Havok4 Is Here On The Beta Grid!
Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 3:45 PM by: Sidewinder LindenIt is time to announce the beta testing of “the project you thought would never ever get finished” - one that has been far more complex than we expected. Of course, I’m talking about the long-awaited upgrade of the Second Life physics engine to Havok2… which is now Havok4! The Havok physics engine provides the core algorithms for collisions and rigid body dynamics - anything that pushes, collides or tumbles in-world.
WHAT WILL HAVOK4 DO FOR SECOND LIFE?
This project is all about improving sim stability and reliability, reducing lag in the physics engine, and fixing some bugs that could not be fixed under Havok1. In other words, there are no new features in the Havok4 project, despite the fact that there has been significant work done “under the hood”. Once Havok4 is stable with beta testing completed we will be able to start adding new features, but the current goal is to get all the current features working with this new version of Havok.
The Havok4 public preview is now open, and you can help us finish testing by downloading the beta installers, logging into the beta, testing the objects in your inventory, and reporting any problems you encounter.
What Should Change With Havok4?
- Reduced simulator crashes
- Less lag in the physics engine
- More reliable prim linkage
- Stacked dynamic objects react when supporting objects are removed
- Improved collision management - uniform spheres collide as spheres, rather than as faceted shapes
- Penetrating dynamic objects will be automatically pushed apart by Havok4’s collision solver
- Vertical simulation extent has been increased to 1024 meters
- Some slight dynamic changes - avatar movements have changed slightly
What Should Not Change With Havok4?
- Dynamic objects are still limited to 31 primitives
- Region crossings can still lag and “rubber band”
- Most objects still have a 0.1 meter “collision tolerance” boundary, so they may still collide while appearing to be not quite touching
- Everything else
This is an early beta, so we are opening this preview with some known bugs that are already being addressed, including:
- There is a known resource leak in the simulator that can cause it to crash
- Avatar does not always sit in the “right spot”
- LSL collision() events are broken
- LSL VolumeDetect feature is broken
HOW TO GET THE HAVOK4 PUBLIC BETA TEST VIEWER
You can download the HAVOK4 BETA CLIENT HERE (Note: This beta is on the BETA GRID and is completely disconnected from the main grid, so your main grid assets will not be affected by any experiments with the Havok beta)
Please see the Havok4 Wiki for more information, try everything you can think of, to be sure that your content works correctly with Havok4, and please remember to send us feedback using Second Life Issue Tracker at https://jira.secondlife.com/. The Havok4 Wiki has information including:
- Configuration of the beta grid for testing
- Our release plan for testing and release of Havok v4 physics to the main grid
- Technical information about the Havok4 update
READ THE HAVOK4 PUBLIC BETA WIKI PAGES
Please see the Havok4 Public Beta wiki to better understand the Second Life Havok4 update.
OFFICE HOURS
At the Brampton Linden Stage (Brampton 106/166/25)
This Saturday September 29, 2007 08:00 AM PDT
Tuesdays 21:00 PDT (ongoing)
Thursdays (starting October 4, 2007) 08:00 PDT
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP IN MAKING SECOND LIFE EVEN BETTER!
We are looking forward to your participation and feedback!
Andrew Linden, Lead Developer
Sidewinder Linden, Program Manager
Comments are enabled so that we can share ideas, but let’s keep the “hey finally” posts to a minimum, ok?
September 28th, 2007 at 3:51 PM
sweet.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:53 PM
This sound great! OMG this is what all the residents have been waiting for for many months! Less lag and less crashes!
Thanks!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:54 PM
31 prims still!? darn!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:54 PM
Kooool! ^_^
September 28th, 2007 at 3:54 PM
Way overdue, but hey anything is better then nothing!
Good work!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:54 PM
wonderfull !
too bad physical joint aren’t coming back with havok 4 :/
Will the blog post about EU VAT will take as much time as the migration havok 1 -> 4 ? We’re waiting for it too… y’know ?
September 28th, 2007 at 3:55 PM
Hey Finally! Sorry couldn’t help it
- Clearly a step in the right direction!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:56 PM
JUPIIIIIIIIIII
That is great,
September 28th, 2007 at 3:56 PM
Sounds cool. I have one question though… What does “Vertical simulation extent has been increased to 1024 meters
” mean?
September 28th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
sexy! Finally something to look forward to!
