Unity has announced at GDC 2019 that they are teaming up with Havok and both of them will work together to release two new physics systems. Havok is currently owned by Microsoft and they will be working on with the team at Unity in releasing a new default option and a high-end option which will be backed by Havok’s proprietary physics engine.
This was announced during the GDC 2019 which is currently taking place in San Francisco. Unity’s default physics system will be open-source like before and it will be available to everyone. On the other hand, the high-end version which will be using Havok’s physics system will be a premium version and developers willing to use it must pay for the system before using.
Unity also announced that all current projects will be fully supported by the new physics systems and developers will be able to easily convert them to the newer version. It is not a necessity to convert the projects to the new system but if a developer wants to make the switch, they will be able to do so very easily. They will have the option to convert to anyone of the two new physics systems.
Gamasutra reached out to Unity VP Andrew Bowell who responded to them by saying
There will be no impact on game developers in the middle of building their game with existing physics solutions as these new solutions are for DOTS-based projects. If developers would like to transition their projects to the DOTS framework, we have converters and upgrade paths in place to migrate existing physics content. If you are building a new project on the DOTS framework, the new Unity Physics or Havok Physics integrations will be the supported options.
The new Unity physics system will also be stateless which will complement the engine’s shift to DOTS. This will further make the whole engine more efficient as this will reduce how often the data is pulled from the memory. Both of the new physics engines are being developed with the aim to make them more efficient in terms of pulling the data from the memory.
More details can be found at Unity’s official website. You can also check out Bowell’s complete discussion with Gamasutra by heading to the link below.
