Havok Offers Core Physics Software Free for PC Game Developers
Posted by: Drew Sikora at February 20, 2008 1:24:43 PM
Havok™, the premier provider of interactive software and services to digital creators in the games and movie industries, today announced that the company will offer the PC version of its award-winning physics and animation software product – Havok Complete – for download free of charge.
Available for non-commercial use, Havok Complete for the PC will be freely downloadable in May 2008.
Havok’s core platform, Havok Complete combines the industry-leading Havok Physics engine and Havok Animation, the company’s premier character animation solution. Havok Complete is already the most popular solution in the cross-platform AAA games market, featuring technology used in over 200 games. By making Havok Complete for the PC freely downloadable, Havok will further build on its leading position by completely removing the barriers to entry for the large number of independent developers, academic institutions and enthusiasts in the PC space.
“Havok has an excellent revenue base generated by sales of our three products across multiple platforms and into multiple industries,” said David O’Meara, Managing Director at Havok. “This enables us to make an industry-changing move and opens up a much broader market for products such as Havok Behavior – and our new products Havok Cloth and Havok Destruction – that really come alive when adopted on top of our core platform, Havok Complete.”
Havok has entered into an agreement with Intel, Havok’s parent company, under which approved game developers on the PC platform can execute a commercial distribution license with Havok for free.
“Intel is very pleased to be sponsoring this direction in the PC market. This aligns well with our ongoing strategy of putting the best software tools in the hands of PC games developers,” said Renee J. James, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Software and Solutions Group, Intel Corporation.
With the free PC download of Havok Complete, Havok enables broad non-commercial development use for artists and engineers around the world, which Havok believes will boost creative game development throughout the industry.
“This is fantastic news for commercial PC game developers as well as the independent game development community, who will really benefit from this move,” said Mark DeLoura, creator of the Game Programming Gems series. “It’s great to see a leading middleware company like Havok show such support for PC game developers by making its physics and animation system freely available.”
Havok’s overall focus remains cross-platform and Havok will continue commercial licensing of Havok Complete for other platforms and in other industries such as movies and serious gaming. This initiative does not apply to license fees that may be payable to Havok for console versions of Havok Complete or to applications developed for other purposes such as game engines for redistribution, other middleware, movies, training, military or industrial simulation.
Havok’s physics software is featured in over 200 AAA games available on stores shelves today. With well over 90 games currently in development to be released this year, use of Havok’s ubiquitous software is up 100% over last year at the same time. Best-selling titles featuring Havok physics include: Halo 3, Assassin’s Creed, Guitar Hero III, BioShock, World in Conflict, Half Life 2: The Orange Box, and Heavenly Sword. Havok’s software will also be featured in the highly-anticipated upcoming games Alan Wake, Indiana Jones, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Starcraft II.
With a broad and deep range of tech partners including AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft as well as a host of world-class publishers and developers, Havok is well known industry-wide for its excellent customer service.
In addition to the PC software download, Havok also unveiled two new software products, Havok Cloth™ and Havok Destruction™ at this year’s Game Developers Conference. Havok Cloth and Destruction provide artists with dramatically increased control over interactive cloth and destructible objects within games. The company also announced several new features and enhancements across its award winning modular suite of run-time technology and artist tools.
Havok also celebrated a number of key entertainment and technology awards in 2007, including a National Academy of Television, Arts & Sciences Award, Game Developer Frontline Award, and a Develop Industry Excellence Award.
"Havok Offers Core Physics Software Free for PC Game Developers" Discussion
GnomeTankMember since: 2/20/2007 From: Houston
Posted - 2/20/2008 4:36:48 PM
So, I am pretty terrible at translating press release speak. What does that say in non-marketing BS terms?
Are they giving independent developers access to Havok, like Aegia did with PhysX? Or is Havok Complete something along the lines of GMod (aka useless to most developers)?
