Fun with Havok4 Physics

I logged onto the Beta Grid last night to experiment with the new Havok4 physics system. Weeeee! I felt like a newbie again. I spent a lot of time in my first two weeks playing around with the physics system.

Here's a link to a quick video I made of my experiments.

http://www.shiny-life.com/2007/09/29/fun-with-physics/

The performance of this new system is SO much better than the old Havok v1. The sphere prim is especially nice as it can actually touch or rest against another prim without that nasty .01 meter gap.

Cool, all we need is a Coyote animation that flattens & sticks you to the ball as it runs you over.
It would be really cool if you gould make objects act like a ball for example but look like a running animal staying upright and replace the balls with a herd of Gazelles or Lemmings

Awesome

Congrats Vlad on your win in the 1-800 Flowers Contest...I voted for you! And I'm glad you won.

Tegg: Yes! I was thinking the exact same thing as I stood at the bottom of the hill watching those planets roll down towards me. You might be able to simulate the lemmings effect you describe by using some tricky particle effects. The particle texture could float over and follow the (invisible) rolling balls.

Dnali: Thanks. Was so happy to win that contest.

WOW!

Loved that!

Perhaps with Havok4 my dream will be realised:

...a REAL STEAM ENGINE using physics and 'heated' prims bouncing around to drive a piston...

hehe yah, really nifty, it is!! i built a small 'sandbox' and dumped 'marbles' into it, and created a container floating above and filled it with marbles, then slipped the trapdoor partially open - amazing to watch marbles 'work' correctly, mostly (some bounding errors - occassionally i would see a number of marbles seem to spontaneously 'fly')

the wonka-ish marbly fun contraptions that now seem possible... too much!!

Perhaps some one can build an Avatar scaled version of the game mousetrap now

Whooootttt.. the next greifer toy? Set a landslide of balls onto your adjoining sim or parcel?

That aside, yes it looks awesome.

That's a neat idea, Desmond. If they do manage to add the joints feature back in then your Steam Engine just might be possible. I'd love to see such a contraption.

Some 'Moustrap' or Rube Goldberg devices are definitely possible. They are actually possible with the current Havok system, just a bit clunky and slow. I think with Havok4 we may not have to feel guilty about actually using the Physics system.

I have been resisting the urge to make some sort of complicated Rube Goldberg device, but the urge is growing stronger. so much fun to tinker with new toys!

I enjoyed the movie, maybe Havok 4 will allow us to weight items. for example when the balls rolled into the water .. either they could float like beach balls ... or sink ... like cannon balls. Maybe balls thrown in the air some will float down fast and some will come down light as feathers. I think its possible.

Great stuff. So, does the physics engine apply to all solid prims? If I create a chair...link it...and drop it...will it hit the floor and stop on its own? (ala' PS3's HOME).

Michael: Yeah - the physics system in SL will work with any set of linked prims, as long as there are 32 or few prims in the object. The center of gravity and the 'bounding box' for collisions may be slightly different than RL, but it will still fall, collide and react.

I made a nifty physical angle/power catapult in that grid used to knock down a block-built castle. ^^

Currently 31 or fewer prims.

Thanks for correcting me about the 31 prim limit, Jillian.

That sounds like fun, Psyra. I remember the first game I ever saw ona computer was very similar. Set angle, power, and fire! I keep trying to make time to go back into the Beta and experiment with some more complex structures and interactions.

Stacey: There is a Buoyancy settings for a physical object that might be used to accomplish a floating, or lighter ball. Helium balloons are possible as well.

I haven't tried it yet, but someone here is suggesting that Havok 4 has overcome that limit even though the blog post said it didn't.
/327/8b/214104/1.html

I have tried it, and right now it's 64 prims. Talk about fan-tas-tic!

I just hope it "sticks" for the main grid.

Out of curiosity I now want to see the balls experiment on Havok 1, would it work at all?

Tegge: I think it would work, but anything more than like 20 or 30 balls would probably slow down the sim. maybe like 3 out of 10 tries the system might freak out and go into 'deep think' mode which really clogs up the sim performance. Havok1 is not so good at dealing with odd intersections and large numbers of collisions.