I’d like to introduce a plugin I’ve been working on for the past three months.
This is a physics engine plugin based on the Newton Dynamics library, and you can find it here:
The plugin is self-contained, meaning it doesn’t require any additional downloads.
It includes an asset editor and several standard elements, though there’s still a lot of functionality to be added.
The editor is still a bit rough around the edges, but improvements are on the way.
Working with Unreal’s Slate library in C++ has been a learning experience, with its quirks and challenges.
However, I’ve feel I made enough progress that I can now share what’s been implemented so far.
Below is the first practical demo video showcasing its current capabilities:
Watch the video:
The demo features a simple industrial robot built from a freely available model.
The downloaded graphics mesh has some inaccuracies, so adjusting the joints is a bit tricky. Additionally, manipulating an effector without depth perception has proven to be a challenging task, which makes the operation feel a bit clumsy.
That said, I’ll continue adding functionality to the plugin.
If anyone wants to test it and provide feedback, or share which features should be prioritized, it would be greatly appreciated
I have no gotten there yet. But there in nothing that prevented from running multiplayer, specially if it going to be server mode.
If it makes you feel better, here is a video of multiplayer using the newton engine. (not using unreal)
From the newton side, there is not problem as a long as we can transmit a series of numbers representing the physics state of a model, but we will see what other challenges are there.
Before I tackle multiplayer, I still have some basic functionality to add.
but yes I will make some multiplayer mode demos some time after that.
The newton wiki were community projects and most those people move on with their life.
I am trying to make the plugging to conform to the way unreal does things,
precisely to go around the stiff learning curve that people find when using the newton library.
My hope is to get better reach to people that might not be tech inclined,
but that still have a desired to make somewhat realistic physics based projects.
My approach is making narrow focused use cases video tutorials and demos.
I am trying to make them using the unreal paradigms as much as I can, and believe me, that take a serious effort.
maybe we can make a private conversation to see if the Newton Dynamics
yes, how do you propose to do that?
btw I made two more tutorials after that video.
I do not post here because I do not want to flood the forum.
Soon I will post another playable vehicle demo. So stay tune.
Finally, unreal covers a lot dev areas and so is the newton engine.
It is hard to prioritize what to do next, so I am always looking for suggestions, criticism and recommendations.
Julio
I send you a private message here in the Forums, because its to much information to talk about here…
hope you got it, and maybe you can give me some informations.
ok, I’ve added double precision support. Maybe this addresses your major concerns.
To enable it, follow these steps to compile the Newton Core SDK:
Open the Visual Studio solution: .../Plugins/newton/Source/ThirdParty/newtonLibrary/ExampleLibrary.sln
Make sure the configuration is set to “Release.” you can also try Debug, but that has a corruption memory functionality that uses more memory and is much slower.
Open the file: ../Source/ThirdParty/newtonLibrary/Public/dCore/ndTypes.h
Find and uncomment the following line: //#define D_NEWTON_USE_DOUBLE
(Uncomment it to enable double precision.)
Compile the solution. This will generate the updated Newton DLL.
Once compiled, you can take the plugin and add it to your project.
Important Note: Double and single precision DLLs are incompatible.
If you switch DLLs, Unreal assets created with one version won’t work with the other.
You will need to recreate any levels to ensure they load properly.
This issue arises from Unreal’s binary format, which has been a problem for almost 30 years.
While changing the format to XML (which supports both binary and ASCII) resolved this,
it’s still an ongoing limitation.
I’ve also replied to your message explaining the differences.
If you’d like to try the double precision mode, you can compare the results.
