Ever since the existence of Unreal Engine 4, next-generation game development platfrom from Epic Games, was revealed, one question was bothering us – will it still rely on PhysX SDK integration for physics sumulation, like UE3 and UDK?

And it seems the answer is “Yes”.

During presentation of PhysX and APEX features, that NVIDIA employee was giving to Gametrailers at GDC 2012, following words were said:

So here we are showing some of our technologies that are already incorporated in the games and game engines.

In this case all three of these demos are in Unreal Engine.. we are integrated in both Unreal 3 and upcoming Unreal 4.

Gametrailers has published several videos, revealing what kind of newest additions to PhysX SDK engine and APEX Framework were showcased at NVIDIA Booth, at current GDC.

First video is showing yet experimental technology – new cloth solver and real-time fracturing.

Wooly character contains 840 000 particles simulated as 100 000 invidual strands of fur and is running on new solver that is currently under active research.

Real-time fracturing will be nice addition to the APEX Destruction module, which, currently, is utilizing only pre-fractured meshes. Fracturing happening in real-time, accordingly to impact force and point of damage application will certanly make destruction look more natural and immersive.

Update: more detailed videos of new fracturing engine.

Update #2: fur simulation technology video

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Following presentations were held as part of NVIDIA Game Technology Theather event on March 7.

First one is called “3ds Max with MassFX” and was presented by Chris Murray from Autodesk.

Update: recording is now available on YouTube

This talk was mostly focused on features under development, that are expected to be added in future versions of MassFX, like mCloth – new clothing simulation solution.

mCloth is supposed to provide stable two-way interaction with rigid bodies, probably utilize GPU acceleration, support user-controlled tearing (through vertex selection) and include some interesting pressure simulation for balloon-like behaviour (for example, if you have holes in your mesh, balloon will deflate).

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Few months ago we wrote about interesting project – custom SPH Fluid simulation demo, that was using PhysX SDK 3.0.2 as physics engine and OpenGL as rendering API.

Recently, its author known as Finalspace has presented an updated version of this application, which is now called Fluid Sandbox.

Update: Fluid Sandbox 1.4.5 is up. New version is based on PhysX SDK 3.1 and features improved rendering, additional scenarios, better support for multi-core CPUs, fluid emitters and drains.

New release is named “Sandbox” for a reason – most of the data is now stored in XML format, so it is possible to customize existing scenarios (or even create new ones), edit scene and simulation properties, or add custom obstacles.

Apart from that, updated features include improved Screen Space Fluid Rendering option, new basic scenarios, more flexible settings and properly working interaction between fluid particles and rigid bodies.

As we already mentioned in our previous article, Fluid Sandbox is a great tool to play with, which functionality surpasses any other PhysX Fluid demos ever released.

You can download Fluid Sandbox from original thread at Delphi OpenGL Community forum.

MirVadim has uploaded new impressive promo video of RayFire – fracturing and destruction tool for Autodesk 3ds Max, which is using PhysX plug-in/MassFX for underlying physics simulation.

If you are interested in RayFire history and PhysX SDK role in its development, you can read our previous article – PhysX From Inside Out: RayFire Tool

Autodesk has presented another video, showcasing some of the new features of MassFX – PhysX SDK based physics simulation system, that is replacing Reactor engine since 3ds Max 2012.

You can observe the process of mCloth object creation (and also it’s settings and interaction with rigid bodies), better support for concave meshes and updated interface.

It was also mentioned previously, that MassFX 2013 will also support standart forces, like PBomb and Vortex.

Almost a year has passed since NVIDIA and Epic Games presented APEX 1.0 integration in Unreal Development Kit (UDK) engine.

And now, February 2012 release of UDK can “please” us with silent introduction of newest APEX 1.1 Framework, which includes updated APEX Clothing and APEX Destruction modules.

