[PhysX4J] Alpha version released

Game Mechanics
#1

Hello All

Lately I’ve been working on a Java binding to the physics engine PhysX.
It’s downloadable via subversion :

http://code.google.com/p/physx4java

Right now it supports :
Actors (like bodies in ODE)
RevoluteJoint (Like joint hinge)
D6Joint (6 degrees of freedom joint. Fully configurable joint with motors. Does not exists in ODE).
Shapes : Box and Sphere

Right now I’m working on:
More shapes: Cylinder, capsule, mesh
Collision events
And much more

This has been a lot easier than expected so the dynamics part should be finished in 2-3 months,
with progress on an (almost) daily basis.

You can download documentation on the Physx website : http://www.ageia.com/developers/support.html

However, if you are familiar with ODE or any or engine, you should be up and running right away.

#2

Great.

Is PhysX significantly faster than e.g. ODE, JOODE ?

#3

Looks like physX is still windows only :-\

#4

I don’t know if PhysX is faster than ODE…

#5

I thought it was supposed to be hardware accellerated with their special pci physics card. If it is, it should be faster than any of the pure software based solutions.

#6

Well what strikes me more than speed is its accuracy…it’s truly superior byt the 1000th to any other engine I’ve seen so far (I’ve seen newton and ODE, suppose Havok is at about the same level).
Not that I need to advertise for it …I’m creating this binding because I need better physics for my own game and if someone else could benefit why not ?
But really give it a try…so we can dispose off alot of these threads about “why are my boxes sometimes stuck to the ground” :slight_smile: lol !

#7

The only time I have seen PhysiX in action is in the game “Two Worlds”, which I have been plaing for some days in the last two weeks. And there were really strange effects like creatures floating around two meters over the ground or I myself “standing on a wall”, which means that my feet are horizontally at the wall. Is this a known bug in PhysX or a bug in the game? If it is in the engine, then we should wait until it is fixed.

Marvin

#8

Out of interest, how is this progressing?

Now that Nvidia has completed acquisition of Ageia, and video drivers that provide HW PhysX acceleration are available to everyone with Geforce 8 Series, 9 Series & 200 Series cards - it seems likely PhysX will become the standard.

Though I recently had a play with all of the applications & tech demos that show-off PhysX, and I have to say they’re realy not all that great yet. Definitely no ‘killer app’

Cryostasis Tech Demo - Vista only (shame - would have loved to see this running)
Cellfactor Revolution - Impressive, but HW accelerated for Ageia card only, not Nvidia.
Warmonger - Nice enough, though physics don’t play a particularly pivotal role in the game.
‘The Great Kulu’ tech demo - Nice effect, but as it’s HW accelerated for 200 Series only - doesn’t show off the tech at all.
UT3 physx mod(3 maps) - A few destroyable walls & environmental effects, unimpressive.
PhysX screen saver - nice to look at.
Metal Knight Zero(MKZ) - rolling demo who’s unimpressive physics has caused it to hit the ugly stick one too many times ::slight_smile:
Fluid tech-demo - mostly-Realistic dynamic water in silky smooth real-time, something i’d not seen before.

#9

I am also curious if the project is still active.

PhysX is IMO a pretty interesting technology since it runs on the gpu it would be able to process collisions with VBOs for example without the need of a redundant geometry copy in system memory just for physics. It is already supported on win and linux, mac is planed too - would fit pretty well to java IMO.

#10

There is another slightly less outdated variant here: http://jphysx.sourceforge.net/

#11

I’m still using it for my game…but I’ve only really implemented the features that my game needs.
To implement a full scale PhysX is alot of work. I dont mind post my Physx java version if anyone needs it.

#12

I’ve used PhysX before and it seems like a good physics engine. I’ve never had an noticeable problems with it.

#13

I dont have any problems with it, but I think that Bullet is better (I dont know why I think that, but I do :slight_smile: ).
IT looks like the open source model is winning once again…I havent seen anything important added to
PhysX for the last 2 years, and bullet seems very dynamic amd active. Ageia (Now NVidia) is more focused on promoting their
physics card, that no one knows about…it’s a damn good idea, but it seems to go the betamax way, in other words, a lost cause. Anyway a major drawback is that you need to “install” PhysX…and when you upgrade to another version, you need to uninstall the old version first. So you need some kind of installer in your game, for both your game and PhysX. That was pretty annoying to me…
They have an installer but it’s getting annoying for gamers that they have to install PhysX, then your game after.
I had to figure out what their installer did. It was just changing some values in the windows registry…then I made my own
installer that did that AND installed my OWN files as well…a lot of work just to get their physics engine going.
A top of that I also have to make a java binding…so here suddenly were talking 3-5 months extra dev time (spare time, that is)…and a lot of headache.
It would be easier without an installer, just a dll and a java binding…so thats why I’m considering changing to Bullet.
That, and because the Bullet demos looks better somehow.