Put that windlight thing aside and focus on this puppy. 
Stability baby!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:59 PM
I thought one of the biggest improvements Havok 4 would bring us would be to get rid of that annoying 0.1m collision tolerance. Why didn’t that go away with Havok 4?
September 28th, 2007 at 3:59 PM
this is so exciting! i’m so jumpy, thank you linden labs
September 28th, 2007 at 4:00 PM
Very nice, I love playing with physics, especially making catapults . Anyways, this will be an update I will actually want. Hehe.
-YT
September 28th, 2007 at 4:00 PM
Holy crap!! Go LL!
And… Y’all seem to be missing a VAT blog post..
September 28th, 2007 at 4:04 PM
Holy shit.
Congrats guys!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Wheeoooooo……….. Excellent!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
I am sure they are writing the VAT blog as we speak. They just had to get the other couple out first
September 28th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Get the #()$ out!
I will now use the 100 posts to cheer!
Thank you for making me very busy!
My faith meter just went up 100 points. This is the best thing I’ve heard in 3 years. Oh, how I have waited in pain!
I’ve been a loud voice doubting this would ever come. Will you take me back? I’d love to see this tested on a dedicated race track sim for vehicles. I happen to have a few laying around! (hint)
ok, I’m melting here. Much thanks to the dev team for working on this base functionality. It’s been a long time coming and I look forward to exploring the physics fully ’cause racing improves the breed
It’s been a while, but I <3 me some SL.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:06 PM
W000000WWW!
sniky… velly snikky…
this should be fun…
September 28th, 2007 at 4:06 PM
This is very interesting. I shall look forward to testing this. If done properly, this could make a big difference in the long-term to both stability and featuresets. Such a pity that Havok is proprietary and not opensource, since the physics element will cause such problems when trying to opensource the servers.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:09 PM
ARRGGGHHHH!!!
“503 Service Unavailable
The service is not available. Please try again later.”
Please fix the link to the download pleeeeeze!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:10 PM
OMG after years of waiting something is finally done with the Havok physics engine! YaaaAAAAaaaay =^-^=
September 28th, 2007 at 4:14 PM
bugs on top of bugs !!!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:14 PM
Dynamic objects are still limited to 31 primitives
Oh - that’s a major disappointment! Is this temporary or are they no real improvements to vehicles?
Matthew
September 28th, 2007 at 4:16 PM
Excellent - been waiting on this for 3 years.
Now can you get on and give us some info about EU VAT please - some of us already have our solictors ready to bite. So far the theory is - this doesnt add up right!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:16 PM
Remember that they are simply trying to get the current features, as is, to work with the Havok 4 core code. If you’re wondering why Havok 4 didn’t change a lot of things, it’s because that’d constitute as a ‘new feature’ and they are putting those off in favor of simply getting everything running properly.
Which seems to be what people are asking for, so.
I’m sure that we’ll get new physics treats down the road, like re-implementing joints, etcetera.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:17 PM
hehe, it sure is chilly in hell today!!;) lol!!! wooooooow, congrats!! :)) gonna try it and play with marbles.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:20 PM
Given that I am resident in the UK will I be getting Havok 4.7 ? (4 + 17.5%)
This is excellent news to be fair and any other weekend I would be as excited as others. Forgive me then that my response is a tad muted.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:21 PM
i’ve got a funny feeling this will render those ownage systems usless..
September 28th, 2007 at 4:21 PM
That’s nice…but I’m still skeptical.
I may have to check it out on my own…if I feel it’s good, then maybe I’ll let a *little* cheer out.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:24 PM
I’m sorry but you seem to be pulling the covers over your sudden imposition of 17.5% increase of charges for Europe. Havok will mean nothing to us as we will be packing up and waiting for the next platform to come along. Please address our issues/questions now, others are already noting that you maybe acting illegally in not giving us notice. For once please try a modicum of customer awareness.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:25 PM
YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
that’s all I can say for now.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:25 PM
How many years has it been? No matter, I’m thrilled to finally see this coming out to play!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:29 PM
Vertical simulation extent has been increased to 1024 meters
Does this mean we’ll be able to build up to that height? I like that =D
September 28th, 2007 at 4:29 PM
Nice, physics is always a good thing for a game / virtual world. Did we always have some version of Havok? Or did we use some other physics engine?
