AutomaticGenerationofDynamicsModels.pptVIP

Automatic Generation of Dynamics Models John W. Ratcliff Most Worshipful Senior Programmer Simutronics Corporation Introduction Work for this presentation was supported by Ageia Technologies. This is an open source project to facilitate the rapid production of physics content from raw source graphics data Much assistance provided by Matthias Mueller, Pierre Terdiman, Adam Moravansky, Billy Zelsnack and Dilip Sequeira The Code Suppository “A Place Where I Insert My Code into the Anus of the Internet” John W. Ratcliff, Flipcode, January 12, 2000 The Problem The rapid acceptance of pervasive physics in games has created new authoring and asset requirements. There is a general lack of tools to facilitate the rapid creation of dynamics assets. Many games send their raw graphics assets to the physics engine which is highly inefficient and often causes significant problems. Where should Physics Content be Authored? Physics models are usually derived from a final production art asset. Iteration on physics assets is primarily a ‘design’ problem rather than an art issue. Ideally editing of dynamics data assets should occur directly in the game engine/editor for rapid iteration cycles to test the behavior and interaction of the models in real-time. Existing Tools to Author Physics Content Feeling Software : PhysX Plugin for 3D Studio Max (free open source) Nima for Maya : (Unsupported version Free) Lead developer Christian Laforte Blender 3D : (Free open source) Lead developer Ton Roosendaal Bullet Physics Library : (Free open source) Developed by Erwin Coumans CreateDynamics : (Free open source) Developed by John W. Ratcliff Unreal Editor : Proprietary tools. Physics authoring happens in the game editor Uses some of the CreateDynamics toolkit for generating compound objects. Lead developer on the physics tools James Golding Scythe Physics Editor : Supports ODE, Newton, PhysX Free and Commercial vesions available Lead developer Chris Hunt Existing Standardized File For