Havok Physics Engine Released for Free

[paradoxnj]

The Havok Physics engine was released for free for non-commercial use if anyone is interested.

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... _id=483666

[federico]

Maybe we can take a look...
NewtonGameDynamics is the best free physics engine, surely the best for RF. I could probably try out Havok and Newton in a simply benchmark test to see if Havok it's better. If the improvement in performance is worthwhile, then I can think about implementing it.

[paradoxnj]

I think Havok will win there. It's used in many games such as Call of Duty, Bioshock, Half Life 2, and many more.

[federico]

I'm just making hypothesis here, we have to try both to tell what's comparatively better for RF. Anyway, I agree and disagree at the same time with you, paradoxnj. Havok could be better in general but it could be too complex for a slow and old engine like genesis3d. I hope that they have a good optimization control just to simplify the simulation in order to make it stable. Those physics engine are built to work faster over a minimum threeshold, and genesis puts any physics engine exactly on the edge. The old version of newton was before the edge so the slowdown became not tolerable quite easily. The new one, instead is behind that point, and it can bring to an end his work every frame of the simulation. I think that Ageia could simply make RF implode to zero framerate. So, I'm curious to see where Havok stands...

[Allanon]

Making free for non-commercial use middleware part of the main RF version would be stupid. This will force the RF user that wants to sell their program to use a version that doesn't have the middleware or to shell out thousands of dollars for a middleware license. The main RF version should only add middleware that has a license that is compatible with the RF license. But I'm not against someone creating a seperate RF version that adds free for non-commercial use middleware just don't try to roll it in to the main RF version.

[paradoxnj]

I agree with you Federico, let's see where Havok stands.

Allanon, it's not stupid, it's a choice. Like you said, you can make another distribution (like RF NGD) which contains Havok physics which can be used for demo use. RF contains some GPL'd code too (FreeImage) which requires you to release the source to any application that uses it. Yes...you can sell it with that library, but do you really want to release the source to a commercial product?

[Allanon]

Allanon, it's not stupid, it's a choice.

Just to clarify, I said making it part of the main RF version would be stupid, not that it is stupid to add it to RF.

[federico]

I understand what you are saying, Allanon. probably your expression is too strong, but I understand. The main RF release is meant to be all opensource but the external libraries doesn't need to. NewtonGameDynamics has a license that seems compatible with RF. We had a discussion about this here: http://www.realityfactory.info/forum/vi ... f=9&t=2742

3) The LICENSEE agrees to credit the use of the Newton Game Dynamics in any program information,
including credit screens, "About" dialogs, program notes or instructions and shrink-wrapped packaging.
4) The LICENSEE may not redistribute the SOFTWARE, except as part of a compiled software program that is
not itself a physics library.
5) The LICENSEE agrees to notify http://www.newtondynamics.com of any products, commercial, shareware or free
that incorporate the Newton Game Dynamics technology.

A note in the 'about' entry of the menu, a mail to the developpers and the physics library can be freely distributed. I think that the genesis3d license is way much restrictive. So we will see how the havok license looks like.

Moreover, but this is my own opinion, that I don't think that anyone would ever create a commercial game using RF, and the passing time makes this possibility more and more unlikely, so I would prefer in this case (and in this case only) to focus on the tool itself rather than on the license. Anything that could be freely redistributed it's a good choice here.

[federico]

An update. PAL, Physics Abstraction Layer, unifies procedures and command to easily integrate and switch between different engines: Newton, PhysX, Tokamak, ODE, TrueAxis, Bullet and so on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhOKGBd-7iw

It could be good idea to integrate PAL in RF. This could easily settle down any troubles about license. Decide you game type, commercial freeware shareware opensource ... - and then choose the physics engine!

What do you think?

[fps]

I say, go for it. but i say that about everything.

[paradoxnj]

That sounds like a better option Federico.

[zany_001]

Mebbe go for PAL on RF2, cos RF1 sorta sucks. Im not even going to try to make a game with RF1, i dont even think i have the latest version, instead im going to make media for a game in RF2. I reckon the sooner we can get RF2 out, the better. If i had more time i would be coding it now, but i cant yet.

[madness]

hey guys, on the same topic.
have you guys seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPUUR6Qxpk&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkgkRuuQ ... re=related

this is relavant to my interests.