NVIDIA has announced the release of the latest version of its PHYSX 5.6 simulation engine along with the Physx SDK tools. The updated version also includes a new release of the liquid modeling library known as flow 2.2.0. This project code is distributed under the BSD-3 license and supports various platforms including Linux, MacOS, iOS, Windows, and Android.
Despite Physx SDK being published with the source code under the BSD license since 2018, there was one significant exception – the Simulation Kernel core composition was not included. However, in the latest SDK Physx 5.6 update, Nvidia has made the composition available under the BSD license and included it in the SDK. This update brings more than 500 pre-built cores for CUDA, offering functions such as solid body dynamics, fluid simulation, and object deformation modeling. It also provides access to the full implementation of shaders for GPU calculations for the Flow SDK.
Physx is a widely used physics engine in the gaming industry, being integrated into thousands of games and various game engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity3d, Anvilnext, Stingray, Dunia 2, and Redengine. The engine is versatile and can be scaled for different devices, from smartphones to high-end workstations with multi-core CPUs and GPUs, leveraging GPU capabilities for accelerated effects processing.
Physx finds application in various areas such as creating effects like destruction, explosions, realistic movements of characters and objects, swirling smoke, dynamic trees affected by wind, flowing water, cloth animation, and interactions between solid and soft bodies. Apart from game development, the engine has uses in data synthesis for AI research, training neural networks, creating realistic environments for robotics training, simulating real-world conditions for autonomous vehicles, and autopilot systems.