PhysX Destruction Questions

[Semaphore]

• Is it possible to get dynamic destruction at runtime that doesn’t rely on pre-authored destruction in DCC tool or in the editor? Something like this nVidia demo from GDC 2013:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O04ErnJ8USY

• Is it possible to achieve metal deformation based on rigid body impact like in this Havok example (at 0:47):
  https://youtu.be/cIcg5eotZlY?t=46

[Tim_Hobson]

Hey Semaphore,

Dynamically fracturing is something that is on the list to work towards eventually, but has not been done yet. You can follow any updates here: Trello

The second is deformable mesh simulation, but currently isn’t support that I’m aware of. I did find this on Nvidia’s site: https://developer.nvidia.com/sites/default/files/akamai/physx/Manual/MigrationFrom28.html

"Deformables

PhysX 2 supported a wide range of deformable mesh simulation features such as environmental cloth, soft bodies, inflatable balloons and plastic deformation of rigid metal. For performance and code quality reasons, 3.3 temporarily stopped supporting many of 2.8 deformable features in favor of a much simpler and higher performance cloth simulation engine. In PhysX 3 dot releases, we will be incrementally adding back features such as environmental simulation. For the time being there is no substitute for many applications of PhysX 2 deformables."

I’ve reached out to a couple of the devs that work with this code to see if they are aware of anything regarding this directly.

[Semaphore]

Thanks Tim,

Sounds good and I am looking forward to hear back on deformables when you get an update.

Regarding trello, I noticed that all features related to Physics seem to be on Backlog at the moment. Is there a team dedicated for physics in the engine that is actively working on those or is it a task for the rendering or programming team?

[zip]

@Semaphore;269139

• Is it possible to achieve metal deformation based on rigid body impact like in this Havok example (at 0:47):
  https://youtu.be/cIcg5eotZlY?t=46

omg its 2010 and physics better then in UE4, so question why epic don’t use havok? or how long we need wait to achieve this like functionality(i think goal is get minimum all HL2 physics ability and some stuff from 2015), because for now physic is horrible

[Nathaniell]

I absolutely love the wood destruction in the video (wood chips on the edges) is there a way to get destruction based on materiál type in UE? Right now, from my short tests, it all look like destroying pieces of stone or ceramics.

[Tim_Hobson]

@Semaphore;269164

Thanks Tim,

Sounds good and I am looking forward to hear back on deformables when you get an update.

Regarding trello, I noticed that all features related to Physics seem to be on Backlog at the moment. Is there a team dedicated for physics in the engine that is actively working on those or is it a task for the rendering or programming team?

There is a team dedicated to this as part of their responsibilities, but this is no limited to simply Physics.

Since PhysX 3 does not currently support deformables there is no plan to implement this ourselves at the moment. At the moment priorities will lean toward Destruction, Cloth, Hair/Fur, Fluids, and so on.