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| AGEIA's PhysX SDK v2.4 Physics API and Runtime Engine AGEIA Technologies, Inc. has announced availability of the cross-platform AGEIA PhysX SDK v2.4, the latest version of its physics API and runtime engine. With the AGEIA PhysX SDK v2.4, developers can create rich physics-based environments and effects for both next-generation gaming platforms and PCs with "PhysX Accelerator" PC add-in boards from ASUS and BFG Technologies featuring the AGEIA PhysX processor. The AGEIA PhysX SDK v2.4 enables game action for both PCs and next-generation game consoles. Game developers can now create dynamic game scenes with interactive and destructible environments, in which collisions and interactions between multiple objects or fluids cause real-life reactions on a massive scale. Beyond providing the ability to develop dynamic physics in games for cross-platform availability, the AGEIA PhysX SDK v2.4 includes two significant physics features - cross-platform cloth and hardware-accelerated joints. The AGEIA PhysX SDK v2.4 contains a cloth API - the only commercially available cross-platform cloth solution enabling dynamic tearing in real time. With the AGEIA PhysX SDK v2.4, developers can stretch, twist, drape and attach cloth to other rigid-body objects and then have the cloth interact with the environment, creating dramatically realistic "cause and effect" game experiences. In addition, developers can use AGEIA's new hardware-accelerated joints to create and accelerate far more sophisticated and articulated objects and effects - all of which act and react with real-life or programmed physics attributes - than possible with software alone. The impact of including sophisticated accelerated joints on the game experience will include being able to dramatically enrich games with large quantities of ragdolls and pervasive interactive grass and foliage and/or hair. The cross-platform cloth and hardware-accelerated joints are the latest additions to the AGEIA PhysX SDK, which also features concurrent hardware accelerated complex rigid bodies, "smart particle fluids", and high fidelity terrain. These tools support tens of thousands of dynamic objects interacting and colliding across entire game levels. For the first time, developers can develop for cross-platform availability accurate landscapes and genuine surface reactions, fluids that react with rigid bodies as well as the terrain, and particle phenomena that mimic real life, such as smoke and fog oozing around moving game objects. The AGEIA PhysX SDK v2.4 provides support for modeling and art tools, including plug-ins for Autodesk 3ds Max7 and Alias Maya 7, as well as COLLADA Physics format import/export support. AGEIA PhysX technology is also integrated into Softimage/XSI v5.0, available directly from Softimage. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Game News :: home page |