Kb-smoker
10-26-2005, 10:54 PM
Company VP Jeff Yates talks about their game physics software company
The Havok company has made their mark on the PC game industry with their software tools that allow game developers to put in advanced physics in games from Half-Life 2 to Painkiller to last week's RTS game Age of Empires III. Gamecloud got a chance to chat with Havok's vice president of product management Jeff Yates to find out more about their current and future plans.
Gamecloud - First, the Havok name has now become synonymous with game physics. How does the company feel about all the attention it has received from its previous Havok versions?
Jeff Yates - We feel fortunate. Havok is still a small company at heart and yet we have the opportunity to work with so many leading game developers. We’re extremely dedicated to helping support our customers right through game release – I think that has helped us a lot. We’re very focused on keeping that reputation in the future.
Gamecloud - Has the company been surprised by some of the things game developers have done with the physics engine?
Jeff Yates - Yes. More and more it seems that physics is finding its way deeper into core game-play and into the game engine itself. We see many developers using collision detection for example as a means of enabling the game’s AI – like for detecting when a character comes into view – by testing for collision against a cone-shaped viewing volume. There is so much room for even more elaborate uses of physics like this. We’re definitely excited to see where things go in the next year on the more powerful platforms that will be launching.
Gamecloud - As games get more and more realistic in a visual sense, do you feel gamers will demand better depictions of the real world in other ways?
Jeff Yates - Yes - Certainly we see character animation as one of the areas that has been lagging behind slightly. Characters need to do more than just fall down dead in a rag-doll fashion. They need to be able to get back up again, walk up stairs and on irregular landscapes, and be able to respond to arbitrary forces in the environment while blending in base animation assets that preserve each character’s unique personality. We are solving these problems now with our physics & animation blending technology in Havok Complete 3.2. We also see the Physics Effects as an emerging area as well. The amount of detail needed to really provide a rich experience in next generation games demands more than static visual complexity. Some kind of dynamic responsiveness is also needed to convince users that these effects are more than just static game elements. We see a lot of opportunity to fill this void with dynamically simulated effects that not only look convincing – but actually move convincingly as well. We should have some interesting announcements soon that shed more light on how we plan to deliver this kind of technology to game developers – and how we intend to blend it with GPU technology in the market today.
Gamecloud - The company recently released Havok Engine 3.0. What can you tell us about the features behind the new version and how it improves on the physics effects we have seen in games that have used the 2.0 version of the engine?
Jeff Yates - Our combined product – Havok Complete 3.2 (actually launching this month) – includes physics and character animation technology and tools. For us, the combined blending of physics and animation is a natural extension and helps make game characters far more believable. On the physics side of things, we’ve introduced “Continuous Physics” which is an innovation that provides solid simulation of fast moving, small objects in the game. When characters or objects get thrown at high-speeds against a wall, the last thing a gamer wants to see is an arm get stuck in the wall or an object pass completely through the level because the physics system could not detect it. With Continuous Physics, we can perform collisions tests continuously in 4 dimensions – covering time and space. Without a system like this, game developers have to take a lot of short cuts and the game-play experience generally suffers.
Gamecloud - The company also recently announced a new middleware software program, Havok Animation. What can you tell us about this program and how it ties into the Havok physics engine?
Jeff Yates - Havok Animation is the add-on piece of technology that forms our Havok Complete product (Havok Physics + Havok Animation = Havok Complete). Havok Animation is a fast and flexible animation SDK and tool chain that integrates out of the box with our Havok Physics product. It provides outstanding animation compression, blending, and procedural controllers and inverse kinematics. But it’s the combination of character animation and physics that opens up the really exciting new possibilities, especially for next generation games. We think physics will become an “always on” aspect of characters in the future, so that every character can respond differently at any instant of the game.
Gamecloud - What upcoming games will be the first to use Havok 3.0?
Jeff Yates - We’re not actually at liberty to pre-announce titles, but I can say that the vast majority of our customers that are planning to ship in the next year are working with the latest Havok technology. In particular, since our announcement of an agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment, we can say that all Playstation 3 games that ship with Havok technology will utilize our latest 3.2 product version.
