Autodesk has published a recorded video of a presentation – “The Latest Advances in NVIDIA PhysX / APEX Technology” – that was performed by Daniel Horowitz, engineering manager for PhysX dev. tools in NVIDIA,  at Siggraph 2011.

Update: MassFX: what is coming in future versions of 3ds Max

This presentation is covering such topics as design principles of PhysX and MassFX plug-ins, relationship between those tools, and is also giving an overview on APEX Clothing authoring process and upcoming features.

Some interesting facts:

• APEX Destruction functionality will be added to PhysX plug-ins in the future. It was also mentioned, that it will be possible to use to use 3d party tools for fracturing (not only default solution in PhysXLab) and also tweak graphical and physical meshes separately.
• Next release – PhysX plug-in 2.7 will support PhysX SDK 2.8.4, PhysX SDK 3.1 and APEX 1.1
• APEX Softbodies module was mentioned.
• Contact Layers feature (basically, collision filtering) will be added in 2.7 plug-in for Maya, and 2.x plug-in for 3ds Max.
• Patner integration program. For example, PhysX based rigid bodies from Particle Flow plug-ins will be able to interact with MassFX rigid bodies.
• mCloth module will be based on ClothFX plug-in from Size8Software, but it will fully interact with MassFX rigid bodies, ragdolls, atachments and so on (nice solution to keep PhysX cloth and APEX focused on clothing simulation for games only).

It was promised that new 2.7 PhysX plug-ins will arrive shortly, in a few weeks, so keep an eye on our website for a full review.

NVIDIA PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max was updated to version 2.60.0413.1900

Update: PhysX plug-in 2.61 released

Release Notes:

Issues Fixed (Present in Previous Releases)

• [#5771] Corrupted Paint Channel when loading some older assets
• [#5770] Compression settings are reset to default
• [#5769] Ragdoll on CAT rig doesn’t save/load properly
• [#5667] Previewer crashes on some CAT files
• [#5761] Cannot save paint channel for some assets

Updated PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max is available for download at Developer Support Center. You can find it in following section: [Online Support] -> [Downloads] -> [APEX] -> [APEX DCC Clothing Plugins]

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

NVIDIA has updated DCC PhysX plug-in for Maya to version 2.60.0412.2200

Release Notes:

New Features

• APEX Clothing: External Preview window with APEX debug capabilities

Issue Fixed (Present in Previous Releases)

• [#5779] Crash when loading/applying clothing to some asset files

Updated PhysX plug-in for Maya is available for download at Developer Support Center. You can find it in following section: [Online Support] -> [Downloads] -> [APEX] -> [APEX DCC Clothing Plugins]

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

In addition, separate installers for Maya 2012 (x32 and x64-bit) are now also provided.

If you were following Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 development process, you’ve already may know that built-in Havok Reactor physics simulation engine was replaced with a new MassFX unified simulation, using PhysX SDK integration.

However, since only mRigids solver (rigid body and joints dynamics) is available so far, one may say that Reactor was omitted too early, since not all the functionality (cloth, joint motors, forcefields, buoyancy) is present in MassFX currently.

Generally, MassFX is based on modified NVIDIA PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max (likely latest 2.60), and thus, resembles its basic functionality and interface, but several differences can be spotted:

• Simulation in viewports runs much faster and smoother, thanks to new Nitrous graphics core. Performance Viewer tool, that can be found in PhysX plug-in 2.60, was removed.
• APEX Clothing functionality is not available.
• Dynamic ragdolls are not available.
• Minor interface changes.

Note: MassFX does not support hardware acceleration currently.

Note #2: To avoid slowdowns while working with massive amount of objects, it is recommended to disable rendering of physical meshes (MassFX Toolbar > Display > Display Physical Meshes).

Previously, Autodesk has mentioned that future releases of MassFX will support cloth, softbody and ropes simulation, deformable meshes, fluids and forcefields.

Update: MassFX 2013 in review

Also, according to our knowledge, users will be able to install PhysX plug-ins from NVIDIA over MassFX, to enhance it with additional functionality.

