Physics Engine

[imported_Lipton]

Hi guys,
I`m going to need to use or write a physics engine for my final game development program (I also need a Game Engine but thats for another day)
I was wondering if anyone had previous experience in writing one or if anyone can point me to where I can find more information regarding physics engine.
I`ll probably have a decent amount of time to write my own physics engine hence my will to do some heavy research before I start.

Thanks, appreciated.

 

[Markbnj]

I guess it depends on what your goals are. If you want a fairly realistic model of physical forces then Havok and PhysX are the two standards for commercial libs at the moment. Not sure if either has a cheap/free version for independent developers. In either case releasing the game commercially would require an expensive license. Probably five figures at least.

Then there is Tokamak, which is open source. It seems to have some impressive capabilities, and since it's open source under the BSD license you can grab the code and play with it. More info at http://www.tokamakphysics.com/

 

[imported_Lipton]

Thanks Markbjn,
We have a total of 5 months to complete a full game from scratch with 3 complete levels.
We pretty much have the freedom to do anything and as you said, it depends on the gamestyle we would be making.
The idea would be to write our own engine however we may be able to outsource. I`ll take a look at Tokmak ty.
If anyone happens to know more about the subject please shed some light on it.

 

[QuixoticOne]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...mputer_physics_engines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Game_Dynamics
http://www.ode.org/

There are some various samples on NVIDIA's developer site, GPU GEMS, et. al.

It just depends on what you're trying to achieve and what works well for your needs.