Conitec Datasystems has announced that physics system in latest A8 version of their Gamestudio game engine is now based on PhysX SDK 2.8.3 (previously it was ODE).

According to devs, such changes will result “in a better frame rate and greater stability of the physics simulation”.

PhysX SDK integration was developed in conjunction with Christian Kahler, author of pXent PhysX wrapper.

As we mentioned previously, one of the many features of upcoming Unity 3.0 engine is going to be improved PhysX SDK integration. Now, when pre-purshase betas of Unity 3.0 are shipping, additional details have emerged.

According to developers, highlight for Unity 3 is cloth physics on arbitrary and skinned meshes – video of new cloth feature in action was uploaded to YouTube by one of Unity demo team members.

In addition, PhysX core was updated to version 2.8.3., collision layers and “thick” raycast were added.

Update: Another cloth test, with tearing | Cloth features overview from one of beta users

Read the rest of this entry »

As it was announced recently, new v7 version (currently in development) of free 3D Rad game engine will switch from ODE physics engine, used curently, to PhysX SDK.

According to developers, advantages from this decision are going to be following:

• faster physics processing, both on normal systems and on systems equipped with recent NVidia cards (where hardware processed physics simulation will allow a very high number of simultaneous simulated bodies).
• more accurate and robust polygonal collision detection (no more crashes on triangles that are too stretched, too small or too big)
• additional collision detection primitives (boxes, capsules), with the ability to stack a high number of objects to create large collapsible buildings.
• built-in breakable joints support, to effectively make in-game objects fully and realistically destructable.
• advanced tire/suspension simulation for cars
• soft bodies
• physics-enabled particles/fluids
• cloth simulation
• bult-in advanced character control
• volumetric force field simulation

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.

Update: new details on PhysX features for Unity 3.0 beta

Group of enthusiasts is working on interesting project – classic Unreal 1 engine enhancement with real-time physics, based on PhysX SDK. Current version supports only primitives like boxes and spheres, convex meshes and several joint types, but result is already impressive:

Future plans include vehicles integration, soft bodies and possible ragdoll support. You can download beta version of PhysX mod for Unreal v. 227 here

Hope this project will be more successful than this abandoned PhysX integration into Half Life 1 engine.

Interesting video appears on YouTube today – it’s showcasing PhysX SDK integration with Meng Game Engine by Mindware  Studios. Meng was the technology behind recently released painkiller-style game called Dreamkiller.

Video is demonstrating some advanced physics simulation – tearable and pressure cloth, metal cloth based deformables, dynamic hair, and ragdolls, blended with animation using joint motors.

However, we haven’t spotted anything but ragdolls and rigid bodies in actual Dreamkiller game, so perhaps more complicated features are reserved for future projects.

Update: unfortunately, video seems to be removed by user.

You may be familiar with NxOgre – complex and pervasive PhysX SDK wrapper for Ogre 3D engine, used already is serious commercial games, like Zombie Driver.

User Caphalor, who founds NxOgre “bit too big” for his purposes, decided to create small and simple alternative wrapper, and called it compactly – OgrePhysX

Library is based on PhysX SDK 2.8.3 and supports following features:

- PhysX initialisation
- bind scene nodes or other “PointRenderable” implementations to actors
- mesh cooking
- shape parameter system
- raycasting, sweeps
- contact report

OgrePhysX discussion thread | OgrePhysX Google Code page

Physics simulation component of Esenthel Engine was translated recently to PhysX SDK 2.8.3, which allows developers, among other things, to create 64-bit applications.

In addition, new SDK features, like hierarchical cloth solver or cloth constraints, can help to advance clothing simulation via Esenthel even further (current status is shown on a video below).

Even developed by one man – Grzegorz Slazinski – Esenthel is “complete game development suit“, which includes graphics renderer, physics, GUI, networking, animation system, etc.

User’s opionions on this engine are fairly positive.

Source: Esenthel forums

We are keeping an eye on promising PhysX SDK based projects, like RayFire Tool, PhysXforQuest wrapper, and – pXent PhysX SDK wrapper for 3D GameStudio engine. This time a new impressive feature was added – realtime generation of fragments for dynamic fracturing and destruction of objects.

Of course, it’s still not APEX Destruction level, but close enough.

We’ve already wrote about pXent some time ago – that’s PhysX SDK wrapper for 3D GameStudio engine. Christian Kahler, pXent developer, has uploaded an interesting video today, showing that even complex PhysX SDK features like SPH-fluids, softbodies and cloth simulation can be easily implemented by one man.