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Conclusions All three of these packages performed better than we expected. They are clearly up to the task of handling most rigid body simulation needs. But which one is right for you? We arrived at some general conclusions. While its collision detection system is very fast and flexible, the Ipion Virtual Physics SDK has some problems. It lacks adequate documentation, and the code architecture may make integration with your game application more difficult. It is a product at the end of its lifetime, and unless your needs are very near-term and it is a perfect fit for your code structure, we would hesitate to recommend it. We do hope that Havok can integrate many of Ipion's good features into their architecture. The Havok GDK is the most full-featured physics engine available. The system handles collision detection of arbitrary geometries and has models for soft bodies, particle systems, and basic fluid dynamics. The documentation is fairly good (though we hope it continues to improve), and the code examples are plentiful and very useful. The availability of a 3D Studio Max tool for artists is a great aid to production. If you need a one-stop, do-everything physics engine, this is the one for you. The only weak points are its constraints (admittedly, a very large weak point, especially if you're interested in simulating articulated figures), library modularity, and occasional collision resolution issues. The MathEngine Dynamics Toolkit 2.0 and Collision Toolkit 1.0 is a very well designed SDK. The documentation is the best of the three, and technical support is outstanding. The well-documented architecture makes the engine easy to integrate with existing game projects. Programmers with knowledge of dynamic simulators should be able to dig right down into the core and control the simulation. The dynamic simulator is very good, and the rigid-constraint support is the best of the three systems we looked at. However, the lack of advanced collision detection methods might be a showstopper of a problem. (We must note here that as we went to press, we learned that a new beta version of the MathEngine Toolkit was released that includes collisions with convex objects among other new features. We didn't have time to check this out thoroughly, but because all of these packages are constantly evolving, we again encourage you to do your homework when weighing your options.) Finally, the simplicity of the demos may also make it tough to find specific examples to build on. As we've said many times, you must review the packages for your specific needs before making a decision. Physics is not mature enough to buy a package based simply on a recommendation. All three packages are available for evaluation, and this is really the only way to make sure you get the package that is right for you and your project. Sidebar:
"Other Choices" The ReelMotion Animation Tool (www.reelmotion.com) is a simulator for generating animation data for a variety of vehicles such as cars, helicopters, airplanes, and motorcycles. It uses dynamic simulation and sophisticated physical models for the objects to generate the motion data. Hypermatter from Second Nature (www.hypermatter.net) provides a real-time system for animating soft body objects. The stiffness of the object can be controlled so the objects can vary from rigid to very soft while still preserving the volume of the original object. The system contains a number of features common to a rigid body simulator, such as constraints. The toolkit is currently available for the PC, and a Playstation 2 version is in development. For more information:
Havok GDK and Ipion's Virtual Physics SDK
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