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

You may also want to tweak following settings:

ApexDestructionMaxChunkIslandCount – maximum number of simulated chunks.

ApexDestructionMaxShapeCount – each chunk could have multiple shapes, so you can limit those too.

ApexGRBGPUMemSceneSize – GPU memory allocated to store scene data (shapes, actors).

ApexGRBGPUMemTempDataSize – GPU memory allocated to store contacts and collision data.

Please note that GPU acceleration: #1 Is only working for Destructible assets, not regular UDK physics actors.  #2 Is not effective in scenes with small amount of physical objects. #3 Supports only one-way interaction with CPU rigid bodies.

It is recommended to install latest GPU driver.

• New Sort by Benefit option defines how chunks are removed from the scene when resource budget is reached. Benefits calculation is based on screen size (which, itself, depends on size of the chunk/island and distance from the camera) and age of the chunk, not just relative lifetime, as before.

It is enabled by default:

ApexDestructionSortByBenefit=True

Thus, enabling this option will prevent undesirable situations, when, for example, chunks dissapear in front of you as something gets destroyed in the background. New system will also preserve large chunk inslands and delete smaller insignificant chunks in the first place.

• Ability to have multiple collision hulls per chunk for better representation of objects with concave geometry.

PhysXLab 1.1 performs convex decomposition automatically, while complexity of physical mesh can be controlled by “Collision Quality” settings under “Asset” tab.

Collision hulls (red wireframe) on various quality settings

Increased collision quality can also help to avoid interpenetrations between chunks, but will consume more resources.  But if your chunks are perfectly convex (for example, if Voronoi shattering is used), you can safely reduce quality to 1 or 2, in order to improve performance.

• Chunks instancing and tiling. Matching chunks created from cutout fracturing can be instanced within the same actor, as well as other destructible actors which reference the same asset – to speed up rendering.

Instancing option (it is located under “Graphics” tab) must be set during authoring process.

APEX CLOTHING 1.1:

For additional data on Clothing module please refer to UDN page

• Per-actor scaling. Each actor can now be scaled individually and simulated correspondingly.

• Asynchronous cooking. Cooking will be delayed if another actor already started cooking, in case if several actors with different per-actor scale are created. Actors will not be simulated during this process.

This option is also enabled by default:

ApexClothingAllowAsyncCooking=True

• Adaptive Target Frequency reduces the high frequency jittering that happens due to slightly varying timesteps, by adapting the per-cloth gravity slightly.

Target frequency is computed as the average over the real last N (normally 60) simulation steps. Number of steps can be defined with following parameter:

ApexClothingAvgSimFrequencyWindow=60

We’ll update this page as more official information will be released.

NVIDIA has released upgraded set of tutorials on how to create APEX Clothing assets in 3ds Max, Maya and how use them in UE3/UDK engine.

Archives are containing recorded video tutorials, all necessary assets, UE3 packages and scene files (for 3ds Max/Maya 2011 and latest PhysX plug-ins).

New tutorilas are availale for download at Developer Support Center, under following section:  [Online Support] -> [Downloads] -> [APEX] -> [APEX DCC Clothing Plugins]

• Clothing Max Tutorials Part 1 (9-29-11).zip (590 mb)
  • Tutorial #1: Setup and UI
  • Tutorial #2: Waving Flag authoring
  • Tutorial #3: Cape (low res) authoring
  • Tutorial #4: Trench Coat (medium res) authoring
• Clothing Max Tutorials Part 2 (9-29-11).zip (525 mb)
  • Tutorial #5: Pants (high res) authoring
  • Tutorial #6: Exporting from 3ds Max to UE3
• Clothing Maya Tutorials (9-29-11).zip (497 mb)
  • Tutorial #1: Setup and UI
  • Tutorial #2: Trench Coat (medium res) authoring
  • Tutorial #3: Exporting from Maya to UE3
• Clothing Tutorial for Unreal 3 (9-29-11).zip (186 mb)
  • Tutorial #1: Animation Notifies Max Distance Scaling

3ds Max Tutorials Note: scene files ending with “_2010″ are not compatible with 3ds Max 2012.

You can also find mentioned video tutorials at NvidiaApexDeveloper channel at YouTube.

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

YouTube user raven67854 has presented several tutorial videos, explaining basic principles of APEX Destruction module usage inside the Unreal Development Kit engine.

Update: New tutorials provide in depth view of APEX Destruction usage in UDK

First tutorial is covering basic principles of mesh fracturing using PhysXLab tool.

Second one is showcasing import of APEX assets in UDK.

– We’ll update this post as more tutorials will emerge –

Additional materials, you would probably like to take a look at:

• UDK – APEX Destruction Reference
• APEX Destruction authoring in PhysXLab

Since March version of Unreal Development Kit, that has brought us NVIDIA APEX integration, users are playing with the new features trying to figure out their capabilities and limitations.

One of the most noticeable examples is this Destruction Project by the user named RU1NOUS. Even in current state it is demostrating nice a clean level design, good usage of general APEX Destruction features and interaction of APEX actors with tearable cloth objects.

Currently, APEX Destruction still requires a lot of work to make it really powerful and practical fracturing/destruction simulation tool, so let’s hope NVIDIA has all necessary additions on the roadmap.

We’ll try to keep the eye on RU1NOUS’s work and will update this post accordingly.

Epic Games has announced March release of Unreal Development Kit (UDK), free version of Unreal Engine 3.

March UDK includes all DX11 features, that were presented in Samaritan Demo at GDC 2011.

