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Dark Physics & Dark A.I. & Dark Dynamix / EULA and next Dark Physics Update

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Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 5th Nov 2006 10:55
It looks like the EULA has now changed for the Ageia SDK. Information on their site now says:

The AGEIA PhysX SDK is now free for use on PC under our new EULA--for both commercial and non-commercial use. All we ask is that you accurately filled in and maintain the *required fields in your registration details for this site ("My Support->My Setting" if you already have an account).

This will also effectively apply to Dark Physics so no more restrictions.


I am upgrading Dark Physics to the latest version of the Ageia PhysX SDK and also making other changes to fix issues and add in more commands. I hope to have more info on the update soon.
Hoozer
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Posted: 5th Nov 2006 12:25 Edited at: 7th Nov 2006 21:42
Hello Mike,

sounds good so far!

What AGEIA-SDK-Version are you porting over to Dark-Physics?
Is it the latest 2.6.2 Version or an earlier one? (2.6.2 would be too cool with "Software-Fluids" and "Cloth Metal (Deformable Objects)"!)

Off-Topic (a bit):

For your Update of Dark-Physics you might consider this:
I found two things in DP that might be a bug (or not).

1.: If you set a particle-emitter to be influenced by the scene-gravity ("PHY SET EMITTER GRAVITY EmitterID, 1") it responds correctly, also if I change it later in the game to "0" (not responding) it works right! BUT if I want to enable gravity again ("1") it has no effect anymore, the particles never get influenced again by the scene-gravity!
(I hope this is not my mistake, but I looked it over and over again, and it has no effect!)

2.: I tried to create a paticle-emitter that starts with big particles which get smaler over time! This seems not to work at all, but in my eyes would be a fine feature!


Again I hope I did everythng right, if I'm wrong with anything, please forgive me!


Thanks for reading

Hoozer

Athlon 64X2 4800+ (939);
2GB DDR-400;
GeForce 6800LE (@12 Pixel-Shader-Units, 6 Vertex-Shader-Units; GPU: @ 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
dark coder
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Posted: 5th Nov 2006 13:29
Great let's all spam bugs in here! atleast thisis one topic mike should read , seriously though, 11days to go and some of these bugs are pretty bad, like the little memory leak i posted, yet no replies to apparently. oh and yea the lisence I'm sure is pretty cool and when is this update?

Hallowed are the ori.
Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 10:18
Will be using 2.6.2. First priority is to fix problems that have been reported like memory leaks on the ppu and after that add in new features. There's a great deal of new things we can add in that will make using DP much easier.

I hope to have some news on this update soon.
Hoozer
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Posted: 18th Nov 2006 12:50
@ Mike:
Thanks a lot for responding, it will make the DP-users (and me) happy to hear what you said/wrote! (A DP-Update near X-Mas would be a nice present! )


Hoozer

AMD 64X2 4800+ (939); 2GB; GF 6800LE (@12PS, 6VS; 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
DP-Sw-Mode-Comp-Entry (updated to V. 1.2):
http://rapidshare.com/files/3326313/PhysiX-Brick-Breakout---V--1-2.zip
DEastham
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Posted: 18th Nov 2006 13:18
Yes, a big thank you, Mike!

All I want for Christmas is the make cloth from object... *drool*

After seeing the sphere and the suspended rug interact, and the subtle nuances of the stretching and buckling fabric, I can't wait to have this on my characters! I'm guessing that with some creative attribute setting, I could fake soft body dynamics like jiggly arms.

I suppose, though, that even with the current (awe-inspiring) cloth capabilities that are implemented, one could code a loincloth with the capabilities we currently have?
Lost in Thought
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Posted: 18th Nov 2006 22:49
Quote: "All I want for Christmas is the make cloth from object"


Yes this is the main command missing from DP.

Hoozer
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Posted: 19th Nov 2006 01:20
Also don't forget, that in the "AGEIA-SDK V. 2.6.2" the self-collision of cloth was improved (I think it was in 2.5 to be more correct), that maybe solves the ugly behaviour I have seen so often with fast objects touching it and all that was left was a big distorted mesh! (As far as I have read, it can be dis-/enabled if needed)!

