Middleware: Havok Physics
Havok, www.havok.com
By: Jeremy Gordon and Michael Boccieri, Sega Studios
Let's face it: as the computational power of gaming hardware continues to increase, so too do consumer expectations. Demand continues to rise for game experiences presented within the context of believable virtual spaces: living worlds that are huge, interactive, persistent, and "real."
While realism can be a loaded word for game developers, there is no question that the inclusion of advanced real-time physics has become a necessity for many of today's game engines. And while team sizes continue to balloon to meet gamer demands, physics is not necessarily an area that teams want to throw internal resources at, all things considered.
Enter Havok. At its core, Havok offers developers the foundation for creating realistic physics simulation though efficient and optimized calculations. This package allows games to simulate a lot of complexity simultaneously without a serious hit on performance, and provides a framework that's easily adaptable to both online and offline games.
This solid codebase continues to make Havok a prime choice for physics middleware across the industry.
If that were all Havok offered, Havok Physics would be just another middleware choice among qualified competitors.
What sets Havok apart are the layers of developer support that the company has integrated into all aspects of its product and services. Havok understands what it means to be a middleware company, and what it means for middleware to bring real value to a game's development cycle.
 Realtime Worlds' Crackdown
Real value is a company that delivers a solid middleware solution and continues to update it with developer-requested features. It's a mindset of getting to know your clients' products and their product goals, and aligning middleware roadmaps toward providing them with their most-important features wherever possible.
It's providing responsive and thorough developer support when bugs do arise, and a dedication to providing solutions quickly and efficiently. It's continued expansion of Havok Physics' integrated product set, with new modules like Havok Behavior and Havok Destruction seamlessly integrating with the core Physics SDK; modules created based on cross-discipline developer feedback, and expanded and refined with an eye towards versatility and ease-of-use.
It is this real value that Havok Physics brings to developers with its bottom-up methodology, an optimized and integrated codebase, and dedication to supporting the creation of more believable virtual worlds. It stands out among some tough competition as winner of this year's Front Line Award for Middleware.
Middleware Finalists
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Autodesk Kynapse 5
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PathEngine 5.16
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NaturalMotion Euphoria
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GameSpy SDK
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Like: Where is OpenAL? Seriously, OpenAL kick ass (btw: some Unreal Engines use OpenAL)
And, Torque won as the Engine? Have you ever used Torque? It suck! I used SEVERAL opensource engines and they all beat Torque easily, if Torque won why could not Cube 2 win?
I don't bekueve free or opensource was ignored. Subversion is in there as one of the finalists, and rightly so. But this is a survey targetted towards professional game development so should be viewed in that context. For example, whilst both GIMP and Blender are fantastic achievements for free & OSS, the vast majority of the GD Community feels that Photoshop and Max are the way to go, and are willing to pay for the added benefits that those tools bring.
Regarding Torque sucking - when was the last time you used it? Reading the evangelism on the engine from PocketWatch, it would appear to have evolved fairly significantly over the past couple of years, so maybe some/all of the shortcomings you found have been overcome.
Regarding Torque winning. what you have to bear in mind is that the winners in each category are not necessarily the best performing, the easiest to use, the cheapest, but they *are* the one that recieved the most votes from the public. This may well be in part due to an effective lobbying campaign by GarageGames to it's license holders, but surely if they were that unhappy with it, they wouldn't have voted for it?
FYI, I have participated in evaluating 4 out of 5 of the engines nominated for my employers, and have personally held licenses to most of the Torque products for many years now, but ultimately ended up voting for Unity on account of the huge strides they've made in the past 2 years in usability and stability.