia booth #1702 at March 12-13

Those include such intriguing topics like:

Unity for Engineers – are they planning to demonstrate update physics system in Unity 3.0 ?

Authoring Runtime Animation with NaturalMotion Morpheme 2.3 – I’ve heard that Morpheme is going to be integrated with APEX Clothing, is that it ?

Softimage 2011 Enhanced with PhysX – next version of Softimage will include updated PhysX SDK integration ?

Streamlining PhysX Content in Max – is it related to rumored new physics system in XBR ?

Sadly I can’t visit GDC myself, but I’ll try to provide you with any open or insider information I’ll be able to gather

UNITY is popular multiplatform development tool, used in many titles, from numerous iPhone games to major one like Interstellar Marines.

Internal physics system in Unity is using custom driverless version PhysX SDK – unfortunately, since main SDK core is very old (2.5, afair), it’s missing not only recent updates and bugfixes, but some features like fluids, cloth, forcefields and even GPU-acceleration. While Unity Technologies were keeping PhysX un-updated for years in a matter of “combability”, such renovation was actually needed by developers.

And, finally – recent announce of long awaited Unity 3.0 engine promises not only iPad and Ps3 platforms support, deferred render, built-in lightmapping system and unified editors, but “major updates to Unity’s.. physics features“

No details were revealed, but Tom Higgins, Unity Product Evangelist, made a short sneak-peak

We are upgrading PhysX but will be saving the specifics until later, let’s just say it will have some juicy new features for sure!

We’ll try to keep an eye on this, so stay tuned.

Recent articles about Metro 2033 have revealed so much technical details (about engine itself, and PhysX components specifically) so, one would think, nothing new can be added. However, recent interview with Chief Technical Officer Oles Shishkovstov by PCGamesHardware.com has something to offer:

PCGH: It could be read that your game offers an advanced physics simulation as well as a support for Nvidia’s PhysX (GPU calculated physics) can you tell us more details here? Does regular by CPU calculated physics affect visuals only or is it used for gameplay terms like enemies getting hit by shattered bits of blown-away walls and the like?

Oles Shishkovstov: Yes, the physics is tightly integrated into game-play. And your example applies as well.

PCGH: Besides PhysX support why did you decide to use Nvidia’s physics middleware instead of other physics libraries like Havok or ODE? What makes Nvidia’s SDK so suitable for your title?

Oles Shishkovstov: We’ve chosen the SDK back when it was Novodex SDK (that’s even before they became AGEIA). It was high performance and feature reach solution. Some of the reasons why we did this – they had a complete and customizable content pipeline back then, and it was important when you are writing a new engine by a relatively small team.

PCGH: What are the visual differences between physics calculated by CPU and GPU (via PhysX, OpenCL or even DX Compute)? Are there any features that players without an Nvidia card will miss? What technical features cannot be realized with the CPU as “physics calculator”?

Oles Shishkovstov: There are no visible differences as they both operate on ordinary IEEE floating point. The GPU only allows more compute heavy stuff to be simulated because they are an order of magnitude faster in data-parallel algorithms.

As for Metro2033 – the game always calculates rigid-body physics on CPU, but cloth physics, soft-body physics, fluid physics and particle physics on whatever the users have (multiple CPU cores or GPU). Users will be able to enable more compute-intensive stuff via in-game option regardless of what hardware they have.

Pay attention to last paragraph – Metro 2033 will feature true multi-core implementation of GPU PhysX content – feature that most PhysX titles are lacking currently ? We are curious to see if this will really work, and since game has already gone gold, we’ll learn that very soon.

Geforce GTX 480 running Supersonic Sled 2 by PCGamesHardware

Supersonic Sled demo sequence from Cebit 2010. But this time it’s showcases sled collision with obstacle, consisting of several destructible boxes and barrels, spawned on the rails. Number of generated physical debris is inspiring.

Esenthel RPG 2 by Esenthel

Playable demo of Esenthel game engine. Includes well tuned ragdolls and cloth simulation for character skirt, all PhysX SDK based.

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