Wolfire Development Blog - Part 3!

[Jendraz]

Some more physics stuff. I am incorporating ODE for standard rigid body physics of the kind you see in games that use Havok or PhysX: stacks of crates, crates of apples, and other situations with lots of simple colliding rigid bodies. I am a lot more interested in special soft physics like in characters, cloth, or plants, but rigid body physics are becoming standard so we might as well support them as well The existing engine could already handle rigid bodies, but it was not as efficient.

Looking good David.

[Zantalos]

I like how some games use simple 'non-rigid' objects (if that's the correct meaning, I'm not sure) and put them directly onto the player. Like in Shadow of the Colossus the character has bones and other little objects hanging off his clothing that shakes while he moves, or in Team Fortress 2 the scout class has a simple dog tag necklace that sways around while he's running.

I think it would be cool to see Turner's weapons or whatever he has be swaying around on his belt while he moves.

[Makrond]

Well, in most non-procedural games, these do not actually have 'physics', instead they are just animated like everything else. Interesting, huh.

In God of War and Prince of Persia: Two Thrones (just two random examples) they had simple softbody physics, which was great to see on the dinosaur PS2. In Two Thrones, however, the cloth was not made properly which meant it would sometimes go flying off in random directions.

[David]

The dinosaur PS2 discussion has been split to Randomness.

[Makrond]

Thanks David.

[Zantalos]

Well, in most non-procedural games, these do not actually have 'physics', instead they are just animated like everything else. Interesting, huh.

In Team Fortress 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Saints Row, it is physics. Not animations or soft bodies, just simple physics.

[Makrond]

I could argue Saint's Row, but I'm not sure exactly which part you're talking about.

Besides, I was making a point that it's only fairly large things or things that the player is going to be looking at in detail for long periods that get the physics treatment. Because physics take valuable processing power away from shiny graphics.

[David]

Some games use simple physics for character clothing and props, and some use animations. It depends a lot on how long you will spend staring at your character Tomb Raider 2 had some pretty cool (though buggy) physics on Lara Croft's hair.

[Makrond]

Tomb Raider: Legend had some great physics on Lara's... Err...

No! I wasn't looking! I swear! Don't kill mee AARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGH...

*Dies*

[BunnyWithStick]

Physics doesn't take up any processing power whatsoever if it's not processing a lot of stuff at once. It'd cause a lot of slowdown if it's processing a high-poly soft-body shirt (Despite what you may claim, soft bodies do use physics) but for something with a reasonable polygon count it's generally hard to notice. (Have you ever experienced slowdown in Lugaru while a bunch of ragdolls are flying around? )

[Makrond]

When the hell did I say soft-bodies weren't physics?!

softbody physics

Anyway, I said physics take valuable processing away from shiny graphics. Large poly-counts, many hardware effects and the like.

Physics doesn't take up any processing power whatsoever if it's not processing a lot of stuff at once.

Completely impossible. How can something take up no processing power and then suddenly take up a lot of processing power? Physics do take up processing power; the slowdown is hardly noticeable until there are a lot of physics algorithms being processed simultaneously. Or shiny graphics.

[BunnyWithStick]

When the hell did I say soft-bodies weren't physics?!

You didn't. Zantalos (More or less) did.

Completely impossible. How can something take up no processing power and then suddenly take up a lot of processing power? Physics do take up processing power; the slowdown is hardly noticeable until there are a lot of physics algorithms being processed simultaneously. Or shiny graphics.

Okay, physics doesn't cause any slowdown whatsoever if it's not processing a lot of stuff at once. (Vertices for soft body physics, objects or segments of multi-segmented rigid bodies for rigid body physics.)

[Renegade_Turner]

Zantalos didn't say that at all. He meant there was simple physics as opposed to soft body physics. He was trying to say that soft body physics was more complex physics than was featured, but that there still was pretty basic physics effects.

Tomb Raider: Legend had some great physics on Lara's... Err...

Admiring her soft body physics, were you?

I'm sorry, but I have to say...I am awesome.

[Makrond]

Rofflemayo... I wish I had thought of that...

I agree that most physics cause very little slowdown... most of the time... but when you're in the middle of epic battles on a completely ridiculous scale, it can get very choppy. And that's usually the point when I wish there was a way to turn them off.

Which brings me to my next point: there should be a button in Lugaru 1.5/2 that turns off all cosmetic physics. Like the weapons swinging on Turner's belt.

[Renegade_Turner]

I believe David said he'd make it as customisable as possible, didn't he? To compensate for the people with the lower-end computers? Therefore, I assume there will be something along the lines of that which you just suggested.