September 28th, 2007 at 4:29 PM
What is next? Simulator code? oh the wet dreams of windlight? Joints? More stable grid? 1024×1024 sims? yum 1024×1024 sims. Faith meter has been shot up 77.5 points.. but still need more
Oh and GET FULL VISTA SUPPORT! and maybe multi core cpu support to? Yum SL using a quad core CPU. Anyone care to make this wet dream real?
Congrats and a few WOOT’s for ya LL / SL Comunity
September 28th, 2007 at 4:29 PM
VAT is here on the grid. 100% cowards.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:30 PM
According to the page linked from the story, an abstraction layer has been put in between the sim and the physics engine, so substituting an OSS physics system for an OSS simulator release should be less hard than it otherwise might be.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:31 PM
So when are we going for Havok 5?
September 28th, 2007 at 4:33 PM
*stare* is that… a FLYING PIG I see? *boggles*
September 28th, 2007 at 4:34 PM
if you find a way to increase “collision tolerance”, please do…!!!!
thanks
September 28th, 2007 at 4:34 PM
can we not bring the vat thing into this article. Just amazes me we get such a good thing to play and talk and have fun with everybody and everything and then the lindens make a legal stance and start charging the correct amounts to stay out of legal trouble and bam. Here comes the rage and the anger. Lets take a moment and think about this.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:34 PM
Drake, they will put 5 off until 7 ;-D
September 28th, 2007 at 4:35 PM
/me checks to see if Duke Nukem Forever came out today as well.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:37 PM
@31 if the Lindens had the balls to step up to the plate and explained and apologised for the VAT fiasco, then we could talk about the funky new features. However the Lindens have disgracefully stuck two fingers up to European residents and decided to hide.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:37 PM
I have just seen Hell freezing over, and Lucifer running around begging for a fur coat.
April 1st was moved to September 28th?
I’m looking at the stars and they’re dimming out, one by one…
The Singularity is out there!
“Look mommy, a flying pig!”
*pinches herself very very hard*
Ok, well, I’m in denial now… this is something everyone has been waiting for FOUR YEARS… now I wonder, will it remain in Beta forever and then become another “abandoned” project, as so many others? Because… this is simply too good to be true!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:38 PM
Vista AO non functional. basically any hud attachment is nonfunctional.
asset server in beta seems to be dead. Hair, etc.; will not appear.
on a funny note everyone is born naked as a jay bird in the welcome area.
not even going to waste time in jira making entries unless they fix the basic elements of a grid.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:40 PM
Will the next blog post be about the Linden xmas party, or will it be about the VAT scandal that affects the 211667+ active residents within the EU? (btw this is versus the 149055 active US members….)
LL, get your priorities right please and answer the questions being asked… burying your heads in the sand will not help LL at all - in fact, it’s starting to look like arrogance of the highest degree!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:41 PM
Surprising and welcome news. And now I’m off to downlo…….
September 28th, 2007 at 4:42 PM
Yes, yes. Very well. Now when are you going to apologize for not warning us that you were going to charge VAT?
September 28th, 2007 at 4:42 PM
Drools on Gwyneth’s shoes; I concur pretty lady.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:43 PM
Could someone point me to the info on the VAT changes
September 28th, 2007 at 4:49 PM
AWESOMESAUCE!! I’ve always said that this was the right direction to go as far as SL was concerned! Work out Stability before any new features are added, I made the S in Stability capital cuz I think it’s really important ^-^
I remember watching this video for Vista, it was horrible! The guy said that Microsoft customers want 3 things: “comunication, appearance and something-else-i-forget-what” they don’t mention Realiability or Stability even once! And guess what… They never though about it either, running the Vista OS is like running a game, it takes up 40% of your CPU just to leave your computer idle on Vista… Anyways, I mention this cuz if you guys continued to add new features without first resolving the known “lag-causers” then, just like Vista, your fanbase would of shrunk pretty quickly.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:50 PM
And another thing, get Arcadia Asylum’s inventory back to her (even if you already ‘killed’ her). She was one of the best builders in SL and without her builds your product would be worth a lot less, imo. With or without Havok4.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:52 PM
SL is not able to have a working homepage. - rofl
SL is not able to deliver simple text chat - wow lol
and SL has a very much tax evaded/suppressed - eric L you like tax so much (please-beautifully)
…
damn Linden Laps…SL is not working and anybody forgots to terminate it
September 28th, 2007 at 4:54 PM
On a more serious note does Havok 4 require viewer changes and if so will the beta viewer be made available to the open source community for testing/inspecting?
