Physics Engine
Author
I want a physics engine in my game, and come to a choice. What is the best engine. I heard PhysX was good, but I can't find tutorials. There are 3 things I want. One is to be usable with OpenGL. Two is to have tutorials somewhere, or good support and documentation. Three is it to be able to be used in commercial applications. Please help me.
The PhysX SDK comes with a ton of samples, and they all use OpenGL. Documentation is generally pretty good, and the remote debugger is nice to have.
The only thing I find about PhysX is that it doesn't work in Linux yet. Atleast for me it doesn't. But on windows it does. And if you have a video card that's nVidia 8 series or better. It will have Physx acceleration support builtin with CUDA.
Based on your prerequisites, Physx is probably your best bet.
If it wasn't for the documentation, I'd say Bullet.
If it wasn't for the documentation, I'd say Bullet.
Author
Does a physics engine include collision detection too? So it'll processs collisions and handle them?
If you want a cross platform physics engine look into bullet. The newest version supports even soft body and cloth simulation.
Another alternative to PhysX is Havok, which is now freely available for pc game developers. Hovok is used in many AAA titles like Company of Heroes, Ghost Recon, BioShock, F.E.A.R., Halo 2/3, Timeshift, Assasin's Creed and many other games. It comes with good documentation and extra tools for artist.
Yes.
Another alternative to PhysX is Havok, which is now freely available for pc game developers. Hovok is used in many AAA titles like Company of Heroes, Ghost Recon, BioShock, F.E.A.R., Halo 2/3, Timeshift, Assasin's Creed and many other games. It comes with good documentation and extra tools for artist.
Quote:Original post by Jedimace
Does a physics engine include collision detection too? So it'll processs collisions and handle them?
Yes.
Quote:Original post by Kambiz
If you want a cross platform physics engine look into bullet. The newest version supports even soft body and cloth simulation.
Another alternative to PhysX is Havok, which is now freely available for pc game developers. Hovok is used in many AAA titles like Company of Heroes, Ghost Recon, BioShock, F.E.A.R., Halo 2/3, Timeshift, Assasin's Creed and many other games. It comes with good documentation and extra tools for artist.
I can make Bullet crash at will almost. I was using 2.68 I believe and never got any solid help from the forum. In fact several questions were just ignored. Newton has a quirky interface but seems to work much, much better. I've plugged the same code I was using with Bullet into Newton and I haven't got a crash yet. Newton doesn't work on consoles but lot of people seem to be using it fine on Linux.
I'd also say that PhysX would be a better choice then Bullet. Only real downside to PhysX is the 40 meg 'driver' download that it forces on to users.
Haven't messed with Havok but a potential problem with it is that its only free for hobby programming. If you are ever thinking about going commerical you'll have to buy a license.
*edit*
I seem to be wrong about Havok. Seems you just have to fill out a form if you want to use it commerically. Apparently Intel has covered the license fee?
Personaly I prefer Havok because of the control they give you over collision primitives. The other api's kind of hide this aspect of collecting shapes to form complex shapes.
Havok is straight forward IMO and well documented (even though some of the docs are out of date).
If you don't know what is contained in a physics engine, then I woudln't worry about going comercial. Get the havok demo and have fun.
edit:
This just cannot be true, proof?
Havok is straight forward IMO and well documented (even though some of the docs are out of date).
If you don't know what is contained in a physics engine, then I woudln't worry about going comercial. Get the havok demo and have fun.
edit:
Quote:Original post by j_smith4
*edit*
I seem to be wrong about Havok. Seems you just have to fill out a form if you want to use it commerically. Apparently Intel has covered the license fee?
This just cannot be true, proof?
afaik with Havoc you can charge upto $10 for your game before you need a full commerial licence, an ammount which should be plenty high enough for most people here.
Author
Does a physics engine process the bounding box for me, or do I have to define the size, position, etc. myself?
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