Real Matter

[Gator]

This may or may not be the right section to post this but its tech either way.

 

Overview

RealMatter is a physics engine based on the FastLSM algorithm (Rivers and James 2007). It is aimed at simulating destructible objects for video games. It can simulate rigid or soft bodies in real time.

 

Quite simple, But the physics would be amazing to see in modern day games.

 

RealMatter

 

The downloads are demo and both are different. The videos on the site show the difference.

[Shadowex3]

It looks like the rigid body demonstration is still using the "lego" approach where everything's made up of predefined bits that it can break apart into. That'd probably be why you see artifacts like the house behaving oddly elastically instead of genuinely rigid like it ought.

 

Lego-physics are the poster child for diminishing returns. The more you add the more computing power you need for really not that much more impressive results. What we need is a physics engine more like DMM that can take a solid and break it into smaller pieces of arbitrary size and shape. THAT'S going to be the real bitch to make because that requires the engine to keep track of what something's made of, what it contains, what kind of properties it has as a material, and then dynamically alter it's shape and possibly even mass and structural aspects.