The State of Video Game Physics

The Guardian's games blog convened a panel of engineers and other experts to talk about the current state of video game physics. A great deal of research is currently going on to make better use of multiple cores so that advanced physics tools and engines can take advantage of all the processing power available in modern computers. Many of those tools are being put to work these days to find more realistic ways of breaking things, and game developers are trying to wrap their heads around destructible environments. Mike Enoch, lead coder at Ruffian Games, said, "This idea of simulating interactions and constructing the game world similar to how you would construct the real world generates more emergent gameplay, where the game plays out in a unique way for each player, and the player can come up with solutions to problems that the designer might not have thought of." Another area that still sees a lot of attention is making game characters more human, in terms of moving and looking as realistic as possible, as well as how a game's AI perceives what's happening. "The problem is not necessarily in having the most advanced path-finding technique with large-scale awareness; we need to have more micro behaviors, with a proper physics awareness of the environment," said software engineer George Torres.

Comments

Nice Way to Teach Actual Physics

[reporter]

One of the toughest aspects of calculus-based physics is teaching how to intuit it. Space-based games (i. e., ones involving the behavior of light, planets, and other celestial entities) written to conform to actual physics laws would be a fun way to teach students how to intuit physics.

This generation of students is just damned lucky to have access to such computing power. In the old days, the most readily accessible computing power was an 8080 hobbyist board. Simulating the universe on that is impossible. The students of that era were stuck with just manipulating integrals and derivatives.

Life is unfair. I hate it.

Realistic Doesn't Sell

[Tablizer]

Realism won't work any more than it works in Hollywood movies. They need a "Hollywood Physics Engine", with a bit of ACME cartoon logic tossed in. Examples:

1. Fruit stands are magnetic: every thing comes toward them.

2. Things fly strait up and spin end-to-end when they are blasted or exploded in any way. (see also #9)

3. Cars hitting a bail of hay or lump of garbage fly 300 feet. Good guys always land upright while bad-guys always land top first.

4. Sexy breasts jiggle slow and long

5. In space, everyone can hear you scream.

6. Sparks are the most common element in the universe. Every nick and prink causes vast amounts of sparks.

7. Space explosions are usually poofy despite no atmosphere. If it's really big, then an expanding bluish saturn-like ring spreads out from the center.

8. If slow-motion is used, then the bullets are 500 times slower for every 1x speed reduction in human movement.

9. People fly almost strait up in the air if within 200 feet of any explosion. The exception is if they are near a metal hand-rail, in which case they rotate around the rail during the explosion, until facing downward.

10. Poor tire traction, AKA "skidding", actually makes cars go faster. Heroes never win unless they skid a lot. The more smoke from the skid, the faster the car.

11. When jumping between buildings or platforms, nobody ever has a good margin: they always barely make it. Physical laws expand the width to be barely below the maximum of the hero.