Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 10, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Why should a customer be interested in a physics engine when there are already
a few on the market? Sebastian Krieg answers the question in part like this: “For
one thing, the implementation differs from other engines. While all engines available on the market are based on a plug-in that has to be installed, this is
a freely usable circuit that can be run on any computer without installation. The particular advantage is that when changing Cinema 4D versions or changing operating systems, the code does not have to be compiled again, as is usually the case with plug-ins. If plug-in suppliers one day stop providing support, it can no longer be used in new versions of Cinema 4D. This engine, by contrast, can be used from version 10 far into the future.”
Inserting the vehicles
Another advantage is the absolutely simple handling of vehicles equipped with the physics engine. “To carry out a physically correct drive through the streets
of an architectural visualisation, for example, the user merely has to insert the equipped vehicle into the scene by copy and paste and drag and drop the desired route spline and the ground object from the Object Manager into two
text boxes,” Krieg describes it.
The required driving spline only has to lie in the top view to match the road, while its height is irrelevant. At the press of the play button, the car drives from the beginning of the spline to its end with all associated movements, without a single keyframe having been set. Only if stops and speed changes are desired are a few keys required. Scenes with any number of vehicles are no problem either, since each vehicle has its own controller.
The final advantage lies in the very realistic movements of the body and wheels. “Since almost all movements are calculated on the basis of real physical laws, they cannot be reproduced with manual key animation,” the 3D expert sums it up and adds. “The effort required for complex driving animations is reduced to a few minutes of setup time. And if you do want to animate part of the driving animation by hand, the driving physics can be switched on and off in a controlled way.”
Target groups
The target group for this physics engine comprises all professions in which physically correct driving animations matter and where 3D scenes need to be filled with life with little effort: architects who want to expand their architectural scenes with driving animations, for example, or advertising fi lms, where realistic vehicle animations are often needed. The engine can be used so variably that it covers all these areas.
Availability
The physics engine itself is not yet commercially available. However, there are two ways to obtain vehicles equipped with the physics engine. On the one hand, equipped vehicles can be purchased through DOSCH DESIGN. It offers different vehicle packages with up to 20 vehicles, from normal cars and Jeeps to heavy, four-axle trucks. These high-quality vehicle models can be used directly in users’ own scenes.
The second way to obtain equipped vehicles is for interested parties to send their own vehicle models to 3d-bewegungswerkstatt, where they are correctly equipped with the physics engine for an expense allowance and then returned.
Contact: Sebastian Krieg, 3d-bewegungswerkstatt
Email: skrieg@3d-bewegungswerkstatt.de
Web: http://www.3d-bewegungswerkstatt.de
In the current issue of DIGITAL PRODUCTION 01/11, Krieg discusses not only technical details, but also how the idea arose and what extensive prerequisites such a development requires.
Further links:
- 3d-bewegungswerkstatt
Dosch Design