Are all these companies going Microsoft-like and giving us almost-complete free commercial products? It seems like a bunch of companies have lately: MS with Express Editions and that Dream Thing just recently; Valve with SteamWorks; Ageia with PhysX (well, not *that* recently); and now Havok with, well, Havok. But who's going to complain? I think I'll just go off and make a nice Havok-powered game using Visual Studios 2008 Professional and use Steam to distribute it.
MARS_999GDNet+Member since: 3/6/2001 From: Sioux Falls, SD
Posted - 2/20/2008 6:46:47 PM
Did you not read this?
Available for non-commercial use, Havok Complete for the PC will be freely downloadable in May 2008.
Then
Havok has entered into an agreement with Intel, Havok’s parent company, under which approved game developers on the PC platform can execute a commercial distribution license with Havok for free.
So what is it? Can one use it for free and make a game on the PC and sell it? Wording contradicts itself.
Available for non-commercial use, Havok Complete for the PC will be freely downloadable in May 2008.
Then
Havok has entered into an agreement with Intel, Havok’s parent company, under which approved game developers on the PC platform can execute a commercial distribution license with Havok for free.
So what is it? Can one use it for free and make a game on the PC and sell it? Wording contradicts itself.
It means you make a game with it (without selling it) show the intel people that its a good game, they will give you the commercial license so you can then publish that game.. But it has to be good enought.. I'll stick with physX till I know that havok will have hardware accel.
Original post by GnomeTank
Well, this is interesting. I would seriously consider using Havok in a game project in the future because it is a great physics engine.
Be sure to read the fine print -- this is for non-commercial purposes. Therefore, unless you're able to prove to the Havok-Intel co-operative that you're worthy of being sponsored; your game cannot be sold :)
Meanwhile, it's worth looking at for those who haven't used Havok before -- might learn a thing or two ;)
There are a few things in the article that stick out.
They are no longer selling the PC version commercially for game development, with the exception of the movie and serious games market.
They are still selling the products that work on top of Havok Complete (Behavior, Destruction, etc). Havoc Complete is the razor, and the additional products are the blades.
The 'approved game developers' line is a bit concerning. Getting approval might be as simple as making sure the game isn't racist or porngraphic, or it could limit the distribution to a select number of game developers. Another possibility is that they may want to limit the free commercial license to smaller developers.
...Getting approval might be as simple as making sure the game isn't racist or porngraphic...
Damn what else can you use an in-game physics engine for...*back to drawing board*...
Seriously this is interesting news. Might I recommend ODE->Tokamak->Newton->PhysX->HavoK
Lol, the best libs keep getting released for 'free' I am curious what their requirements are. I could sure use Havok on my next project, and if it's free [ aka: up to their standards ], why not.
jamil1985Member since: 2/25/2008 From: London, Greater London
Posted - 2/25/2008 4:45:43 PM
Hi peeps! I'm very interested in this Havok game engine, if there is a version being released for learning purposes please let me know. Ermmm, i heard that there is an Engine called TORQUE advanced? If anyone knows where i can download a learning version? And i have been trying to get in Bitme.org for years now but cannot find an invite, anyone who is generous, out there who can help me out?? please.
The TGEA is free for 30 days, you just don't get the source code to modify the base engine. Most of a game can be made with just torque script though (personal experience). It's only when you start going against the grain, trying to do things that a first person shooter engine wasn't meant to do, that you need access to the source code. Things like go third person, have multiple people controlling characters on the same system, or doing split screen. Trust me when I say it's a bitch to do these things, as the documentation is sorely lacking and there never seems to be an up to date book on the engine. The community is supremely active though, ask a question and you can get 5 answers in an hour some days, all useful.
I've had enough problems though with poorly documented engines. My next choice in game engines will revolve around proper developer maintained APIs and abundant, recent tutorials.
Any news on this? It's the end of may, and I don't see a download link at Havok's main site.
I think you guys are right, Havok may not be charging, but they are still being exclusive. I bet they just want to tantalize independant game developers into purchasing their product.
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GnomeTank
Member since: 2/20/2007 From: Houston
Posted - 2/20/2008 4:36:48 PM
Posted - 2/20/2008 6:46:47 PM
Posted - 5/30/2008 7:53:21 PM