Gamecloud - Even though Havok is the leader in game physics tools, another company AEGIA is getting lots of attention for its upcoming physics hardware processor. What is Havok's position on having specialised hardware for game physics and is it something Havok might be interested in for the future?
Jeff Yates - We definitely distinguish between game-play physics – and physics effects. With multi-core/multi-threaded CPU’s coming out from AMD and Intel, we do not think there will be a shortage of power for game-play physics – the kind that requires split-second responses from the game. But for physics effects like debris, smoke, and the like, we do thin k there is less demand and more room for latency – where effects like these act physically correct, and are responsive to a degree, but game-play is not intimately tied to its results ever millisecond of the game. For these kinds of effects, though, we do not believe the consumer should have to purchase proprietary single-use hardware. We are very confident that GPUs from companies like Nvidia and ATI will provide the most elegant and sustainable hardware acceleration for effects physics. So we think consumers can and should continue to rely on hardware for acceleration – but they need look no further than a modern PC and above-average graphics card.
Gamecloud - What are some of the challenges that Havok sees for the future of physical interactions in PC and video games?
Jeff Yates - It goes without say that games need to always be fun first. And modeling the world in an absolutely physically correct way is not everyone’s idea of fun. This means that physics and physically-responsive characters in a game need to be convincing, but adaptable to a game designer’s notion of how the game should play. We’re very focused on that kind of flexibility going forward – but in terms of the technology we develop and the support we provide. And we see plenty of areas we can continue to help game developers by offering more ways they can extend the use of physics in their game to enhance the experience.
Gamecloud - Finally is there anything else you wish to say about Havok and its current and future plans?
Jeff Yates - We’re very dedicated to our customers – game developers, that is. We take their design goals and deadlines very very seriously and we try to think of ourselves as part of their team. We’ll continue to keep that kind of focus going forward. I think game-play physics is arguably our forte and we won’t take our eyes off the ball on physics performance and broad, cross-platform support. But we’ll also continue to explore the ways that physics and animation can combine to enhance the interactive performance of characters in the game.
http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=2034
Physics next-gen are going to be awesome. =-o
The Havok company has made their mark on the PC game industry with their software tools that allow game developers to put in advanced physics in games from Half-Life 2 to Painkiller to last week's RTS game Age of Empires III. Gamecloud got a chance to chat with Havok's vice president of product management Jeff Yates to find out more about their current and future plans.
Gamecloud - First, the Havok name has now become synonymous with game physics. How does the company feel about all the attention it has received from its previous Havok versions?
Jeff Yates - We feel fortunate. Havok is still a small company at heart and yet we have the opportunity to work with so many leading game developers. We’re extremely dedicated to helping support our customers right through game release – I think that has helped us a lot. We’re very focused on keeping that reputation in the future.
Gamecloud - Has the company been surprised by some of the things game developers have done with the physics engine?
Jeff Yates - Yes. More and more it seems that physics is finding its way deeper into core game-play and into the game engine itself. We see many developers using collision detection for example as a means of enabling the game’s AI – like for detecting when a character comes into view – by testing for collision against a cone-shaped viewing volume. There is so much room for even more elaborate uses of physics like this. We’re definitely excited to see where things go in the next year on the more powerful platforms that will be launching.
Gamecloud - As games get more and more realistic in a visual sense, do you feel gamers will demand better depictions of the real world in other ways?
Jeff Yates - Yes - Certainly we see character animation as one of the areas that has been lagging behind slightly. Characters need to do more than just fall down dead in a rag-doll fashion. They need to be able to get back up again, walk up stairs and on irregular landscapes, and be able to respond to arbitrary forces in the environment while blending in base animation assets that preserve each character’s unique personality. We are solving these problems now with our physics & animation blending technology in Havok Complete 3.2. We also see the Physics Effects as an emerging area as well. The amount of detail needed to really provide a rich experience in next generation games demands more than static visual complexity. Some kind of dynamic responsiveness is also needed to convince users that these effects are more than just static game elements. We see a lot of opportunity to fill this void with dynamically simulated effects that not only look convincing – but actually move convincingly as well. We should have some interesting announcements soon that shed more light on how we plan to deliver this kind of technology to game developers – and how we intend to blend it with GPU technology in the market today.
