Subscription Advantage Pack for 3ds Max 2011 Now Includes PhysX Rigid Body Dynamics System

• September 15, 2010
• Written by Mark
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Subscribers to the Subscription Advantage Pack for 3ds Max 2011 will now be able to use the PhysX Engine. We usally do not post about development tools related to PhysX but they included a cool video showing the new PhysX features in action.

PhysX Rigid-Body Dynamics from AutoDesk:

Create more compelling, dynamic rigid-body simulations directly in the 3ds Max viewport. The multi-threaded NVIDIA® PhysX® engine supports static, dynamic, and kinematic rigid bodies (the latter for rag doll simulations), and a number of constraints: Rigid, Slide, Hinge, Twist, Universal, Ball & Socket, and Gear. Animators can more quickly create a wider range of realistic dynamic simulations, and can also use the toolset for modeling: for example, creating a randomly placed landscape of rocks. Assigning physical properties – friction, density, and bounciness – is as simple as choosing from a set of initial preset real-world materials and tweaking parameters as required.

The Autodesk® Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2011 software integrates state-of-the-art technology from renowned industry companies who are working with Autodesk to revolutionize rendering and simulation workflows. Featuring lightweight, resolution-independent procedural textures; GPU-accelerated rigid-body dynamics; and one of the world’s first physically accurate “point-and-shoot” renderers, the Advantage Pack for 3ds Max 2011 delivers cutting-edge tools that help leverage the latest hardware advances to help customers maintain their competitive advantage.

3ds Max/3ds Max Design Subscription New Feature: PhysX Dynamics:

PhysX Chain Spool from YouTube showing the new PhysX plugin in action:

Testing the PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max. Each chain link is a single rigid body with four capsules. There are only two constraints, one attaching the chain to the box and another attaching the chain to the ball.

There are invisible walls on the ends of the box preventing the chain from falling off the edge as it spools up.

To prevent the chain links from separating I had to run the simulation with 15 substeps (480 simulation steps per second), resulting in sub-realtime performance. Still, I was able to bake the results to keyframes in Max and render the result.

Why Developers Are not taking Full Advantage of PhysX and Implementing it Into Every Game

• April 1, 2010
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PC Authority has published a fascinating article about why consoles and the technology they have inside, mainly the GPU are preventing developers from creating more and more games with the latest and greatest in technology such as DX11, and holding back the development of PC Games. The article details the fact that game developers are trying to target the widest range of users possible, for the time being these are the consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3, and it’s 5 year old graphics hardware and technology. This same rule applies to why developers are not wanting to take full advantage of PhysX, because since it only runs on NVIDIA hardware they simply cannot reach the widest user base possible. Read the rest of the article here.

From PC Authority:

Even selling points such as NVIDIA’s hardware PhysX acceleration aren’t as impressive as they sound. Again, because developers need to target a wide range of end users they cannot integrate technology like PhysX too heavily into their games.

Make the game too reliant on NVIDIA-flavoured hardware accelerated physics and the huge number of people who own ATI cards are excluded from the customer base. This has led to PhysX being a means to add a little bit of extra eye candy to a game in the form of flowing cloth and extra debris, rather than being an integral part of the game’s design.

Read the rest of the article here.

PhysXinfo.com PhysX 2009: Year in Review

• December 30, 2009
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Zogrim over at PhysXinfo.com has put together a nice write up taking a look at PhysX over the past year and what progress has been made in games,development and PhysX hardware. Read the entire article here.

from PhysXinfo.com:

Finally, it’s time to tally up a total – here is our brief summary on what PhysX Technology has achieved over the past year.

To be honest, situation with GPU PhysX games was not as good as Nvidia promised us previously. Far from “25 [games] between January and March 2009“, not to mention that previously announced hardware PhysX support was suspended in some tiltes, like Bionic Commando or Terminator Salvation.

Though, past year has brough us some memorable PhysX games, like Mirror’s Edge, Sacred 2, Cryostasis and, of course, Batman: Arkham Asylum. 7 titles with GPU PhysX content for 2009 – in total.

Read the rest of the article here.