Important DirectX features now shipping with UDK include:

• Tessellation and displacement;
• Geometry shaders;
• Multisampled textures; and
• Shader Model 5.

In addition, UDK is now fully integrated with NVIDIA APEX, high-level scalable framework oriented on creation of complex physical effects, like destructible environment of dynamic character clothing.

NVIDIA’s APEX technology has also been integrated into the engine and ships with UDK.

NVIDIA APEX technology enables artists to quickly generate physically simulated clothing and destructible environments.

However, to take advantage of APEX functionality, authoring tools are needed to be released by NVIDIA. According to our sources, this may happen very soon, probably within a week.

Update: APEX 1.0 Beta released

Unfortunately, it is also unclear what exactly modules were integrated with UDK and are available right out of the box. Clothing and Destruction – that’s for sure,  Turbulence is also mentioned on Samaritan Demo page..

Other APEX features available now include turbulence

..but since APEX Turbulence authoring pipeline was never revealed, it is unknown if this module will require standalone application or functionality is already built into UDK Editor. No information on APEX Particles and APEX Vegetation modules.

Update: Browsing through March UDK we weren’t able to find any APEX bindings but Clothing and Destruction modules. It seems only those two will be available for UDK users – at this moment, at least.

NVIDIA and Epic Games are teaming up this week at Game Developers Conference to showcase latest additions to Unreal Engine 3, like DX 11 support and NVIDIA APEX Framework integration.

“Thanks to NVIDIA’s excellent cross-platform physics technologies and DX11 expertise, we have enhanced Unreal Engine 3 to bring unprecedented new levels of realism and demonstrate what the next generation of gaming will be,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games.

Alpha and beta versions of certain APEX modules were used in UE3 based games previously (Dark Void and Batman Arkham Asylum), but now full APEX toolset will be available to all UE3 licensees and UDK users as well, and can be used to create high-fidelity physics content (character clothing, for example) even in CPU PhysX and console games.

“Unreal Engine 3 continues to amaze us and represents a generational leap in gaming,” said Drew Henry, general manager of GPU business at NVIDIA. “With the addition of our PhysX, APEX and 3D Vision technologies, it will deliver unprecedented, high-end visual experiences for gamers. We can’t wait to play the games that Unreal Engine 3 will power in the future.”

The new Unreal Engine 3 real-time demo, (probably known as “Samaritan Demo”) being shown during GDC exclusively in Epic’s booth, is showcasing DX11 features like complex environments and detailed character models, and realistic character interactions with the environment using APEX Destruction amd APEX Clothing modules (accoding to some sources, PhysX SDK 3.0 may be utilized as well).

We believe, that more information on new UE3 tech will be revealed in upcoming days, so stay tuned.

Epic Games has released latest, January 2011 version of Unreal Development Kit (UDK), free edition of Unreal Engine 3.

One of main highlight of this version is enabled PhysX functionality for iOS development, while previous Mobile UDK featured only basic collision detection system.

Mobile

• PhysX is now supported on iOS.

Rigid body physics, fracturable meshes and ragdolls are among supported features.
Note: Cloth, fluids and soft bodies remain disabled on iOS for performance reasons.

According to our knowledge, this has became possible thanks for standalone PhysX SDK port for iOS (previously, only Unity Technologies have possessed their own custom iOS PhysX port  – for Unity 3D engine).

However, this time we may hope that iOS PhysX SDK will be available for public download someday, along with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions.

September Beta version of Unreal Development Kit (UDK), a free version of the Unreal Engine 3, is available for download.

This month’s build of UDK features significant additions, including:

· UDK users now have access to the gameplay profiler tool.

· Matinee’s movement tracks can now be split into individual translation and rotation components.

· Users can bulk edit texture properties within the Content Browser.

Apart from other usefull changes, September UDK is upgrading PhysX SDK integration with newest features of 2.8.4 SDK, like driverless destribution, SSE2 optimizations and enhanced cloth solver.

Also, we have noticed full pack of NVIDIA APEX .dlls – when APEX will be released to public, you’ll be able to use it with UDK right away.

· ‘PhysXDestructible’ has been removed.

· APEX destructibles are replacing them.

You can download September UDK Beta here or here

As for APEX Toolset release (without it APEX integration into UDK is useless for regular developer), several sources are indicating that this is going to happen somewhere in October

UDK – The Physics Dance! by Elude87

New Mass Physics video in UDK, now with focus on artistic style, not on the amount of physical objects. Scene is available for download here

UDK – Barrel Bonanza mass physics by erikrass

Yet not tired of Mass Physics videos ? here is another one

SphereNightmare by TakarashyGX

“Ballance” style game, developed by two people on OpenGL and PhysX SDK.

PhysX in TV3D 6.5 by toasterthegamer

PhysX simulation in Truevision 6.5 engine.

Esenthel Engine – Destructible Objects using Nvidia PhysX by Esenthel

New feature in Esenthel Engine – destructible objects using pre-fractured mesh. Yet in beta, but looks good already.

UDK Mass physics by Elude87

Remember Crysis Mass Physics videos ? Several users have prepared UDK based variants. This one is using 25 000 barrels stacked around a pillar 15 000 feet high.

Mass physics by DMHaZz

And another massive physics experiment in UDK. What to say, looks impressive

Demolition Company – Sprengmeister by huiga936

User made video, showcasing real-time destruction physics in recently released game called “Demolition Company”.  Destruction system is using pre-fractured rigid body fragments coupled together with breakable joints.