Gamecloud - The company recently released Havok Engine 3.0. What can you tell us about the features behind the new version and how it improves on the physics effects we have seen in games that have used the 2.0 version of the engine?
Jeff Yates - Our combined product – Havok Complete 3.2 (actually launching this month) – includes physics and character animation technology and tools. For us, the combined blending of physics and animation is a natural extension and helps make game characters far more believable. On the physics side of things, we’ve introduced “Continuous Physics” which is an innovation that provides solid simulation of fast moving, small objects in the game. When characters or objects get thrown at high-speeds against a wall, the last thing a gamer wants to see is an arm get stuck in the wall or an object pass completely through the level because the physics system could not detect it. With Continuous Physics, we can perform collisions tests continuously in 4 dimensions – covering time and space. Without a system like this, game developers have to take a lot of short cuts and the game-play experience generally suffers.
Gamecloud - The company also recently announced a new middleware software program, Havok Animation. What can you tell us about this program and how it ties into the Havok physics engine?
Jeff Yates - Havok Animation is the add-on piece of technology that forms our Havok Complete product (Havok Physics + Havok Animation = Havok Complete). Havok Animation is a fast and flexible animation SDK and tool chain that integrates out of the box with our Havok Physics product. It provides outstanding animation compression, blending, and procedural controllers and inverse kinematics. But it’s the combination of character animation and physics that opens up the really exciting new possibilities, especially for next generation games. We think physics will become an “always on” aspect of characters in the future, so that every character can respond differently at any instant of the game.
Gamecloud - What upcoming games will be the first to use Havok 3.0?
Jeff Yates - We’re not actually at liberty to pre-announce titles, but I can say that the vast majority of our customers that are planning to ship in the next year are working with the latest Havok technology. In particular, since our announcement of an agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment, we can say that all Playstation 3 games that ship with Havok technology will utilize our latest 3.2 product version.
Gamecloud - Even though Havok is the leader in game physics tools, another company AEGIA is getting lots of attention for its upcoming physics hardware processor. What is Havok's position on having specialised hardware for game physics and is it something Havok might be interested in for the future?
Jeff Yates - We definitely distinguish between game-play physics – and physics effects. With multi-core/multi-threaded CPU’s coming out from AMD and Intel, we do not think there will be a shortage of power for game-play physics – the kind that requires split-second responses from the game. But for physics effects like debris, smoke, and the like, we do thin k there is less demand and more room for latency – where effects like these act physically correct, and are responsive to a degree, but game-play is not intimately tied to its results ever millisecond of the game. For these kinds of effects, though, we do not believe the consumer should have to purchase proprietary single-use hardware. We are very confident that GPUs from companies like Nvidia and ATI will provide the most elegant and sustainable hardware acceleration for effects physics. So we think consumers can and should continue to rely on hardware for acceleration – but they need look no further than a modern PC and above-average graphics card.
Gamecloud - What are some of the challenges that Havok sees for the future of physical interactions in PC and video games?
Jeff Yates - It goes without say that games need to always be fun first. And modeling the world in an absolutely physically correct way is not everyone’s idea of fun. This means that physics and physically-responsive characters in a game need to be convincing, but adaptable to a game designer’s notion of how the game should play. We’re very focused on that kind of flexibility going forward – but in terms of the technology we develop and the support we provide. And we see plenty of areas we can continue to help game developers by offering more ways they can extend the use of physics in their game to enhance the experience.
Gamecloud - Finally is there anything else you wish to say about Havok and its current and future plans?
Jeff Yates - We’re very dedicated to our customers – game developers, that is. We take their design goals and deadlines very very seriously and we try to think of ourselves as part of their team. We’ll continue to keep that kind of focus going forward. I think game-play physics is arguably our forte and we won’t take our eyes off the ball on physics performance and broad, cross-platform support. But we’ll also continue to explore the ways that physics and animation can combine to enhance the interactive performance of characters in the game.
http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=2034
Physics next-gen are going to be awesome. =-o