September 28th, 2007 at 4:54 PM
Why does everyone keep getting mad at LL for being forced to react to the policies of governments? Does anyone here believe SL is a Super Power?
PS: Woot Havok! I’m gonna play me some Jenga!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:59 PM
yippppeeeee, I am downloading this NOW.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Oh this is very cool, here’s a question, with Havok 4 out and being tested, do we see incremental updates in the Havok engine as time goes on? (so like every year a new update)?
September 28th, 2007 at 5:05 PM
wow, it feels so fast!!!
thanks LL and good luck with next steps.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:07 PM
VAT blog please. let’s address the real havok that’s being wreaked on SL.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:08 PM
Woops. The list of outstanding issues is not quite up to date. The resource leak is gone and LSL collision events should be working correctly. Meanwhile, vehicles that move along the ground are pretty much broken and there is a bug with avatar rotations are not updating on others views.
There are no viewer changes for Havok4 — it is all server side.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:09 PM
:0
that is just what sl needs
September 28th, 2007 at 5:11 PM
Well, this makes up for the beta grid being down for the past few… HEY! WAITAMINNIT!!!
I see what you did there.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:14 PM
But… but … where is Havoc 2 that was promised being just a few weeks away when I started in May 2004. This is very cool and I’ll take whatever I can get.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:15 PM
VAT BLOG PLEASE - As Raymond said, let’s deal with the RL havoc you are causing before we talk about your rushed out Havok.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:17 PM
I hope this speeds up the puppeteering and physical avatar projects. Havok 4 was such a necessary upgrade.
oh and I wanna my joints back
September 28th, 2007 at 5:21 PM
NO FREAKING WAY!!!!! =O
September 28th, 2007 at 5:23 PM
“”The Havok4 public preview is now open, and you can help us finish testing by downloading the beta installers, logging into the beta, testing the objects in your inventory, and reporting any problems you encounter.”"
We are supposed to help by reporting problems with this, however our other reported problems that continue release after release, reported in JIra, get ignored ? Im sorry to be negative without contributing solutions, but really. If we are asked time and again to report bugs and yet issues that affect our enjoyment of SL get ignored, what kind of message does that send?
September 28th, 2007 at 5:26 PM
503 Service Unavailable
The service is not available. Please try again later.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:29 PM
I remember two and a half years ago when we were jumping for joy over “OMG HAVOK2 IS COMMING!”
A little late, but good to see it’s finally here…and better.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:29 PM
right so off topic but annoyed. I have a prim that i created that i own - that i cannot edit?
September 28th, 2007 at 5:29 PM
“hey finally”
1. Will this clear the way for avatar puppetry? Does this have any substantive affect on future movement on dat project?
2. Will this affect current content in any major ways? Are there any “warning signs” of potential breakage?
Mari
September 28th, 2007 at 5:30 PM
‘Vertical simulation extent has been increased to 1024 meters’
I have recognised you *can* place prims at this hight, but they tended to behave strange. Does it means the sky is further open now?
September 28th, 2007 at 5:31 PM
I’d just like a confirmation from Andrew Linden or any other Linden involved in this:
Is your long-term intent to not only make the grid Havok4 compatible, but also to add the features that Havok4 supports, such as joints, tight collision boundaries (tighter than 0.1m, that is), and (I may just be dreaming here) physics for flexis and sculpties?
September 28th, 2007 at 5:36 PM
[...] No, this is not about Europeans having now to pay Value Added Tax to Linden Lab — I’ve covered it on SLOG already — but something far more unexpected: Havok4 Is Here On The Beta Grid! [...]
September 28th, 2007 at 5:37 PM
WOW!
This is wonderful
U sagi Musashi
September 28th, 2007 at 5:38 PM
The primary goal of the Havok4 project is to make the simulator more resistant to crashes.
Therefore, the plan is to first release Havok4 without any new features — just get the old features working as they’re supposed to be (as much as possible). Then, once everything is stable we’ll be able to start adding new features. I’ll definitely going to start with some not-so-hard projects before I tackle joints.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:38 PM
YES! Finally, better physics! So now all that goody physics we’ve seen in most Playstation3 games will be in Second Life
.
