AMD Open Physics Initiative Expands Ecosystem with Free DMM for Game Production

[btarunr]

AMD today announced that, along with partners Pixelux Entertainment and Bullet Physics, it has added significant support to the Open Physics ecosystem by providing game developers with access to the newest version of the Pixelux Digital Molecular Matter (DMM), a breakthrough in physics simulation. In addition, to enabling a superior development experience and helping to reduce time to market, Pixelux has tightly integrated its technology, DMM, with Bullet Physics, allowing developers to integrate physics simulation into game titles that run on both OpenCL- and DirectCompute-capable platforms. And both DMM and Bullet work with Trinigy’s Vision Engine to create and visualize physics offerings in-game.

“Establishing an open and affordable physics development environment is an important accomplishment for both game developers and gamers, signaling a move away from exclusionary or proprietary approaches,” said Eric Demers, chief technology officer, AMD Graphics Division. “Not only does the integration of Bullet Physics into partner middleware help drive broader adoption of physics in games, it ensures that when those games are released, all gamers, regardless of the hardware in their PC, can benefit from the more realistic experience enabled by those effects.”

AMD’s announced open physics development environment now adds Bullet Physics as the default rigid body physics system provided with Pixelux’s DMM2 material physics engine. Developers can now design and interact with rigid body systems familiar to them and easily add DMM objects incrementally enabling them to bend and break based on real physical properties.

In addition, AMD is announcing its sponsorship of FREE DMM2 for the PC platform. The Free PC version has no DMM license fee for development or production deployment and includes all the features of the premium version including GPU acceleration. Free PC DMM2 is expected to be made available shortly to interested developers.

“With today’s announcement, the incredible physical simulation effects seen in the latest games and blockbuster films can be used by all developers – a tremendous milestone for the industry,” said Mitchell Bunnell, chief executive officer, Pixelux. “Working closely with AMD and Bullet’s main author, Erwin Coumans, we’ve enabled tight integration of our DMM2 system and Bullet Physics, giving developers a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use physics pipeline they can use to create things that have never been seen before”.

“At Trinigy, one of our guiding principles is ensuring game developers have the freedom to use the tools they need to create the effects they want,” said Danie Conradie, president and chief executive officer, Trinigy Inc. “AMD’s Open Physics Initiative with Pixelux DMM and Bullet Physics, coupled with our long-standing relationship with all three companies, helped us deliver on that core philosophy by giving developers access to these state-of-the-art technologies for producing advanced effects in games.”

All of the Bullet Physics implementations described above can be run on any OpenCL- or DirectCompute-capable platform. On AMD platforms, ATI Stream technology is used to drive the enhanced game experience. As a further enhancement, AMD has developed new parallel GPU accelerated implementations of Bullet Physics’ Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) Fluids and Soft Bodies/Cloth. The new code written in OpenCL and Direct Compute will be contributed as open source.

[Mussels]

*in before ATI fanboys screaming their love because ATI went opensource unlike Nvidias physX*


I'm glad of the above, this is win for everybody - nvidia users included.

[pantherx12]

Originally Posted by Mussels

*in before

Stop visiting /b

[shevanel]

Great news. Is it ATI trying to see if NV will do the same thing?

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by shevanel

Great news. Is it ATI trying to see if NV will do the same thing?

if they make it openCL, directcompute and open source... everyone can use it, for free. no one else has to do the same thing, everyone does the one thing. (S3, intel, via, etc)

[HalfAHertz]

I just hope Ati don't shoot themselves in the foot with bullet physics

[FerasAR]

good work AMD
hope keep better and better
any one sight a preview about what we talking about... and where

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by Mussels

if they make it openCL, directcompute and open source... everyone can use it, for free. no one else has to do the same thing, everyone does the one thing. (S3, intel, via, etc)

Even NVidia, LOL!

[WarEagleAU]

Nicely done AMD.

[AphexDreamer]

So when can we expect to use this?

