Original NVIDIA PhysX Fluid Demo is nice indeed, but it is not using fluid simulation to it’s full potential – there is only two scenes, level geometry is way too basic and water flow is too simple.

That’s why our fellow reader, known as AquaGeneral, desided to pimp Fluid Demo a little, buy replacing original models and, thus, providing more interesting usage of fluid sim.

[08.01.2011] Update: new model – “Two Story Building” – available. Mod reuploaded.

Update #2: If you want to create custom level to yourself, please refer to PhysX Fluid Demo Modding Guide.

Three new variants of initial “Pumping Station or something” scene were added:

1 – “Building”

2 – “Pool”

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Several nice videos were uploaded on YouTube by user named Phrogz42 (and further finding are indicating that Gavin Kistner, Product Designer for PhysX Max and Maya plug-ins, is hiding behing this nick) – they are showcasing usage of PhysX 3ds Max plug-in for simulation of several complex obejcts – mostly chains of various types.

But much more interesting details were revealed by autor today, as responce to our question – PhysX plug-in v2.06 Alpha (current version, available for public, is 2.01) was used to create those demonstrations.

Most simulations were running on sub-realtime performance, due to highly increased iterations count, but stability is impressive, not to mention that almost no joints were used – each chain link is compound obejct, consisting of several rigid body primitives/convex meshes.

Take a look at description of “PhysX Chain Braid” video – “each chain link is a single rigid body with eight automatically-derived convex hulls comprising 160 verts (per link)” – it seems convex decomposition algoritm has finally made it to PhysX plug-in.

We’ll keep an eye on Phrogz42’s channel and will let you know, if something interesting will appear.

Autodesk has announced today, that  2.x PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max is going to be included into Subscription Advantage Pack for 3ds Max 2011 and 3ds Max Design 2011.

Description:

Create more compelling, dynamic rigid-body simulations directly in the 3ds Max viewport. The multi-threaded NVIDIA® PhysX® engine supports static, dynamic, and kinematic rigid bodies (the latter for rag doll simulations), and a number of constraints: Rigid, Slide, Hinge, Twist, Universal, Ball & Socket, and Gear.

Animators can more quickly create a wider range of realistic dynamic simulations, and can also use the toolset for modeling: for example, creating a randomly placed landscape of rocks. Assigning physical properties – friction, density, and bounciness – is as simple as choosing from a set of initial preset real-world materials and tweaking parameters as required.

Update: Intesting details were revealed by Kenneth Pimentel, Director of Visual Communications Solutions at Autodesk, on CGTalk.com forums

We can also announce an ongoing partnership with nvidia around PhysX. We entered into the partnership a little late to show much results in this pass, but the partnership is significant and on-going. I think you’d be surprised at the number of research threads we’ve kicked off together.

This is specifically to avoid what happened with Reactor. I think we learned our lesson.

PhysX SDK as default physics solution for most Autodesk products ? Why not

For those of you who are still playing with old Nvidia PhysX Fluid Demo (version 1.0.0.9, released in 2008 with first PowerPack) Nvidia has prepared a new, slightly updated variant – PhysX Fluid Demo ver. 1.0.1.3.

Update: Modding of PhysX Fluid Demo

Release notes:

• Allocate only 64MB of VRAM heap instead of 128MB
• Adjusted text output to not conflict with the PhysX Visual Indicator
• Added option to toggle the display of all text (in screen space) on/off.

You can download PhysX Fluid Demo ver. 1.0.1.3. from here (19 mb)

Alternative download from physxfiles.com (virustotal report).

Nvidia has recently uploaded APEX related presentation called “APEX : Creating scalable immersive game environments” from their  SIGGRAPH 2010 sponsored sessions list.

Usual overview of APEX framework and current modules (like Destruction and Clothing), which are already familiar to us from past GDC10 and SIGGRAPH09 sessions, is followed by topic never described in detail previously – Scalability and LOD features inside APEX (starts at 32:55).

In general, it’s devided into two components – scalable parameters for each of the modules (like number of particles or cloth vertices), that can be adjusted during authoring to fit into platform computing capabilities..

..and dynamic LOD system, that manages resources destribution between actors and modules, based on current situation and resources budget (for example, clothing on character closer to the camera will be simulated with higher fidelity).

Now, as we know almost everything about APEX, we just need to wait until it will be released to public (standalone, or integrated into popular engines like UE3).

New 2.0 version of PhysX Visual Debugger, object-based database application for analyzing captured data from PhysX engine, was updated to version 2.0.6. Beta.

Update: final 2.0.6. version released – no differences from PVD 2.0.6 Beta though

[20.08.10] Update #2: PVD 2.0.7. with minor bugfixes is available for download.