(To give a better example, the physics you may have encountered in MotorStorm and Genji: Days of the Blade, will be 99% integrated in Second Life with the new Havok engine. This gets us closer to “Next-Gen quality”
)
September 28th, 2007 at 5:38 PM
hummm havok4 you say hummmmmmm you mean like the one used in todays video games like saints row or halo3 hummmmmm
i just have one small favor…….. can the object limit at least be 62 prims now? please pretty please with a cherry on top
September 28th, 2007 at 5:44 PM
So are we supposed to be able to connect to the beta grid now?
“Unable to connect to Second Life.
DNS could not resolve to the host name.”
September 28th, 2007 at 5:46 PM
Can it be used to bounce the camping farms out of popular places before the rest of us go out of business?
September 28th, 2007 at 5:49 PM
Locke Traveler
(1) Havok4 has nothing to do with avatar puppetry.
(2) The hope is that we can finish Havok4 while breaking as little content as possible. I suspect some content will break and it will be impossible to salvage in Havok4, however how much is unclear.
Here is an example where some content will probably break. In Havok1 the shape of the VolumeDetect feature is an axis aligned bounding box, no matter what the shape of the actual object. In Haovk4 the shape of the VolumeDetect feature is actually the shape of the object. This will probably break someone’s content, but in this case it is probably unavoidable — the benefit of properly shaped VolumeDetect outweighs the amount of content that relies on it being an axis aligned bounding box.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:51 PM
@Arsheba Nasu: Well, this will make the limit twice the max against performance now (E.g.: Old Havok had a max of either 20 high-end physical calculations users [E.g.: Racers], 40 casual walkers and visitors, 80 bystanders and frequent chatters, and 100 standing doing nothing except chatting to maintain 40-45FPS, while new Havok multiplies the limits by approximately 3 times.), so campers won’t crash or lag a sim.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:52 PM
[...] This is sure to be one of the most talked-about topics amongst Second Life developers in the next few days: It seems a secret Linden Lab project has come to fruition with testing of Havok 4 on the Beta Grid. [...]
September 28th, 2007 at 6:00 PM
Hi.
It says on the wiki that we can test weapons, shields.
There are lots of weapons and shields that depend on collision event, and on volume detect. So how can those be tested? I hope that will be made possible before havok is released on the main grid.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:01 PM
Sounds great. Been long needed. Shame we’re still limited to 31prims, but, can’t be helped I guess. I do wish somehow prim sizes could be larger and link distances longer. That would help builders stop tearing their hair out.
One thing though LL: PLEASE be more lag-conscious. You all keep bringing out new things that lag terribly. Sculpties are fine, but they lag beyond belief. I like flexis, they’re great, but between them and sculpties… you’re killing us out here. I have a great computer with a high-level graphics card and 3 gigs of RAM… and I’m barely keeping up. The lag is ridiculous. PLEASE be more conscious of lag in your “features” additions. It is possible you know, to literally lag the system to destruction.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:03 PM
Per-prim LSL collision callbacks should be working in Havok4. The list of broken items on the blog post is a little out of date. I suspect VolumeDetect is still broken.
We’ll have other versions up for preview next week with more bug fixes.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:03 PM
Once Havoc 4 is rolled out on the main grid and the kinks ironed out, does anyone know what future features we can possibly look forward to in terms of content creation? Looks like some people will be geeking out on wikipedia with a nervous twitch puting a wishlist together…
“right so off topic but annoyed. I have a prim that i created that i own - that i cannot edit?”
Server bugs aside, could the prim of being transfered to another avatar (with no-mod perms) and then back to you. That way you could be creator and owner but not be able to edit it.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:05 PM
Andrew -
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Puppeteering
“IK and rag-doll physics: Residents could walk hand in hand with realistic motion. Avatars tumble realistically when falling (or when shot, pushed). ”
isn’t that part of Havok physics? I’m pretty sure it is.
http://www.havok.com/content/view/19/32/
September 28th, 2007 at 6:07 PM
Does this mean that the stuff that USED to be in my inventory would behave a bit more realistically in this exciting new environment?
Ooooh. I’m so thrilled.
IF MY INVENTORY ITEMS WERE ALL STILL THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For the love of little puppies…FIX THE MISSING INVENTORY ISSUES.
