Improving video game features to make them more realistic is a complex undertaking. The latest major technology for realism in games has been ray tracing, which places a greater load on the GPU. Now, to further enhance physics, NVIDIA has just announced SKD PhysX 5.0 , which the company says will arrive "soon in 2020."
This new version offers us support for a “unified particle simulation framework”. It is not the only novelty of this tool, which also includes the FEM (Finite Element Model) simulation technique. This technology will also be implemented at AMD under the name FEMFX. What it tells us is that games improve on deformable physics.
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The Finite Element Model (FEM) is an industry standard simulation technique for deformable bodies. It is widely used in the automotive and manufacturing industries to accurately simulate the structural strength of rigid and soft assemblies. It will be integrated into PhysX 5.0.
For liquid simulations, developers will be able to use discrete particle simulations to model fluids and granular flow. The implementation is scalable; Large steps of time can be used to stably simulate a wide range of liquids. The Discrete Element Model (DEM) provides support for friction and adhesion. PhysX 5.0 also uses an implementation of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate liquids with discrete particles, a technique used in oceanography and vulcanography.
Arbitrary meshes can be simulated as cloth or rope using the PhysX 5.0 constrained particle model. These meshes can be combined with volume preservation restraints with defined application pressures to simulate inflatable shapes. Mesh-based simulations also provide a model to simulate lift and aerodynamic drag. The constraint model supports springs so that it can be used to create mass spring systems. Shape pairing provides a mechanism for groups of particles to maintain a rigid structure. This can be used to simulate the approximate dynamics of the rigid body. Furthermore, the rigid structure can be deformed at run time to implement plastic deformation effects.