Unfortunately, UDN documentation was not yet updated, and some flaws were found in this release - for example, APEX GPU Rigid Body libraries are missing from the February distribution. Not to mention, that not all APEX 1.1 features have made it into UDK.

UPDATE: March UDK is released. Issues with missing GRB libraries were resolved.

Please note: only assets created with latest authoring tools - PhysXLab 1.1 and 2.71 DCC plug-ins - are compatible with APEX 1.1

Let’s take a look on some of the new features in APEX 1.1 integration we were able to discover:

APEX DESTRUCTION 1.1:

For additional data on Destruction Module please refer to UDN page

• GPU Rigid Bodies (GRB). One of the most interesting features of 1.1 release is new ability to calculate rigid body physics on CUDA-capable GPUs, thus achieveing performance improvement in scenes with many destructible actors and simulated chunks, while using exact same assets and settings as for CPU physics.

----- Following is valid only for February 2012 UDK

As we have mentioned, current GRB implementation is missing vital libraries and also has some bugs: you can either wait until March UDK release or try it out now (for your own risk) – using our .dll package (36 mb).

Copy “GRB_1_x86.dll” and “pxtask_cuda_x86.dll” to “UDK\Binaries\Win32\” folder.

Copy “GRB_1_x64.dll” and “pxtask_cuda_x64.dll” to “UDK\Binaries\Win64\” folder.

---- Previous is only valid for February 2012 UDK

Now, to enable GRBs you need to set following parameters in “Engine\Config\BaseEngine.ini” file:

bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=False

ApexGRBEnable=True

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Basefount has announced release of Miarmy 1.2 – plug-in for Autodesk Maya that is capable of behavioral animation, crowd simulation, physics calculation and rendering.

Amond other features, physics engine in Miarmy 1.2 is now based on PhysX SDK 3.1 (in previous releases – 2.8.4), which provides faster and more accurate rigid body physics simulation even with high number of complex jointed objects.

In addition, usage of new PxCloth solver allows “100 times faster” simulation of cloth and clothing assets.

With new PhysX 3.1 Engine, The limit on the number of dynaimc agents is gone. On an average home PC, one can easily create a scene with more than 5,000 agents enable dynamics which contains more than 85,000 RBD objects and 80,000 dynamical joints. The cloth simulation will became almost real-time.

NVIDIA has released yet another version of PhysX System Software – 9.12.0213. It is supposed to fix some compatibility issues, introduced by previous releases.

• Includes the latest PhysX runtime builds to support all released PhysX content.
• Changes & fixed issues in this release
  • Fixed a bug that caused cloth (paper) to jitter in Batman Arkham City.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Alice 2 to crash.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series, 100-series, 200-series, 300-series, 400-series, 500-series, and 600-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory.

You can download PhysX System Software 9.12.0213 from NVIDIA website.

P.S. There is one more new PSS version – 9.12.0209 – inside 295.73 GPU drivers.

Along with APEX 1.1 release, NVIDIA has prepared new 2.71 version of PhysX plug-ins for 3ds Max (2009-2012) and Maya (2009-2012).

Update: 2.72 plug-ins available

2.71 PhysX Plug-in for 3ds Max – Release Notes:

• General: Fix a HW check issue for old driver causing crash for some users.
• General: Saving file at the end of a simulation will capture transform all objects in scene.
• General: Sprinting improvement for 3rd party plugins utilizing this plugin.
• General: Exporter locale issue. Force to keep as period instead of comma.
• General: Removed unused materials and shapes in exported XML files.
• General: Fix the crash with previewer, waving flag sample.
• General: Upgrade 3.x mode to use PhysX SDK 3.1.1
• General: Minor toolbar tweaks.
• General: Prevent some convex hull failure cases.
• General: Increase contact buffer for PhysX 3.x.
• General: Fix the bug that when in the middle baking, it restarts from time start. The reason is that Max does occasional preSave event and we prefer to rewind before saving.

• Rigid Body: Fix button based initial motion calculation.

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