Anyone at GDC? Updates, please!

Please bring us news of teh Spore.

It's looking really good, the Multiplayer aspect will make it a huge hit, I think.

I cannot believe you dyed your hair and beard that color. I have been so embarrassed hanging out with you.

That's natural

Havok, the game industry's leading supplier of cross-platform middleware solutions for game developers announced its 4.0 release today in conjunction with 2006 Game Developers Conference.

Havok 4.0 represents a major step forward for developers. Havok 4.0 extends the scalability of game-play physics, introduces dynamic character performances, and breaks new ground in the area of special effects.

“One of our primary goals at Havok is to be invaluable to our customers, by listening to their needs and developing solutions that mitigate their risk,” says David O’Meara, CEO of Havok. “Havok 4.0 is evidence of this focus, as it dramatically enhances performance of our products, and introduces groundbreaking new solutions that help reduce overall time and costs associated with developing games in today’s market.”

Havok further magnifies its Hydracore™ technology with the release of Havok 4.0. HydraCore dramatically speeds up game-play and dynamically responsive character animation in next-generation games that utilize Havok’s powerful physics and animation systems. Havok 4.0 further kicks-up the scalability and run-time performance, enabling next-generation, multi-core platforms– including the Sony Computer Entertainment PLAYSTATION®3- the benefit to distribute portions of game computation to different CPU’s or game platform cores. With an increase in speed and more scalability the result is better utilization of the native power of next-generation game platforms and PC’s– including Microsoft Windows 64bit operating system- resulting in optimal game-play.

Havok Behavior™ - More Tools for Game Characters

Havok Behavior™ - Havok’s newest product offering- helps animators and game developers reduce the time it takes to develop sophisticated character performances. Havok Behavior provides both a composition tool and a new run-time library as an extension of Havok’s animation and physics technology. Animators can now compose and preview complex character behaviors and movements and know exactly how they will perform before inserting the character into a game; shaving countless hours off development and reducing the risk and cost of game development.

In conjunction, Havok also announced support for Avid’s XSI 5.0 application, in addition to Havok’s industry-leading content tool set for Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya. Havok Content Tools for 3ds Max, Maya, and XSI provide more artists direct access to Havok’s run-time physics and animation technology within their favorite 3D animation tools.

“Havok’s content tools give us the flexibility we need to manage the growing volume of the physical objects and characters in our games,” says Akira Mikame, Art Production Lead from SEGA Corporation. “Havok’s support of all major commercial art tools, including Maya, 3ds max and XSI, gives us confidence that the 3D modeling and animation software we choose will be fully compatible and supported by Havok.”

Havok FX™ - Hardware-Accelerated Physics That Won’t Cost Gamers

Havok unveiled Havok FX™ for the first time and received strong praise from enthusiastic customers looking to push the envelope on visual effects in their PC games. Havok FX extends Havok’s renowned game-play physics system by enabling thousands of objects to collide in real-time in a range of physical effects like debris, smoke, and fluids to add immense detail and believability to games.

Havok FX dispatches the effects physics to Shader Model 3 Class GPU’s. With GPU’s already a standard on the market, Havok FX is available to an estimated 50 million existing PC’s

“Working with Havok, the leader in physics middleware development, we at NetDevil have always been looking for ways to continue to push physics in online gaming further than it has ever been pushed before. With the addition of Havok FX to the product line, we are excited about the possibilities of what we are going to be able to do in our future MMO projects to give our users an experience that they did not know was possible in video games,” states Scott Brown, President at NetDevil.

“The Havok 4.0 release is a big next step for Havok, as we expand the solutions we offer to help reduce the overall cost and risk associated with the development of cross-platform games. Havok 4.0 strengthens our flagship physics and animation products, while introducing exciting new tools and run-time components that speed the development of unbelievable character performances in the game”, states Jeff Yates, VP of Product Management at Havok.

Do you think Andrew Linden just said, "AWWW, SHIZNIT!"? Yep, Havok 4 is out:

Andrew has a job to do, not look for inspiration on the forums to do that job for pete's sake.

Originally Posted by Game Developer's Conference
Havok, the game industry's leading supplier of cross-platform middleware solutions for game developers announced its 4.0 release today in conjunction with 2006 Game Developers Conference.