Hoozer

AMD 64X2 4800+ (939); 2GB; GF 6800LE (@12PS, 6VS; 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
DP-Sw-Mode-Comp-Entry (updated to V. 1.2):
http://rapidshare.com/files/3326313/PhysiX-Brick-Breakout---V--1-2.zip
Cash Curtis II
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Posted: 19th Nov 2006 03:08 Edited at: 19th Nov 2006 03:09
Cloth resolution is not changeable, and therefore not unusable. The biggest cloth I could make was 11x11, which is the equivalent of a napkin in my game.


Come see the WIP!
Raven
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Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 19th Nov 2006 04:25
Is the Ageia (Developer Support) Discussion forum working for anyone at the moment.

Each time I tried to access it, just comes up blank in the frame it's suppose to be in for me.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, 512MB DDR2 667MHz, ATi Radeon X1900 XT 256MB PCI-E, Windows Vista Business / XP Professional SP2
david w
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Posted: 19th Nov 2006 04:56
here is a list of bugs I have found so far

1. memory leak.
2. collision returns do not work
3. collision object index does not always work.
4. ccd only works with boxes
5. static meshes have to be pre-positioned outside of darkbasic in order to retain collision data
6. Particle size changes do not work. (small to big)+(big to small)
7. a dynamicaly moving sphere will pass through a static mesh in almost all cases.
8. linear velocity is messed up.

I am sure there are more but these here would be the first you should fix. Thank you
dark coder
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Location: Japan
Posted: 19th Nov 2006 08:04
9. Emitter rates don't work below 1.0 as they should
10. I coulden't get my emitter with a range to follow an object, it kept on reverting to a 0,0,0 particle range.
11. Scaling meshes in DBP doesn't work if any of the limbs are offset, though visually they are fine.
12. using very high ammount of pysics objects causes some to become suspended in mid air and uneffected by physics anymore.
13. Sleep/WakeUp doesn't allways work, it sometimes returns a sleep wake counter is negative error.
14. No way to see if a joint has broken, and thus you get an error if you try and change a joint property with no way of checking if it has been broken.
15. I coulden't get the raycasting commands to work, they seem to just error when they come in contact with anything.
16. Some sort of a 'Phy Instance Collision Mesh' would be very usefull, as sometimes when calculating the collision for a highpoly mesh takes a while, especially if it's a convex hull/mesh.

Hallowed are the ori.
Cash Curtis II
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Posted: 19th Nov 2006 09:52
17. Character controllers need to fall like other physics bodies. That character controller displacement didn't really help, and they really should just fall naturally.

18. The command "phy get character controller exist" doesn't actually exist.

19. Character controllers should act as a kinematic rigid body and push other rigid bodies aside, but ONLY if their radius is less than the radius of the character controller. I programmed it as a work around in my game, so it is not hard, and would give be very natural way for character controllers to displace other objects.

20. Cloth resolution needs to be changeable, because having the vertex count absolute restricts cloth to a small scale. Not everyone uses a small scale.

21. Particles need to be redone from scratch. They should work like the original particle pack, because they are useless right now.


Come see the WIP!
Hoozer
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Posted: 19th Nov 2006 12:35 Edited at: 19th Nov 2006 12:42
22. Particles:
Turning them ON and OFF, so that if it's OFF the last particles disappear by time! (Bad workaround: Just removing the emitter looks ugly, cause all particles disappear immediately!)
And if turned ON, they should appear naturelly! (Bad workaround: Just setting a new emitter-rate results sometimes in a long time where no particle appears!)

23. Particle: Fading (=transparency-effect) of particles should be possible with other "End-Colors" than BLACK!

24. Cloth: Deleting an existing cloth-object would be very fine! (I know about the hiding-trick mentioned in an other thread, but it would be fine to have it done correctly!) So that resetting a scene can work properly! (Actually when my cloth-mesh got messed up, I had to restart my programm!)

