Google adds some LiquidFun to physics simulation in games

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Games By Matthew Humphries Mar. 20, 2014 11:33 am
Simulating physics on a computer is hard, really hard if you’re trying to do it from scratch. Ask any game developer who has tried and you’ll trigger a pained look on their face. So it was great news back in 2007 when the first version of the free, open source Box2D physics engine appeared. It meant you could plug in an already working physics simulator into your project and not worry about the low-level details.
Box2D has continued to gain in popularity and features. It’s used in a wide range of game engines and a number of high profile games, including Angry Birds. But it doesn’t do everything, and a team working at Google has decided to extend Box2D by adding particle based fluid and soft body simulations with a new engine called LiquidFun.
If you already use Box2D it should be a simple task to add LiquidFun as an option. It’s an open source project and works across Android, Windows, OS X, and Linux at the moment. It probably won’t take long for someone to add iOS to that list. For gamers, just sit back and enjoy the videos knowing this kind of functionality will start appearing in games soon.
The best way to understand what LiquidFun allows is to see it in action, which can be done by watching the videos included in this post. Realistic liquid is obviously a focus, and LiquidFun achieves that with a range of core components as part of the engine. Waves, surface tension, elastic particle movement, are just a few effects you can see in action and developers are sure to take full advantage quickly in their projects.



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