Every time an inventory item disappears…a little puppy dies.
STOP KILLING THE LITTLE PUPPIES!
September 28th, 2007 at 6:08 PM
How are you supposed to test, you have regions running on different versions so if you move anything across them, you crash or lose control of whatever you are doing. Let us know when you have the entire beta grid running the same server code, and I will be happy to go back and try to test again.
DRD
September 28th, 2007 at 6:10 PM
I have another question.
Why do we need a new viewer? Could we use the current Release Candidate Viewer?
September 28th, 2007 at 6:13 PM
Sculpties are fine, but they lag beyond belief.
Just the opposite, as far as I’m concerned.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:14 PM
Oh, while not havoc related, the following is Beta Grid related.
I asked last year about available space at the Vehicle lot. I was told maybe in Feb. This is now basically October, and still the same vendors monoplize Ben’s.
How about opening that place up for others of us to have some fun by putting prototypes etc out for people to buy.
And what ever happened to being able to purchase land in Beta. I realize it is only temp, but it does give you a place to leave longer terms tests and builds in place.
Any thoughts out there??
DRD
September 28th, 2007 at 6:17 PM
@55 AndrewLinden
But can the hardware handle this new engine?
September 28th, 2007 at 6:24 PM
@ Archer Braun (#65)
“For the love of little puppies…FIX THE MISSING INVENTORY ISSUES.”
For the love of little puppies……..STAY ON TOPIC!!!!!!!!! Everytime you come on here to bitch about VAT, missing inventory items, ad nauseum, on a blog post that has absolutely nothing to do with such issues, a little puppy dies!!!!!!!
Now, for LL………
Sweet!!!!!!!!! I’ll be on the beta grid helping test it out. Sounds like it’s still going to be work to get it all working right, but well worth it. Thank you!
September 28th, 2007 at 6:29 PM
@ 67 - Rex Cronon:
It’s not a new viewer, just a viewer that only points at the Beta Grid.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:37 PM
@Hypatia (64): While Havok does support rag dolls and such, the puppeteering feature is being based on another product, Endorphin (last I knew anyway). Last I heard, we won’t likely be seeing that untill well into ‘08, if that. *sigh*
September 28th, 2007 at 6:37 PM
What, Havoc 4? Really?
News just in: tomorrow both Duke Nukem Forever and Spore will be released as a bundle.
Good work
Now we will have bouncies to play with.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:39 PM
Given the way SL seems to be so laggy over the last few days, this is certainly welcome news!
I think I’m going to actually play in the Beta grid, and see if I can’t help with this– I’d LOVE to see a more stable Main grid!
September 28th, 2007 at 6:51 PM
Havok 4 is Crashtastic!!! Physical objects are wonky and will roll uphill. A rubber ball behaves exactly like a stone ball. Sim crossings are seriously fubar too. And I’m loving every minute of it.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:04 PM
….looks outside to see if pigs really did grow wings……..nope, but damn its cold out there….maybe something DID freeze over
September 28th, 2007 at 7:08 PM
Ouch. Would love to give it a try, but the link to the download page is broken.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:08 PM
So I’m confused. Is this Havok 2, or Havok 4, or Havok 2 plus VAT?
September 28th, 2007 at 7:19 PM
“Some slight dynamic changes - avatar movements have changed slightly” .. maybe I missed a question about this from others, but will this affect existing animations in poseballs and Animation Overrides?
September 28th, 2007 at 7:20 PM
Can we physically model smaller objects in H4? Can we model objects smaller than a billiard ball, for instance?
September 28th, 2007 at 7:46 PM
Wow, I think I’m tempted to test out a beta (and possibly finally upgrade my computer) for the first time in a couple of years! I can’t wait to find out if vehicle races, especially the aerial dogfights and the sailing competitions, will be back on the table.
Can I also renew my call to test out alternative physics settings, such as larger and smaller sims, loading large numbers of sims onto GPGPU-type servers, activity-appropriate physics models such as high-fidelity for vehicles vs. simplified for large crowds of avatars? Just wondering if any of these have been tried out or are on the agenda.