@ david w:
6. In the demos and as far what I have seen (made), the "small to BIG" works fine! (Only the other way round is impossible right now!)

AMD 64X2 4800+ (939); 2GB; GF 6800LE (@12PS, 6VS; 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
DP-Sw-Mode-Comp-Entry (updated to V. 1.2):
http://rapidshare.com/files/3326313/PhysiX-Brick-Breakout---V--1-2.zip
David iz cool
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Location: somewhere lol :P
Posted: 21st Nov 2006 02:20
thanks Mike!cant wait!
VRMan3D
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Location: New England
Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 00:43
Very much looking forward to an update as well!

Here's the link to the thread with the PHY MAKE RIGID BODY STATIC MESH bug:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=93858&b=30

It's all there so rather than replicate it in here I thought I'd just give the link.

In a nutshell, static meshes have rotation (and position) problems.

ALSO I'm HOPING FOR THE ADDITION OF:
100) Adding a 'UserData' value to your rigid bodies (like Newton has) - with this, during a collision check where you just get back the body number you could have stored an index to your array of some type and then easily access the stuff you need.
Example:


101) Please give us more collision control such as:
101a) Individual body to body check command such as PHY CHECK COLLISION(A, B)
101b) Body vs. Material collision check such as PHY CHECK COLLISION MATERIAL(A, BounceyMat) which would return a 1 if object 'A' collided with any other rigid body that had 'BounceyMat' as it's material.
101c) A velocity threshold for collisions - PHY SET COLLISION VELOCITY THRESHOLD 40.0 which would not bother reporting any collisions to you unless they were above a total (magnitude) velocity of 40.0. This would be extremely useful in (everything) my Janger game where things are constantly resting against the table but I don't care about those collisions.

Otherwise I'm lovin' it!

Thanks Mike,
-=VRMan=-

World Famous 3D Screensavers
-- http://www.vrman3d.com --
dark coder
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 05:55
I like the the threshhold suggestion, though I think it should be editable per mesh, that way having destroyable items would be alot easier, also I wish there was a 'Phy Set Rigid Body Maximum Linear Veocity' as without CCD you can get some collision errors, and setting the limit of this would solve alot of them.

Hallowed are the ori.
Redmotion
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Location: Mmm mmm.. Marmite
Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 12:17 Edited at: 22nd Nov 2006 14:48
Quote: "Cloth resolution is not changeable, and therefore not unusable. The biggest cloth I could make was 11x11, which is the equivalent of a napkin in my game."


Cloth resolution IS changable. It is the "depth" parameter in one of the cloth creation commands - I'm at work at the 'mo so can't check exact details.

Delete cloth is vital and make cloth from object would really open up.

Also, I had problems with making convex objects, where if they were a funny shape, they seemed to behave on the phys X debugger correctly but remained utterly stationary in DBPro.

Cash Curtis II
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 14:51
"depth" is the z parameter, having to do with the width. It factors into the number of verticees created, but the equation for the cloth resolution is constant.

Quote: "( ( width / depth ) + 1 ) * ( height / depth ) + 1 )"



Come see the WIP!
Redmotion
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Posted: 24th Nov 2006 13:49
@Cash, Originally I thought that cloth depth was indeed, it's thickness. But I tried using it and found that it reduced the resolution of the mesh and it allowed me to create a much larger cloth without slow down. I had a napkin, but changing the depth parameter mean't I could have a simple curtain. Cloth has no "width" when you percieve it/interact with it, in-game.

VRMan3D
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Posted: 25th Nov 2006 13:36 Edited at: 25th Nov 2006 15:18
tu# = phy get ray cast tu ( )
tv# = phy get ray cast tv ( )

Why are these (very useful it sounds like from the help file) commands in the help file, and not actually implemented in the dll!? (You can compile the program successfully then when this command is called you get: "Could not find function '?dbPhyGetRayCastTU@@YAKXZ' in 60arkPhysics.dll.")