Ongoing (and prolonged) release of NVIDIA APEX framework has not only brought us PhysXLab (authoring tool for APEX Destruction and APEX Particles), but also new versions of PhysX plug-ins for Autodesk 3ds Max, 3ds Max Design and Maya (plug-ins were uploaded just several hours ago).

UPDATE: NVIDIA APEX 1.0 Beta released

Since many developers and VFX artists are waiting for this plug-ins, we decided to provide detailed overview of new features and changes in this versions. New PhysX plug-ins v. 2.60 for 3ds Max and Maya are available for download via Developer Support Center.

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

PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max v. 2.60.0314.1641

[supports 3ds Max (2009, 2010, 2011) and 3ds Max Design (2010, 2011), 32-bit and 64-bit versions]

Update: PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max updated

2.60 version of PhysX plug-ins seems to be used as basis for new MassFX unified dynamics system, included in upcoming 3ds Max 2012, as it resembles same interface and basic feature list. However, 2.60 PhysX plug-in supports APEX Clothing, while MassFX does not.

Lets take a view on new features, in comparison to previous 2.40 version of PhysX plug-in:

Read the rest of this entry »

NVIDIA has published several Game Technology Theater feature talks, which took place at NVIDIA GDC Booth yesterday, March 2.

This particular one, called “3ds Max 2012 including nRigids with Nvidia PhysX” and presented by Shawn Hendriks from Autodesk, mostly contains general overview of 3ds Max 2012 features (despite of the title), but also provides some information on new mRigids rigid body dynamics system (starting 39:53).

You can view recorded “3ds Max 2012 including nRigids with Nvidia PhysX” presentation here

Autodesk has officially announced 3ds Max 2012 and 3ds Max Design 2012 – 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing packages.

New set of 3ds Max products introduces first module of unified MassFX simulation system – mRigids rigid body dynamics.

Update: 3ds Max 2012 released – MassFX system overview

With mRigids, you can leverage the multi-threaded NVIDIA® PhysX® engine to create compelling, dynamic rigid-body simulations directly in the 3ds Max viewport. mRigids 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.

MassFX system is based on PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max, and will replace existing Reactor physics engine.

We’ve already reviewed some sneak-peek videos of MassFX and spotted certain vital features – convex decomposition ans substeps control.

In addition, new Maya 2012 is also including PhysX plug-in as part of standart package.

New Simulation Options — Incorporates the multithreaded NVIDIA PhysX engine for static, dynamic and kinematic rigid-body simulations directly in the Maya viewport. The PhysX plug-in also includes kinematic ragdoll simulations and APEX Clothing.

Autodesk has released another sneak-peek video of MassFX – PhysX SDK (and PhysX plug-in) based physics simulation system for XBR (namely 3ds Max 2012).

Previous video has showed us that substeps control will be included, and this one reveals another interesting feature – composite physical mesh type (previously spotted only in internal versions of PhysX plug-in).

In this case, user will be able to decompose concave mesh (not supported by PhysX SDK natively) into convex pieces, using built-in algorithm, and simulate it as one physical object.

Now, with both convex decomposition and substeps control features MassFX may show itself as pretty effective tool, at least for rigid body simulations.

We already mentioned plans of Autodesk to replace Reactor (using Havok) physics engine in next versions of 3ds Max with a new and probably better one, based on PhysX SDK.

Update: New MassFX sneak-peek video

Recently released “sneak peek” video gives us a short glimpse on this simulation system, and reveals its name – MassFX.

As you may notice, MassFX resembles general design of standart PhysX plug-in from NVIDIA, but also includes some long-anticipated features, like substeps control, for example.

Read the rest of this entry »

Autodesk 3ds Max users may be familiar with XBR (project Excalibur) – next major generation of 3ds Max products, that is supposed to adress many issues on fundamental level and includes some new features, currently beeing in extensive development stage.

Rumors have been floating around for some time, but it seems now it is official – recent webinar from Autodesk has revealed that Simulation sub-system within XBR will be based on PhysX SDK, instead of Reactor engine (using Havok).

QA session after the webinar

Following webinar recording is giving a glimpse on some features and ideas for XBR Simulation system (starting 44:45).

Judging by XBR release date (when it’s done), we can assume that it will use PhysX SDK 3.x