Also I would add to your “Things to test out” list: A couple of “pile-on” nights where you schedule to see just how many typically-dressed avatars the beta grid can handle under the new engine.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
So …. “apparently” when Havok4 is introduced to SL properly it will “apparently” resolve issues with crashing, lagging and log-in errors. Things that “apparently” should have been fixed before SL was even released. Wow. “Apparently” i should be overjoyed by this, but “apparently” I’m not. “Apparently” thankyou’s are in order. Gee, I really do hope that Linden gives us forewarning as to when they are “apparently” going to install this new software and shut down the grid to do so.
Hey, I just saw a purple pig fly over the snow-covered fields of hell.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:52 PM
YEEEEAAAAAHWOOHOOOOO!
September 28th, 2007 at 7:52 PM
So is the 64 prim physics limit going to carry over or is that a glitch now??
September 28th, 2007 at 7:54 PM
I knew it’d happen sooner or later. I guess my contact was a little off on his timing (by a year). This is great news to hear about. I look forward to greater sim stability (in regards to physics anyways). I am slightly upset that we still can’t join more than 31 prims together, I would have thought the limit would be raised to 63. Hopefully with Havok 4 in place you’ll have the means to rapidly calculate a tight fitting convex hull for sculpties so we won’t have ferociously over/under sized collision bodies for oddly made shapes like our current spherical method provides.
In regards to prim sizes though, can we get the size limits bumped up to a wholely reasonable 30-40m? Builders the grid over would love you for it, and it would reduce the prim load in every sim. ^.^
September 28th, 2007 at 8:03 PM
By “avatar movements” we’re talking about the avatar’s speed when walking, wallking uphill, walking up steps, walking downhill, flying, falling, … etc, and also times for transitions between various modes of movement — nothing to do with animations themselves.
No new features are on the current agenda. I’ll be considering what features to work on once Havok4 is deployed to Second Life, and stable.
There are two main reasons this overhaul of the physics engine took so long (it was a two month project that has taken almost 1 year). One is that we’ve had to do a major overhaul of how the simulator code interfaces with the physics engine. There have been massive changes under the hood that won’t be visible to the residents, but will make life much easier for LL developers. The second reason is that we’ve had to work very hard to make SL features work the same in Havok4 as they did in Havok1. Avatar motion and vehicles have been the two largest headaches in this regard, and I’m still working on vehicles.
Havok4 very similar to Havok2. Havok1 is very different from Havok2. The latest version of Havok is now 5, but we’re going to finish Havok4 before we move to Havok5 (Havok5 isn’t very different from Havok4 anyway). Due to the aforementioned overhaul of the simulator code it will be much Much MUCH easier to upgrade to Havok5 than it was to go from 1 to 4.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:18 PM
This is good news.
Stability is a good thing. I think this is a pretty good development.
See? Positive feedback for positive things.
Anony Mouse
September 28th, 2007 at 8:24 PM
September 26, 2007, 6:00 am - Second Life is closed for a scheduled service outage while we make updates to the grid. The outage is expected to last from 6am-8am Pacific Time (13:00-15:00 GMT). Watch the blog for details and updates.
You who…anyone up at LL we have a small problem with the splash screen saying the grid is down on a Friday night….hello *Is this thing on?
September 28th, 2007 at 8:32 PM
Will Havok4 allow support for the Ageia PhysX cards for those of us that have them ?
September 28th, 2007 at 8:40 PM
EXCELLENT news Andrew,
This will bring SL back into the 21st century in this regard, looking forward to all the upgrades that start after it is stable, and I expect some stuff to stop working, just as any opperating system upgrade (except Vista where it seems deliberately incompatable)
September 28th, 2007 at 8:44 PM
does anyone else notice you can make physical objects in the beta that are over 31 prims AND have flexi objects linked to them? how awesome is that!? is this staying?
also I’ve noticed objects tend to go through eachother much easier when going at high speeds and hitting the ground.. also when I drop large objects ontop of my head (:D) they tend to swallow me up like it were made of jello or throw me off to the side violently.. collisions may be too soft.. also sometimes when riding falling objects I end up standing in mid air.
additionally, the physics become incredibly innacurate when put under any stress.. hollow halfspheres start being hit like non-hollow halfspheres and small objects start going straight through larger objects. the previous physics would stay somewhat accurate when put under stress. things like chain links or hinges seem to break apart really easily now..
ehrm….. other than that, awesome update! havok 4! woo!
September 28th, 2007 at 9