Would you pay for a way to integrate a differant physics engine?

#1 If it had a reason, I would pay good money for it.

Sometimes I get the impression that people want advanced physics not so much because they want advanced physics in their games but because they want to say their games have advanced physics. I get this impression not only from people who request such features, but from commercial games that often use physics for their extreme minimal purposes (often a short-lived wow factor from a non-interactive long-view). But having Havok on the box makes people drool whether or not it is used.

Physics can be an amazing addition. But I rarely see it in indie or commercial games where it actually affects what I do. That is single-handedly one of the reasons that I think HL2 rocked: physics for a reason.

But then, physics in games is my pet peeve. I WANT people to make games that use them, but I'm usually disappointed.

#2 I know we would pay for a good networked integration of Newton, PhysX, or even ODE.

#3 I lean the same way as Spilman. I'd easily pay for Newton, PhysX, or ODE. No need for cross-plat for me.

#4 I would also pay

#5 I would also pay, but only if it was crossplatform and networkable.

#6 Same as Stefan

Network and xplatform, then I would pay too

#7 $$DOE$$ in hand waiting !!

#8 Ditto. I would pay. Cross platform doesn't matter for me.

#9 As would I

#10 I believe Newton/ODE would be the best cross-platform options. I'm not sure which one would have the best network metrics, though.

#11 I would pay for this IF all the out of box torque objects were already ported over to use the physics.

#12 How about GG integrates a physics engine into the next version of TGE that's released (1.5?). This way we've already paid for it!

#13 GarageGames is busy with a Physics pack.... Or they are planning on one.
I remember it being mentioned somewhere(tm)

There are people who have done this. Why not make them an offer? I'm sure
those who actually managed to get it working correctly are also Indies who could
use any extra money to inject into their own projects.

#14 Well thats a bunch of positive responses!

Yeah, there are one or 2 who claim to have knocked up a decent integration of either ode or newton, but there just isn't any detail about it.

I'm slowly digging through torque and looking at how things are done, trying to work out how to hand over the collisions and physics to an external engine. Fun and not, and I really am in over my head, but I'll post any ideas or work I've done.

But I would pay pretty quick smart for something thats already done, or atleast just laid out all the ground work.
OdeItem kind of has, and its a nice way to learn one way of doing it, havn't looked at odeScript yet either, but thats another way and seems quite nice too.
But, neither of these do a full blown replacement. (which seems to be what most people want).

#15 It's tough because the first thing to do would be to implement torque collision system to ode.
and Then you can begin to code up the physic interaction.
(getting rid of OpCode)

that is not to small of a task.

you need alot of design input to get the system right for everyone.
it's a big task.

then you look at the worth and sure you will pay, but would it be an acceptable "pack" that gg would help you to sell?

are they working on the solution? you would want to know this before starting.

#16 Well, implementing 3rd party physics isn't insanely hard (but it's laborious), but requires a good knowledge of how Torque updates, interpolates objects and network stuff.

Modifying the existing movable objects (Player, Vehicles, Projectiles and Items) to use whatever new physics engine you get there is hard and requires not only knowledge of updating and networking, but a deep knowledge on how each one of those classes handle their own movement and physics. It's a dauting task that requires lots and lots of work. Only a project that definetly required kick ass physics would justify such endeavor, if it were my case.

Well, in my case, if I just wanted pretty boxes and beach balls, I'd use WheeledVehicles without any wheels. When setup corretly, they work decently for such small decorations.

#17 Akio was able to get an updated TGE collision system working that functioned rather amazingly. Said to wait until GG releases theirs before buying his though, so I think GG is working on what Akio was doing.

#18 So he did not provide his fix's back to the community?
waiting to sell them?
..
yuck.

Edit:
I think it would be pretty tough to sell a few bug fix's and tweaks.

in fact I think its insane.

#19 His dynamic items and revised vehicle physics are really cool though. Guess we need more than just rigid shape physics.

#20 One of the main reasons I'm trying to get newton setup, is for the joints, that and the vehicle physics so that I can create bi-trailer trucks and terrain trains.

SOme reasons another physics engine would be good:
Better collisions?
Joints, breakable joints.
Ragdoll, yeah its mostly a 'wow' factor thing, but can be good for alot of things if you put your imagination into it.
Differant material frictions (newton gives differant sounds too depending on what material contacts what)

You could make one of those marble tilt games (where you have a maze and have to tilt the maze to move the marble) and have allsorts of puzzles included, say, use the marble to push a weight onto a lift to pull up a bridge.

What about making a complete physics puzzle game?
Push a weight onto a see saw so the end goes up and knocks a ball off its perch to roll down and bounce off a box you angled carefully and rolls onto a switch to activate a door to a room where you need to get the objects for the next step in the puzzle which then once solved drops a bunch of logs into a pool so you can cross and get to the exit.

*shrugs*

Physics are just cool!

And if torque did have a way of using a diff physics engine, I reckon alot of the developers here in the indie scene would come up with some very cool unigue game ideas.