Soft body physics?

[tom_gore]

Hello,

So we have seen how amazing the physics engine of Sui Generis is with rigid bodies, but how does it cope with soft bodies and/or liquids? I know the calculations involved are infinitely more complex, but will we see realisitically simulated clothing/hair/foliage/water?

If and when the physics calculations for such items will be too taxing, is Bare Mettle going to utilize the tricks provided by the graphics/physics libraries like DX11 and PhysX to simulate the visuals of soft bodies, even if they are not physically affecting the game world?

In a game with realistic physics I would find it very immersion-breaking if all soft bodies would act like rigid ones or not modeled as physical at all.

 

[Tony]

They have such physics already in the game. In the second video they released they show a guy being knocked over by thaumaturgy and his cloak wraps around a bench as he's falling over. They will not use PhysX since Madoc says they are using only tools that he himself wrote (not only does this have the benefit that he knows his engine inside and out but it also saves them money from having to license 3rd party tools). I don't think they're using DX11 since Madoc also stated they're using the OpenGL API.

 

[tom_gore]

Found that clip. Looks BRILLIANT. I wonder how CPU intensive that is

Will there be wind in the game that would make our cloak/hair flap in the breeze?

 

[Tony]

Found that clip. Looks BRILLIANT. I wonder how CPU intensive that is

Will there be wind in the game that would make our cloak/hair flap in the breeze?

Well, they've demonstrated rain and lightning so I'd imagine wind would be possible too. I suppose it depends on if Madoc is in a creative mood or not since wind would be a bit more difficult to do correctly

 

[Ballowers100]

They have such physics already in the game. In the second video they released they show a guy being knocked over by thaumaturgy and his cloak wraps around a bench as he's falling over. They will not use PhysX since Madoc says they are using only tools that he himself wrote (not only does this have the benefit that he knows his engine inside and out but it also saves them money from having to license 3rd party tools). I don't think they're using DX11 since Madoc also stated they're using the OpenGL API.

Nvidia's PhysX Physics Engine has no licensing fees the Software Development Kit (SDK) for Nvidia's PhysX Physics Engine is 100% FREE. Because Nvidia makes more off of their money off of the graphic cards than they would ever from licensing their Physics Engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX

It says at the very top of the page last sentence.

The PhysX engine and SDK are available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3,[3][4] Xbox 360[5] and the Wii.[6] The PhysX SDK is provided to developers of all platforms for free, both for commercial and non-commercial use.

as for tom_gore asking about realistically simulated hair, foliage, and water I have not seen Sui Generis accomplish it that good like PhysX does only the physics for items and clutter and clothing.

PhysX can do destruction, hair, foliage, particles, and water very realistically.

This is what destruction looks like using PhysX.

This is what hair/fur looks like being tessellated using DirectX 11 and PhysX

Can't find a good foliage video PhysX does the leaves and bushes in 3D not 2D sprites or pre-baked with shader trickery.

This is what fluids, liquids, and water look like being tessellated using DirectX 11 and PhysX it actually builds up and accumulates the more that is poured in as well as the particles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3acQ5dDKEs&

Never the less Madoc's Physics Engine is incredible I hope he can achieve the results of PhysX in terms of destruction, hair, fur, foliage, particles, blood, liquids, fluids, and water his rigid body physics and clothing physics so far match Nvidia's.

 

[the0thMonkey]

@Ballowers100

You would have to ask the devs if you want the official position, but I think if Nvidia can do it so can Madoc (and probably faster and more efficiently ). As previously stated, the cloak in the video had realistic physics, as did the water when it rained.

Not to undermine Nvidia, but Madoc is kind of a boss.

Also, thanks for the clips. Quite interesting.

 

[The Hedge Knight]

http://www.baremettle.com/sg/forums/index.php?threads/grand-list-of-dev-quotes-on-features.195/

 

[Tony]

Like I previously stated, Madoc knows exactly how his own physics engine works, inside and out, because he created it himself. I think it's highly unlikely that he'll stop using his own and instead attempt to use Nvidia's PhysX engine.

With that being said, I too am intrigued to see what Madoc's engine is capable of. I'm sure we'll see more videos of it in use when they get further along in the development process

 

[Rob]

The whole point is that Sui Generis is not going to be a generic game based on the same technology that any old game developer can go out and use.

Bare Mettle is trying to drive advancement and raise awareness through independent innovation. Using PhysX would completely go against this philosophy, and turn the game into, well, just another game!

Rather than using the same sort of destruction that would be used in a mindless shooter, I'm glad that Bare Mettle have actually thought about what they want to achieve - an isometric RPG - and focused on aspects that are most important to fulfill that objective, rather than just adding the features that we have come accustomed to.

destruction, hair, fur, foliage, particles, blood, liquids, fluids, and water

Sure, these things are what we have come to expect and want from a modern game. However, with Sui Generis the problem is resources - time and people. If there is enough time, I'm sure they will be built in. However, rather than just using the generic solutions implemented in PhysX, they would be implemented carefully, thinking about the most appropriate way for them to be used in the engine. I personally am glad that they are not selling their souls and simply adding generic features.

Sure, not to take anything away from PhysX... I like the above videos, and I'm sure it's great in context... just let's keep it for Sui Generic not Sui Generis.

 

[Madoc]

I'm not exactly an expert on PhysX but the way I see the main advantage would be using hardware accelleration which only works on Nvidia cards and eats into resources needed for graphics (unless you have more than one card). With multiple CPU cores and little else for the CPU to do I'd rather use that. The more advanced effects rely on hardware accelleration as far as I know and are extremely resource intensive. I haven't seen any actual games with meaningful fluid or fur simulation. Demos that utilise all of a high end computer's resources to produce one effect under controlled conditions and an actual complete game that needs to run on a useful range of hardware are very different things. I've yet to see PhysX do much that could actually contribute meaningfully to a game that can't be done without it. Seems to be mostly eye candy for people who have graphics hardware power to spare.

Either way different physics engines have different qualities, it's not just a matter of better or worse. I made my own because there's a lot of things I wanted to do differently and I have a lot of control over how things work.

We've only just started with particle effects and the like (blood and fire in video just added during KS campaign) and I've done water simulation in the past. You can expect more effects to appear over time. Fur simulation and actual fluid dynamics is something I don't expect to see in actual games any time soon. Fluid dynamics are definitely pretty cool but I'm not too impressed with many other physics effects anyway.

 

[Kaizer0002]

Fur simulation, no. Hair simulation? Yes. Alice: Madness Returns had the best hair simulation of any game I can think of, probably because it used the PhysX stuff.. Even then, only 1 character in the entire game used the hair physics. Everyone else's was static. Other than some of the art, I can't say anything else remarkable about it.

 

[Madoc]

Typically hair physics are done with the same methods as cloth physics. Rather than simulate individual strands as for fur you simulate ribbons or flaps of hair which is much more efficient in terms of both physics and rendering. We do plan to use physics for longer hair in SG.