So, can some clever and crafty person please tell me how to do what I need to do without them, which is position an object on a 'wall' after raycasting from the camera position. I can put it in the right spot, but I need to figure out how to rotate it to match the normal of the 'wall'. Here's the code I currently have:



For now I'm just pointing the 'laser pointer' decal at the camera since I can't figure out how to convert the normal vector to euler angles. But of course it's less than optimal. Any help would be much appreciated.



Also, while I'm on the Raycasting topic:
value = phy ray cast all shapes ( cx#, cy#, cz#, vx#, vy#, vz#)
has no entry in the help file (neither the separate 'Reference.chm' nor when you hit f1 on the command.)

I'm really sorry to sound negative again, I don't like being negative, but I hate how everyday I run into something new with DarkPhysics that seems like they didn't get around to finishing, or didn't bother testing or documenting. Sorry Mike, but we are paying for a half-baked product here. Can you please finish everything and test everything and perhaps flesh out the help file a bit more and ship us an update? Thanks a bunch! (Is because you don't have a lot of DP customers that it ends up taking low priority?)


EDIT:
Since all I needed were the normals for right angles for the moment, I did this kludge to make it work (and it works fine as long as the walls are at right angles, but I still need the real thing since I want angled walls as well =)


Any ideas anybody?

World Famous 3D Screensavers
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VRMan3D
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Posted: 25th Nov 2006 13:48
Another bug perhaps, as I couldn't find a way to work-around it:

If you make cloth, then create (regular DBPro) particles in front of it or rather all around it (I was using the make snow particles) the particles end up zbuffered behind the cloth object. So you can drop balls in front of the cloth for example and you will see the particles showing up in front of the balls, but the cloth is blocking the particles.
I tried disable object zwrite and other things and could never get particles (not the darkPhysics particles, the regular DBPro ones) to show up when there was a cloth object behind them.

World Famous 3D Screensavers
-- http://www.vrman3d.com --
Syncaidius
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Posted: 28th Nov 2006 16:02
Hey Mike, any news on the update yet?

Hoozer
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Posted: 28th Nov 2006 16:32
@ DB-King:
It's just 9 days ago that he made a statement (only because I asked him per e-mail to monitor this thread a bit more)!

I think he will give more infos as soon as he has something important to give away!

The less he has to write here the more he can improve DP!


Hoozer

AMD 64X2 4800+ (939); 2GB; GF 6800LE (@12PS, 6VS; 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
DP-Sw-Mode-Comp-Entry (updated to V. 1.2):
http://rapidshare.com/files/3326313/PhysiX-Brick-Breakout---V--1-2.zip
Xander
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2006 19:28
This sounds really awesome! I was really excited about Dark Physics at first, until I found out that you couldn't use it in commerical products. But now I'm excited again! Although I still can't afford it, but maybe someday. I can't wait to start playing around with this stuff.

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
Syncaidius
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Posted: 14th Dec 2006 20:35
Hey Mike, would you be able to post a list of the changes you made so far in the update?

im dying to know how your getting a long with the Dark Physics Update.

Hoozer
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Posted: 14th Dec 2006 22:29
@ Mike:

DBKing is right! Once a month an update would be fine! (Let's say somekind of a WIP-Thread!)

We all want to know is, if we can exspect a DP-update as a "christmas-present"!


Hoozer

AMD 64X2 4800+ (939); 2GB; GF 6800LE (@12PS, 6VS; 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
DP-Sw-Mode-Comp-Entry (updated to V. 1.2):
http://rapidshare.com/files/3326313/PhysiX-Brick-Breakout---V--1-2.zip
Alfred
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Posted: 29th Dec 2006 18:57
I know that this thread is already loaded with suggetions / possible bugs but still I would like to make another suggestion for a new command:


COMMAND: phy set scene world scale scene as int, scale as real

Where scale would represent the units in meters that a single unit in DBP really is. This would be ideal for having different "collections" of rigid bodies with different world interacions ( like a main scene with a miniature room somewhere ) or simply being able to set the real scale of the simulation without having to resize everything. Just an idea.

Hallowed are the ori.
Syncaidius
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Posted: 7th Jan 2007 19:21
Awwwww come on Mike, we're all anxiously waiting for you to post about the Dark Physics Update.

