Josh

They create the broken pieces for you, which is sort of impressive on an arbitrary mesh, but it's still not a dynamic breakage. Real breakage is probably impossible in real-time with today's hardware. Show me this amazing fracturing. There is a demo in the SDK folder, but the project file is missing, and I'm not going to mess around trying to compile it. I believe they may have some rudimentary tests working, but I don't believe it is a supported working feature. In any case, I am not that interested in these fake destruction techniques, with any library, because people aren't going to want to deal with the added trouble of making the assets. From my perspective, implementing Bullet is just as challenging as implementing PhysX, and the two will each have their own problems and complications I can't predict. However, I know with PhysX any problems it has will get overlooked, and with Bullet I will get blamed for anything that doesn't work well. I got criticized so much for using Newton, even when I proved the rigid body simulator was much more stable than Havok or PhysX. PhysX has a nice logo, therefore the equations it uses are correct. In the absence of any other compelling technical advantage, that's a good decision criteria. It would take six months working with each library before I could choose the right one based on technical qualities.

It's never realistic to add low-level functionality into a system you didn't write. Sometimes people here try it, and I've learned to just stay out of it and let them learn. I don't believe so, but I would think most people would want to promote this. Isn't having a nice logo the point of PhysX?

It is kind of hidden away. Maybe the menu title should be "Asset Store" and then have a menu item for "Models", "Materials", "Games", etc.

PhysX would not involve any licensing fees for PC, Mac, or mobile. The lack of licensing fees for Bullet on the console is the best argument for it. I have a feeling people trump bullet up just because it's open source, and they want it to be the best. When you see a lot of argument made with no evidence, that's a good indication. When people say, "X isn't supported, but you can add it yourself!" I cringe because they are basically saying there is no physics library and you have to write one yourself. That's what it would take to actually implement. I do not like open-source software for that reason. There's good cause for a proprietary Leadwerks physics system, but unfortunately that is beyond my ability to provide, on top of everything else. If Newton had soft bodies, I would stick with it. In three years, the library still has basically the same functionality it had when I started. The developer is focusing on some pre-made destruction features like PhysX has that complicate the art pipeline, and provide a very dubious benefit. I'm not very interested in any feature that makes the art pipeline more complicated, because I know it won't get used. Even an imperfect implementation of soft bodies would be great, but he just doesn't care about it. Not to mention he's incredibly rude, even though I've given him his best promotional videos.

Considering my art background comes from CSG editing that makes sense. I never met a texture I didn't want tiled.

I don't expect much from mobile physics at all. I just expect the basics to run.

I have access to PhysX for Android. It is possible to make a Bullet physics driver without access to the source. Mind you, this is code I have not yet written.

There isn't a practical way, but I have thought about a method of temporarily hiding them and replacing them with a soft body tree. I am pretty sure crysis must do something like this. This would also work for destruction. But it's not supported and not a simple thing to just add, without a lot of planning.

Here are my notes I sent the designer to revise the site skin. I tried to hit them in order of severity. Thought you guys might like to see this. revision notes.zip

The GI shader does something like this. Can't be any more specific than that, off the top of my head. You could also emit black diffuse light and put all the color into the emission channel.

Yay! You know, I really think of materials as things that are shared across models, not something unique to a model that should be exported along with it, but I seem to be in the minority on that one.

Both will have unforeseen technical challenges. Both will have little caveats and problems I cannot possibly predict. However, I know for sure if I go with PhysX it will have a certain amount of brand recognition that Bullet does not have, which means more sales. In a situation where it is impossible to predict all the consequences of either, that's as good a reason as any to go with one. I am going to work with PhysX 3.0 until a problem is encountered that makes it impossible to proceed.

I hope I am able to prove that wrong.

If it were feasible I would rather have our own custom physics solution. All these libraries are awful one way or another.

Models and textures will be freed when they are no longer in use. If they aren't being freed you have another model or material or something in use that has not been freed.

I think lumooja secretly wants physx and he is trying to use reverse psychology.

Agreed, they seem to give the best overall results.

The fact torque switched physics is a giant red flag to me.

Which did they implement most recently?

And theres a good chance small console developers will want to use leadwerks if it means no third party license fees.

I will say that sometimes it's best to do what other people aren't. Torque and unity both use physx. If I use bullet, everyone who prefers bullet for whatever reason will come to me. If I use physx I'll just be offering the same thing those guys do.

I talked to someone from nvidia and they approved my account for the mobile versions. I guess physx 3.0 is coming out next week, and I am getting that too.

I'm seriously thnking about disabling hardware skinning in le3 due to the number of problems people have with it. This issue comes up all the time. Are there fbx export options in Modo to not save bones?

Show me a demo of this fracturing and gluing

Note to self: check if bullet supports heightfield terrain (physx doesn't)