Thursday, March 5th, 2015 Posted by Jim Thacker

Nvidia releases PhysX source code on GitHub

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O04ErnJ8USY
Real-time physics technology in action: Nvidia’s PhysX Destruction demo from GDC 2013. The company has just made the source code of the PhysX SDK and the destruction and clothing libraries available on GitHub.

Nvidia is making PhysX SDK 3.3, its popular games physics system, available for free on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Android, including full source code access. The announcement was made at GDC 2015.

Now free for console and mobile as well as Windows
Integrated into Unreal Engine, Unity and Bitsquid Engine – the basis of Autodesk’s Stingray game engine – PhysX provides a broad range of features, including rigid body dynamics, collision detection and particles.

According to Nvidia, the technology has been used in over 500 commercial games, on multiple platforms.

Previously, only binary distributions were available, and the only one available for commercial use was for Windows. If you wanted to use PhysX on iOS, Android or a console, you had to pay.

Clothing and destruction systems also available
Nvidia is also making PhysX Clothing and PhysX Destruction available for free. The cloth simulation and destruction libraries are integrated into Unreal Engine and have been used in AAA titles like Bioshock Infinite.

Benefits for tools developers?
The benefits of source code access to PhysX for game developers are obvious, but it will also be interesting to see if PhysX technology finds its way into any offline tools.

There are already PhysX plugins for 3ds Max and Maya, and one of the main reasons for the widespread adoption of the Bullet physics system in DCC software in recent years is that it is available open source.

Availability
To access Nvidia’s GitHub code repository or to download the Windows, Mac, Linux and Android PhysX binaries, you’ll need to join its GameWorks Developer Program.

The C++ source code for the CPU-based implementation will also be available in Epic Games’ repository, including the clothing and destruction libraries.

Read Nvidia’s announcement about the release of the PhysX source code
(Includes link to GitHub respository)

Download the PhysX SDK binaries from Nvidia’s website

Visit the Unreal Engine GitHub repository