I cant wait any longer..... *starts chanting WE WANT UPDATE*

Hoozer
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Posted: 7th Jan 2007 20:02 Edited at: 7th Jan 2007 20:14
@ All: I put the mail in here, so that everyone knows what I was told and so that Mike has not to answer any more mails with the same content! (I hope that is allright that I post it in here, Mike?)

The text bellow is the one that came from Mike (Date: Sat, 06. Jan 2007 19:21:23 +0000)!:

Quote: "
Hello Andreas,

Happy New Year to you as well

I will post some news in the week. I'm hopeful I can release the update sometime in January which will include bug fixes and new commands. Right now I'm using 2.6.2 of the Ageia SDK but can upgrade to 2.7 as soon as it comes out. Will have to see what is the best thing to do. Maybe better to release an update earlier with fixes and changes and then at a later stage go to 2.7.

Regards,

mike



-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: 06 January 2007 13:39
To:
Subject: EULA and next Dark Physics Update-Thread


Hello Mike,

a happy new year for you and your TGC-Colleagues!

I read the new news-letter for January and was hoping to see some news about a DP-Update, but nothing was in there reguarding this topic! So I thought I just ask you once more to give a short info about the actual status of the DP-Update?

(A read the feature-list of the upcomming 2.7 release of the AGEIA-SDK and it says the "soft-bodies"-feature (objects that can break or can be deformed or stretched and then keep this form) will be included! Do you wait with a DP-Update to include this features, too?)

Also it would be nice, if you can give such a statement once a month into the thread shown below (or a new one)! This way everyone would know, that it's still in work and what he/she can exspect from it!

EULA and next Dark Physics Update-Thread:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=92726&b=30


Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!

Andreas Hoyer (Forum-Name: Hoozer)
"


@ Mike:
I would prefer the 2.6.2-Version and then smaller, but continuously Updates! (Maybe after a AGEIA-SDK-Update or every two months or something like that!) (Thanks once more for giving me some infos reguarding this topic!)

I hope that now everyone is a bit more "happy" to have something to wait for! (I hope not too long!)


Hoozer (Andreas Hoyer)

AMD 64X2 4800+ (939); 2GB; GF 6800LE (@12PS, 6VS; 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
DP-Sw-Mode-Comp-Entry (updated to V. 1.2):
http://rapidshare.com/files/3326313/PhysiX-Brick-Breakout---V--1-2.zip
Syncaidius
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Posted: 7th Jan 2007 20:27
@Hoozer:
That email still doesn't tell us what most of us want to hear, a list of changes.

Let's hope Mike does post some news sometime through this week.

Hoozer
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Posted: 7th Jan 2007 21:09 Edited at: 7th Jan 2007 21:11
@ DBking:

You are right, but it shows that an update is near and TGC still works on DP has NOT put it down!
By the way, what is your progress with your (cool) editor?

I'm sure Mike will tell us some more specs soon!


Hoozer

AMD 64X2 4800+ (939); 2GB; GF 6800LE (@12PS, 6VS; 380 MHz, RAM: 434 MHz)
DP-Sw-Mode-Comp-Entry (updated to V. 1.2):
http://rapidshare.com/files/3326313/PhysiX-Brick-Breakout---V--1-2.zip
Syncaidius
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Posted: 7th Jan 2007 23:49
@Hoozer:
Well i've stopped work on it until Dark Shader (DS) and DP udate are released because I need to know how shaders created by DS will work in DBP, so then I can continue working on the shader engine for my editor.

I also need to know whether or not the problems with static meshes in DP will be fixed, as physics (DP, Newton and ODE) are a key feature in WORLD V2.

Miguel Melo
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Posted: 8th Jan 2007 01:39
Mike has also been working on the (long awaited) Dark GDK update. And since he seems to be working on a new Dark Physics update with the same release "timeframe" I'd venture guessing he could be porting the Dark Physics plugin to work with the GDK. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part...

I have vague plans for World Domination

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