physics background...game development?
by Joseph Dahdah · in Jobs · 11/05/2002 (6:11 am) · 6 replies
Hello,
I am a college graduate in physics. I am about to enter graduate school in physics near Denver, CO. I really like video games and was wondering if there is some aspect of game development that I might be able to work in. I would have to just take it up as a hobby at first, a 'night job' kind of thing. My graduate degree is going to require that I learn a good deal of mathematical programming anyway and I was wondering if I could also apply those skills in the game development world. I have heard of 'physics engines' for games and know that some algorithms for gaming are highly mathematical, does anyone here know if this field can support someone with my background?
xfactar
I am a college graduate in physics. I am about to enter graduate school in physics near Denver, CO. I really like video games and was wondering if there is some aspect of game development that I might be able to work in. I would have to just take it up as a hobby at first, a 'night job' kind of thing. My graduate degree is going to require that I learn a good deal of mathematical programming anyway and I was wondering if I could also apply those skills in the game development world. I have heard of 'physics engines' for games and know that some algorithms for gaming are highly mathematical, does anyone here know if this field can support someone with my background?
xfactar
#2
You can also hook up with a team working on a game with the Torque engine. Just be wary of too much server-side physics. It really can bog down the system if you have 1000 things moving through it that isn't needed for the game. ;-)
Eric
11/05/2002 (3:58 pm)
Havok is an actual 3rd party physics engine. They've got some pretty neat demos showing it off.You can also hook up with a team working on a game with the Torque engine. Just be wary of too much server-side physics. It really can bog down the system if you have 1000 things moving through it that isn't needed for the game. ;-)
Eric
#3
11/05/2002 (4:00 pm)
Physics engine are becoming pretty popular with next gen games, I know of quite a few games that will be using either MathEngine or Havok's Physics engine, and I think it really adds a lot to a game. That type of work would definitely draw a crowd, its a really cool piece of tech, now that computers are becoming powerful enough to handle them well.
#5
Good examples are the gonard flight sims that accurately model everything and run just fine on just about any machine 4 years old, but required the best video cards on the market to have a decent frame rate.
A friend plays IL2 and what is holding him back is his ancient ass TNT2 Ultra not the Athlon 800 in the machine. He plays it on the highest level of simulation detail and the lowest level of graphical detail, and there are plenty more physics calculations going on with all the thousands of rounds of ammunitionu being modeled and what not compared to any FPS or less techincal game I can thing of.
Look at consoles, they do lots of physics on what would be considered obsolete processors if there were in a PC.
11/05/2002 (7:18 pm)
the actualy physics calculations are trivial in most cases compared to what it takes to actually RENDER the objects. Especially GAME physics where there "good enough" rules. There is a great book called Physics for Game Developers which shows how to do it the "simulation" way and then lots of short cuts and optomizations that yeild almost the same results, good enough for games but would fall short for say NASA.Good examples are the gonard flight sims that accurately model everything and run just fine on just about any machine 4 years old, but required the best video cards on the market to have a decent frame rate.
A friend plays IL2 and what is holding him back is his ancient ass TNT2 Ultra not the Athlon 800 in the machine. He plays it on the highest level of simulation detail and the lowest level of graphical detail, and there are plenty more physics calculations going on with all the thousands of rounds of ammunitionu being modeled and what not compared to any FPS or less techincal game I can thing of.
Look at consoles, they do lots of physics on what would be considered obsolete processors if there were in a PC.
Torque Owner Mike Nelson