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Ipion's Virtual Physics SDK Features: Ipion's collision detection system has all the necessary features, including broad and narrow phase algorithms, and functions and utilities for generating collision volumes from meshes. You can apply forces to the objects through actuators, such as motors, springs, and even a simple buoyancy simulation. The system supports a constraint system where you can specify the degrees of freedom between the constrained objects or use built-in joints, such as hinge or ball-and-socket. Documentation: The manual is a relatively scant 76-page Microsoft Word document. It covers the main features, but it does not go into great depth, making thorough examination of the samples and header files imperative. It would have been very helpful to have all of the classes fully explained and an overall description of the architecture. Tuning parameters are hardly documented. The examples are numerous, providing a demonstration of the complete functionality of the system, as well as creating a starting point for most situations one would typically encounter in the development of a game. The example code comments are a little sparse. All of the examples are in an example framework, so it's hard to tell how to use the engine on its own. Ease of use: The library has been engineered as a class hierarchy. Objects need to be allocated and owned by the system. Sometimes the public sections of classes have many "comment enforced" rules. We could not find a clear way to control the simulator step-size. No access is provided to the low-level dynamics algorithms, such as the contact solver.
Production: Ipion doesn't include much in the way of production tools. There are no exporters for standard 3D modeling packages, nor any importers for generic 3D model files. Quake 2 .BSP files are supported with sample code. Most of the example programs generate models using custom code. Users would need to create tools in order to let artists try out their models easily. Ipion does provide a tool for creating a custom convex hull for complicated concave models; however, this tool doesn't load any standard file formats, either. There is an example of saving internal collision information to disk, but it is not documented and doesn't appear to be cross-platform-safe or version-controlled. The engine supports PC and Playstation 2. Ipion has licensed the complete source code to game developers in the past, although it's not clear if the Havok acquisition will affect this stance. Integration: As mentioned above, the class hierarchy might make integration with an existing architecture more difficult than with a more procedural API. The classes are well organized and mostly documented. The libraries are composed of two pieces, the physics engine and the surface builder, which allows users to create optimized convex hulls from polygon meshes at run time. If you don't need the surface builder function, you can choose not to include it. Input and feedback: The engine has a few different ways of physically affecting the simulation, including applying impulses to objects and attaching actuators and controllers (like springs, magnets, and user-defined impulses). Ipion includes a class of "listeners" that allow the game to get information about objects and collisions in the system. With these you can determine if objects are actively being simulated or are "asleep." The collision events are very important for adding things like sound effects to a game. These listeners look very useful, though they are not terribly well documented.
Cost: The base price for the Ipion SDK is $50,000 to $60,000 for a single title. Royalty-based fees can be negotiated on an individual basis. Technical support: Technical support for the Ipion system is now handled by Havok. They have a web-based forum for answering developer questions as well as telephone and e-mail support. It is not yet clear how support will be handled between the Havok and Ipion packages. ________________________________________________________ |
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Features
