Havok tells PhysX to kiss off

Bobby Miller 12 Mar, 2010 at 4:32pm ET Article published in Gaming

Havok, known best for its eponymous physics engine, is displaying demonstrations of the latest versions of Havok Destruction and Havok Cloth at GDC.

The videos showcase impressive real-time physics simulations that rival some of what we’ve seen from current implementations of PhysX. Havok physics are handled in software and calculated on the CPU, rather than offloading calculations to the GPU like PhysX.

Havok Destruction

Havok Destruction is a cross-platform solution for rigid body dynamics. The video showcases some scenes with an impressive amount of real-time rigid body interactions. The sequence of the train trestle collapse is especially impressive, with a very high amount of breakable objects all interacting without killing the framerate.

Another notable demonstration is the deformable rigid body objects. Metal objects being dented under the weight of heavy objects is a feature that PhysX has toted heavily. Havok is effectively stepping on their business by pulling off dynamic deformable objects and doing it at a software level.

Havok Cloth

Like Havok Destruction, Cloth is a cross-platform solution that optimizes and streamlines dynamic cloth simulation in real-time environments.

The Havok Cloth video displays impressive cloth dynamics on top of an angry ogre. Cloth dynamics is one of the greatest trump cards that PhysX currently holds. There is no word yet if Havok Cloth will rise to support dynamic tearing and ripping of cloth mesh as PhysX is able to do, but it is certainly an achievement if Havok Cloth implements simulation this impressive at a software level.

For more information on Havok Destruction, Havok Cloth and the Havok physics engine, the company has provided additional videos and information at their official website.

Comments

12 Mar 2010 ~ 5:39pm Snarkasm

Lynx wrote:

Havok physics are handled in software and calculated on the CPU, rather than offloading calculations to the GPU like PhysX.... Havok is effectively stepping on their business by pulling off dynamic deformable objects and doing it at a software level.

What does this mean, exactly? Phys-X calculates physics interactions on a chip. Havok calculates physics interactions on a chip. That they do it on different chips doesn't make one any more of a "software-level" solution than the other, does it?

If I've got it wrong, please explain, but near as I can see it, they both do the same things, but you're acting like Havok being able to do it on the CPU is a major trump card over doing it on another GPU or PPU, and I don't see how it is.
12 Mar 2010 ~ 6:17pm UPSLynx Well, I'm not saying that being able to do physics on the CPU is a trump card, but what I do mean is that by Havok not being hardware locked (i.e. NVIDIA only), they are set up for a significantly more broad exposure and adoption.

Havok has been in place for awhile. Many games use the tech, and people know what it is. Any game can use Havok, and any hardware can run it. Havok has lagged behind PhysX in ability and features, but it has been WAY ahead of PhysX in terms of adoption. PhysX representation is terribly weak right now, and I really don't see it improving any time soon. So if we can have physics near or at the level of PhysX (like the videos for Havok Destruction display), and have the accessibility of the engine running at a software level and not relying on a specific set of GPUs, then everybody wins.

Hope that makes more sense.
12 Mar 2010 ~ 6:46pm mas0n Assuming it can do it efficiently and look this good, I like the idea of physics running on the CPU. I have 8 freaking threads with over half of them sitting idle while gaming. Meanwhile, the GPU is getting hammered; why give it yet another task?
12 Mar 2010 ~ 9:12pm NiGHTS Isn't a GPU more already more developed for this sort of task, though? I thought I remember reading something about how GPUs would always be better performers than a CPU ever would be - which is why people buy like 9800GT's to run physics only alongside some other nVidia offering in their rigs.
12 Mar 2010 ~ 9:55pm Thrax Better, maybe, but until everyone gets over their obsession with winning the GPU physics war, only half of the market will get to enjoy it on any given title.
13 Mar 2010 ~ 4:28am Snarkasm Wouldn't it be great to get a Havok CUDA implementation that could run on all GPU- oh.
13 Mar 2010 ~ 4:36am Sledgehammer70 In general PhysX will win as older Nvidia cards are replaced more systems will be PhysX ready. Also if a game runs on Nvidia PhysX and a GPU is not present the PhysX will run off the CPU just like Havock.
13 Mar 2010 ~ 7:21am mmankt Well i always loved havoc, it has the best "felling" of the bodies. Their tech is awesome and i'd love to see it on my own screen and play with it. BUT Physx runs on the GPU so it's much faster and it can do all this stuff really fast. Just watch some Dark Void demos, or run Water demo. It owns.
Also i now that HAvoc is suppsoed to work on ATI stream?
Also(2) with Open CL it won't matter what gfx card you have, soon both engines will run on our gpu's.
13 Mar 2010 ~ 8:14am Basil

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

Also if [...] a GPU is not present the PhysX will run off the CPU just like Havock.