[dir_d]

I think this is great for all graphics cards...I was kinda upset when i saw a demo for a new game using CUDA and physx, i just dont understand why they would want to segregate people that do not have their hardware.

[erocker]

Sounds great AMD! I will hold on to my enthusiasm until I see it working (properly).

[TIGR]

Originally Posted by Mussels

*in before ATI fanboys screaming their love because ATI went opensource unlike Nvidias physX*


I'm glad of the above, this is win for everybody - nvidia users included.

+1, right on. Thank you, AMD.

They may not have all the budget and resources of certain other large tech corporations, but they know how to work strategically with others. It suits progress well.

[mlee49]

So if done properly AMD could push Physx processing to Linux via OpenGL?

God bless them, every one.

Oh and moar Open Source FTW!

[Fourstaff]

Very nice. AMD cannot foot the bill, so they enlisted the open source help to develop what is hopefully a killer product. Win for everyone if its successful, and hopefully push Nvidia to shut PhysX up.

[Kantastic]

Originally Posted by erocker

Sounds great AMD! I will hold on to my enthusiasm until I see it working (properly).

But you do them for the effort right?

[Phxprovost]

Originally Posted by AphexDreamer

So when can we expect to use this?

lol never, if im not mistaken amd has had a physics engine for years now and they either never released it or no one ever used it

[20mmrain]

Originally Posted by Phxprovost

lol never, if im not mistaken amd has had a physics engine for years now and they either never released it or no one ever used it

I thought they had one too that never got released. Or maybe he's right no one ever used it.

Either way I am happy for this!

I liked PhysX when I used NV card. I wished ATI had access to it. Now they will have it and every one will be able to use it and it will take that PhysX NV crap and shove it right back down their throat!

Physics should have been open from the beginning! But that's NV always trying to pull crap like that!

Either way ATI FTW

Let's just hope this doesn't fall by the way side and get forgotten like so many other ATI ideas that never got done.

[OnBoard]

After this NVIDIA could at least stop blocking PhysX installation for ATI card systems.

Now if I was head honcho in NVIDIA I'd make PhysX work on DirectCompute too and steal AMD's thunder They have this years games with PhysX only but after that it's (exclusivity) gone, so might as well make it free too.

Originally Posted by AphexDreamer

So when can we expect to use this?

With the new ATI 6xxx or 7xxx series. Relax.

[Hayder_Master]

that's great, but seems it's not an complete physics only Bullet-body and some others physics, and this is look like plugins in 3D max ,did we expect add more plugins in the future

[pantherx12]

Originally Posted by hayder.master

that's great, but seems it's not an complete physics only Bullet-body and some others physics, and this is look like plugins in 3D max ,did we expect add more plugins in the future

Bullet physics is just the name of the company fella



Re-read this bit and it becomes clear

"
AMD’s announced open physics development environment now adds Bullet Physics as the default rigid body physics system provided with Pixelux’s DMM2 material physics engine. Developers can now design and interact with rigid body systems familiar to them and easily add DMM objects incrementally enabling them to bend and break based on real physical properties."

Has material level physics and everything, throw a brick at glass the glass will behave like a brick has hit it, and will even shatter outwards from the point of impact etc : ]

[robal]

This press release didn't convince me that AMD has just saved the world and fed hungry homeless puppies...

However, if it's true, and titles using this engine will start to come up - it's a big win.
A good step in good (and the only good) direction.

Broad OpenCL adoption ftw.

[erocker]

I don't know.. If developers are getting paid to implement PhysX, why would they bother to use anything else?

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by erocker

I don't know.. If developers are getting paid to implement PhysX, why would they bother to use anything else?

because its free, Nv wont mess with their game code (batman AA was given to Nv for a few weeks prior to the game launching, which is when the AA/physX crap was done)

also, this works for everyone... unlike PhysX, this doesnt cut their consumer base down - so you know, its possible to make a game that requires/heavily uses this physX, since just about anyone could use it.