A physics interaction model of a boat in water using nVidia PhysX, Waveworks and Unreal Engine. Since the UE4 Editor requires Waveworks to be integrated, I used a custom build of Unreal Engine. This physics model is based on the Gamsutra article by Jaques Kerner, about a Water interaction model for boats in video games. Ideally, the model should work for a boat of any shape in a body of water with any type of behaviour. However, since the model is still in development, it works for the boat model used.
- Download and build the UE4 Waveworks build (4.15).
- In the project directory, right click on WaveworksTester.uproject.
- Select 'Switch Unreal Engine version...'
- In the dropdown menu, select the source where the UE4 Waveworks build is present.
- Once the project is on the correct UE4 build, you can play the simulation in the Editor.
In the image above, the yellow, green and blue lines represent the different forces acting on the boat
The model is designed as a component that can be attached to any Actor, such that that Actor is now able to use the Water Interaction physics. There are two main C++ classes that include the code required to run this interaction -
/Source/WaveworksTester/CustomComponents/WaterPhysicsComponent- This includes all the logic required to run the physics simulation./Source/WaveworksTester/Utility/BoatPhysicsUtil- This includes the mathematic formulae used by the simulation.
For more detailed information on the project, check out the dev diary. Here, I've detailed weekly updates on the project. I now work on this project in my free time; so the frequency of updates have gone down a bit.
- Packaging the project to an exe file is not working.
- Partially submerged triangles are not included in calcualation.
- Balancing of the numbers to better suit boats of any size.
- Addition of Slamming forces.