If a GPU is not present I think you have more to worry about than physics processing.
13 Mar 2010 ~ 3:11pm CrazyJoe The scene with the railroad bridge being destroyed was pretty sweet.
13 Mar 2010 ~ 10:06pm Bandrik My love and adoration for real-time physics and cloth simulations in games has only gone up after seeing these demos. I'm not sure if I've witnessed them before, but I think this is the first time I've seen dynamic deformations of things (the steel drum being crushed).

Also, another issue I'm hoping to be relieved with the cloth sims is the following: it used to be that characters with props like swords or clothing like cloths would have them clip through the character model. For example, a character with a cape may have the ends of the cape pass through the character's legs while the cape is having a "blow in the wind" animation, or a character running with a giant sword slung over their back will have part of it move through their body on the run animation. This has always irked me... and I'm hoping that physics can help solve realism issues such as those I just described.

Oh, and help make explosions look cooler.
13 Mar 2010 ~ 11:28pm Komete Destruction never looked so good. Advances like this would get me gaming again. Just wish console gaming would die off so faster advances on pc gaming would be made. I know, will never happen, but I can still wish.
14 Mar 2010 ~ 3:03pm UPSLynx

Bandrik wrote:

For example, a character with a cape may have the ends of the cape pass through the character's legs while the cape is having a "blow in the wind" animation,

Cloth clipping drives me up a wall as well, but accurately presenting occluded cloth dynamics is a very intensive thing to do, especially when you're talking about games where animations can change dynamically in any instant. For example, a 3rd person fighting game where you can change attacks mid-move. The animations will swap and blend together, which can leave the cloth sim in a compromising situation.

Batman Arkham Asylum has some really impressive cape cloth. I haven't spent a ton of time with the game as I don't own it, but I'm fairly certain it does a very good job of keeping the cape from clipping through the character's body.
14 Mar 2010 ~ 5:06pm ardichoke

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

Also if a game runs on Nvidia PhysX and a GPU is not present the PhysX will run off the CPU just like Havock.

It's my understanding that this is not the case... I thought that without a PhysX compatible card, the PhysX effects were stripped out of the game altogether.
16 Mar 2010 ~ 8:43am Frigolit PhysX can run in software and hardware.
If the game strips it if you don't have a PhysX compatible card then it's the game's choice.

Also, PhysX is free for developers (obviously not for commercial stuff) which is sweet for people who wants to do open-source stuff with it.

And x86 sucks, so software physics will also suck (in performance) compared to hardware physics.
CUDA is way faster, especially when it comes to math, than x86.
16 May 2010 ~ 12:43pm Frank Eriksson Well, I can say that I'm not impressed. The cloth looks fake, it looks better static actually.

It might be good for them to finally implementing stuff that has been around for ages.

I saw fully destructive objects and realtime clothing last century...

It's just that the devs are lazy, have a look at this page (last updated 2002): http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/models/m_cloth.htm
16 May 2010 ~ 12:53pm Sledgehammer70 Dev's are not really lazy.. It is more how the tech will run with other tech within the games that can put a hold on implementation of stuff. You can tell which studios have the money to put behind games for proper development and proper tools and which don't. Overall its a huge deal for a studio to step into new tech as most times they have so much money wrapped up into the tech they have its hard to convince the money people to allow them to drop that tech. It takes months to build out new scenes and models to show off to get approval, let alone revamping an entire game to include the tech.
17 May 2010 ~ 11:21am Frank Eriksson That's why the sandwich (or cake) technique is important, you can easily switch out an underlying layer to something else that you like more.

Making new (rought) models and scenes (or maps as I prefer to call them) takes a few hours, at the end of the day you can have a small prototype to show off (if you've got the tools for the job).

After that, it takes some months to refine it into something that reach a level of quality that the market can accept.

I can by no way say that I'm a pro at any one tool, but I use what I know of each one and combines them the best way I can.