Brian Beckman: The Physics in Games - Real-Time Simulation Explained
- Posted: Jun 08, 2007 at 6:53 PM
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- 24 Comments
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Ever find yourself wondering about the math behind your favorite simulation game? Did you know that the motion physics of a car are much more complicated than the those of an airplane?
Brian Beckman, physicist, programmer and Channel 9 celebrity (he's been on C9 a few times...), sure does. Besides spending time innovating programming languages and tools, Brian spends time working on the mathematics behind real-time physics simulation. Most recently, he worked on the math behind the tire physics of the popular racing game Forza.
Simulation, by definition, needs to be accurate. Otherwise, well, it's not simulating reality, really, which is of course the idea of simulation. Games like Forza in fact simulate real physics of racing in a predictable and highly mathematically precise manner. That's exactly why Forza is a real-time automobile racing simulation game.
The past, present and future of computer simulation of real-time physical events, or simply computer-based simulations that involve highly accurate representations of things moving/changing in space and time that are precisely affected by multiple variables like wind, rain, gravity, mud, oil, planets, waves, etc are very fascinating topics for gamers(many may not realize this explicitly, but they sure experience it!), mathematicians, programmers and physicists alike. Heck, any body who thinks about the thinking behind things that they experience in a simulated environment should watch/listen to this interview (available in podcast form as well as video).
Towards the end of this conversation, Brian mentions Rigs of Rods and Plasma Pong. Check out the Rigs of Rods simulation demo at 00:58:11!
Our sister site, Channel 10, has a great Forza piece.
Tune in. Learn (alot).
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C
Very good video.
Nice video!
when I created a small simple balls engine using XNA using some
of my (unfinished yet) high school physics I saw that all the time I
had to make some stupid decisions...
and even worse, when stuff are moving fast (relatively to the
anount of time we are looking at) you really need to see when
were you supposed to stop because of a wall or something and
calculate everything back there and than simulate what would
happen until the time you are at now...
in other words, very simple code turns into a monster...
That's the best ting I've seen on C9 in a LONG time. It was fascinating and informative.
We've been discussing the vehicle handling of the DIRT demo on the Codemasters forum this week (because it's horrible on some machines and great on others and nobody can tell us why) and this just gave me more information about game physics.
has an endless supply of supernal wallpaper
and this is the screen-saver companion
http://www.electricsheep.org/
Fascinating!
And what about the mechanics part of the car? The stress in components can be also simulated in these games? A bad move and your gear breaks loose? Or the suspension deformates and changes behavior?
sometimesoften people with no legacy in a certain area are able to do the breakthroughsFluid dynamics + silverlight 1.1 = demo based off of the same idea
great stuff
look forward to more like that
In any case I want more from Brian. You could spend a whole week with him and I would watch. Thanks Charles for a good video. Try to figure out the formula of what you did right on this video and repeat!
When talking about divergence, how is this accounted for when the formula is used for tyre manufacturers for cars going low speeds?
Boredom? No way. I like to listen to Brian and learn, so that's what I did. Over my head? Sure, some of it. I'm not a physicist and I don't write simulation software. That said, one of my majors in college was math, so I in fact understood what he was talking about...
C
I have to mention some facts that other may not know or simply forgot.
First of all, in 2000, two games have used exactly the same methodes to introduces very good game physics.
The car action-racing PC game "1NSANE":
http://www.codemasters.com/insane/eng/html/index_htmlnav.html
... and "BridgeBuilder" (a strategy game around building train-bridges):
http://www.bridgebuilder-game.com/
Both of them use the very same methodes as RoR uses, and both have been released back in 2000. So neither the idea nor the result that it is a reasonable technology are new.
Why no one else is using better physic engine implementations is beyond me. Most games use a trivial physic engine and that's why most games (car, flight, etc. games) feel unrealistic. For example Flight Simulators physic engine (as of v. 2004) still feels as unrealistic and simple as v. 1995.
btw., I am still waiting for "Loose Cannon", a GTA-alike game which has been developed by Digital Anvil, now part of MSFT Game Studios.
http://www.autodesk.com/nucleus
jos stam is the guy worth remembering as well.. he created nucleus as well as alot of fluid dynamic stuff.. (also implemeted in maya btw) if you look at the silverliht sample above, you'lls se that jos wrote the paper that that demo is build on
I like NextLimit's particle based fluid/multiphysics approach.
As someone above mentioned, using rod frameworks in games is older than RoR. Bridge builder and the 3D successor Pontifex were games using the same idea long before RoR. But RoR has a quality of it's own and the new refreshing idea of using these rods for cars and airplanes.
Somebody said that MSFS is missing a real physical approach for simulating flying objects - that's why I'm flying with X-Plane that uses "proper" physics (blade element theory) instead of lookup-tables.
What I'm afraid of is that all the CPU power we have now will only be used for destruction modeling in first person shooters. I'm waiting for a game that makes intelligent use of the possibilities. Smashing crates realistically with a crowbar can't be everything
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