Release Notes:

• Lots of optimizations during capture!  Capturing should be even quicker and more painless than it was with the first beta.
• Lots of UI bugfixing specifically to the tree views (All Objects, Selected Objects, Watched Objects).  They should be more stable and much more user friendly especially when selecting new objects.
• Navigation and selection were reversed.  So navigation is the default action while selection requires pressing ‘alt’.  You can quick select something by double clicking on it without pressing ‘alt’.
• Reversed the log file direction.  No more scrolling down; new errors at the top.
• New preferences dialog !  Much easier to use, no tabs.
• Got rid of the frames palette.  We are sorry it ever existed.  The playback controls got moved to the toolbar while the slider got moved to the bottom of the scene view.

And more interesting:

• Preliminary support for the 3.0 version PhysX !!!.  We are very excited about this.

Yep, we are excited about it too

You can download PhysX Visual Debugger 2.0.6 Beta via Developer Support Center.

If you are experiencing trouble with registration of PhysX Developer account, please refer to our registration guide.

New version of PhysX FluidMark, benchmarking and testing aplication for GPU PhysX systems, was finally released to public.

• New: added support of multi-core CPUs (PhysX simulation is spread over several threads). New checkboxes are also available to control this feature.
• New: added a checkbox to set the number of particles.
• New: added a checkbox to force CPU PhysX.
• New: added Heavy PhysX mode: to make modern systems with GPU PhysX happy
• New: added point sprite based rendering for particles (keys F2, F3 and F4).
• New: added keyboard-based camera control in stability test mode.
• Change: compiled with NVIDIA PhysX SDK 2.8.3.21.
• Change: updated with the latest version of ZoomGPU for graphics hardware detection.

Update: limitations of GPU PhysX simulation

Update #2: Async mode details

Update #3: FluidMark 1.2.2. available

We’ve already did more or less detailed features overview in our FluidMark 1.2 Beta preview article (in addition, more technical details are available from original post), so this time we will just point on certain changes in release version in comparison to beta one.

Main window haven’t underwent much changes..  (click to view full picture)

.. while benchmarking process was improved, to achieve results standardization. Every benchmarking sequence now starts with so called “Warming-Up” state, to ensure that all particles are emitted on the scene. In addition, default settings are now set to 60 000 particles and one minute timed run.

Moreover, new FluidMark 1.2 is now officially approved by Nvidia. According to JeGX, FluidMark developer, NV engineers have helped with bug fixing and overall optimizations, but have not influenced development process in order to give an advantage to GeForce GPUs or penalize CPUs.

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PhysX Visual Debugger, debug tool for PhysX SDK based applications was updated to version 2.0.

Update: PhysX Visual Debugger 2.0.6 Beta

Current release notes are unknown, but it seems that PVD 2.0 was completely rebuild from scratch (upd: confirmed, it’s complete rewrite) – just take a look at the main application window (click to view full picture), and compare it with previous PVD 1.1.9

You can download PhysX Visual Debugger 2.0 Beta via Developer Support Center.

If you are experiencing trouble with registration of PhysX Developer account, please refer to our registration guide.

If you have trouble with new account registration or existing account (dissapearing downloads, unable to log-in, etc) you can send your problem description to support@physxinfo.com – we’ll try to provide a shortcut to PhysX dev. team.

As we mentioned previously, upcoming FluidMark 1.2, next version of popular GPU PhysX testing and benchmarking application, will include support for Multi-Core CPU PhysX calculations, and overall multi-threading optimizations as well.

Jerome Guinot, FluidMark developer, was kind enough to provide us with latest beta-version of new Fluid-Mark 1.2, and we’ll try to answer finally, what is faster – GPU PhysX or properly optimized CPU PhysX.

But first, lets take a closer look at new FluidMark. (click to view full picture)

Main control panel now includes several additional options, like “Force PhysX CPU” – ability to switch between GPU and CPU PhysX, without necessity to use Nvidia Control Panel.

“Multi-core PhysX” checkbox enables all multi-threading optimizations, vital and most interesting part of new FluidMark.

“# of CPU cores” is used specify number of CPU cores dedicated to simulation (up to 32 in current version), however this option is no so transparent as it looks – increased number of cores adds additional fluid emitters to the scene (one emitter per core or two in general), and with equal number of particles, various number of emitters can affect performance.

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Presentations from “Nvidia Game Technology Theater“, which were demonstrated at Nvidia booth on GDC 2010, are now live – slides and following sound accompaniment. Let’s take a look at those related to PhysX SDK and APEX toolset.

Update: main PhysX and APEX session are now available as slide decks and video records

APEX Clothing with 3ds Max by Gavin Kistner, Product Designer, NVIDIA

Gavin gives a quick overview of 2.0 PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max, and uses superhero character with cape to explaing full clothing authoring process. Personal love Gavin’s manner of talking.. funny guy

Physically Simulated Clothing By CCP (EVE Online) Using NVIDIA APEX by Vigfus Omarsson, Lead Technical Artist, CCP; Snorri Sturluson, Senior Software Engineer, CCP; Monier Maher, APEX Product Manager, NVIDIA

Include overall cloth sim benefits overview from CCP, clothing tools pipeline features demonstration with Maya, and, of course, authoring process with pretty female character. While authoring was done in Maya, actual simulation was running in “CCP engine” window, as stated by Vigfus.

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