At CEDEC 2009, Sony presented a major update with important implications for PS3 game developers, particularly because it upgrades something that we all know and love within our games, which is physics interactions. Without physics, the trees and foliage in Motorstorm: Pacific Rift wouldn’t react to our vehicles plowing through them, and the frightening Helghast troops in Killzone 2 wouldn’t react to individual bullet impacts.
In fact, games would still be pretty boring without strong physics interactions, which is what the PS3 excels at. But third party engines such as Euphoria and Havok aren’t always an option for developers due to licensing costs, and custom built physics engines can take years to develop, which is why the Physics SDK is so important. It empowers PS3 developers of any stature to quickly take advantage of the powerful hardware and give their target audience what they want within a shorter development cycle.
To see just what the Physics SDK is capable of, and how fast it completes its calculations in terms of milliseconds, check out the video below:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xk6RM_YsM0[/youtube]
