I stumbled upon this last week and found it rather diverting.
It's a demo reel from a new software development company called BeamNG showing off their revolutionary 'soft body physics engine', which can realistically model damage from motor vehicle accidents in real time. This could revolutionise driving games (which are about the only kind of video games I ever play). Well, car manufacturers and racing governing bodies have traditionally been rather snooty about making crashes too realistic, and I suspect they will continue to be so for quite a while yet. So, we're unlikely to see the benefits of this sort of software in the F1 or rallying games I usually favour.
I imagine the next instalment of Grand Theft Auto, though, will be all over this. [More examples available to view via the BeamNG Youtube account.]
2 comments:
That looks very interesting. I don't play car games (including GTA) but if they've actually got the physics of collisions (impacts in general?) coupled together with the properties of various materials then I can see uses for this across the board. Slo-mo boxing video (including spittle spraying everywhere)! Crime shows! Collisions between galaxies!
I imagine galaxies present a special problem because of the gravity interactions.
And I expect there are severe limitations on this in terms of the types of materials and the speed of the collisions it can work with. I doubt, for example, if it can represent the sort of crash where a racing car hits a concrete wall at 150mph and just disintegrates.
I'd like to see them doing rifle-bullet-hits-a-pumpkin type modelling - but that's a whole different ball game.
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