If the programming is clever and correct, the same system can simulate a wide gamut of different object classes.” So basically, the artist is free to design whatever they wish and the design itself will define the object’s behaviour. They simulate objects as the sum of their parts where the object’s behaviour is emerging from the behaviour of all its parts. “Soft-body simulators are way more CPU intensive and do not like tweaks that get them away from physically correct behaviour. The artist is allowed to tweak some parameters of the programmed behaviour of each object.
These systems simulate objects as a ‘whole’, where each different category of an object needs some programmer to code its behaviour. “Rigid body simulators and soft-body simulators.” “Rigid body simulators are the dominant physics simulation paradigm as they are less CPU intensive and easier to ‘tweak’ for special behaviours. ““There are basically two types of physics simulations,” explains the BeamNG team, who’ve asked that their responses be attributed to the entire group rather than individual crewmembers. The BeamNG team illustrate to us in a little more detail why they chose to focus on real time soft-body physics and how they differ from the norm. It was built upon the same physics concepts, just more refined and optimised.
They began work on a new a new physics engine from scratch.
In October 2011 the Rigs of Rods team decided the potential for the sort of soft-body physics on show in their game was too great to ignore.
Where you haven’t seen these amazingly realistic vehicle collisions, however, is in a big budget commercial racing or driving game. Or perhaps you’re a Rigs of Rods aficionado, an open-source driving sandbox game loved by fans for its soft-body physics (although they’re not as good as those on display in the videos here). Perhaps you saw their second video, released in July, or the pair of single crash clips they uploaded just days ago. You may have come across this video before it chalked up two million views in just three days when BeamNG published it back in March. Just like euphoria gave us tumbling bodies that look like real tumbling bodies, here were car crashes that looked like real car crashes. Watching BeamNG’s debut reel is a little like the automotive equivalent of the first time we all saw NaturalMotion’s euphoria engine in action way back in 2006, in that tech trailer of the Indiana Jones game that never came to fruition. And earlier this year a small start-up company called BeamNG proved it. Surely it doesn’t have to be this way? No, it doesn’t. When’s the last time you played a racing game, or perhaps an action game with a driving component, and marvelled at the realism of the crashes? For every one that gets even mildly close there are handfuls more that suffice with the bare minimum of slightly crumpled panels and scuffed paintjobs. Technical ceilings, licensing hurdles and other factors have long conspired to keep car damage relatively superficial a pre-canned layer beneath the surface, peeled back gradually whenever the game detects the player should be seeing a few token dents and scratches. In video games, however, things are different. The effects of a real life high-speed collision on a car are catastrophic.