Are there any 3party apps or are there plans from Houdini to export simulations in form that can be used by PhysX?

I an using Torque 3D and now need a package to export PhysX info to the engine.

Don't really want to invest in 3DS Max for this or Softimage.

i don't know about 3rd party but i think its doubtful. Houdini uses tightly integrated physics engines so that fluids can interact with rigid bodies, particles, fur etc. PhysX is primarily a game engine tool so your probably better off with 3DSMax. There was a maya plugin but that got axed. Didn't know XSI did the same thing though.

Also a side note does anyone know if Houdini will be able to utalize larrabee or cuda for its calculations?

XSI has integrated PhysX and ODE support and exports fine.

Houdini has been successfully used in game piplelines and is also sold with a DTS exporter for Torque. So I am really looking for information relative to that and if there are plans to incorporate in the future.

Also a side note does anyone know if Houdini will be able to utalize larrabee or cuda for its calculations?

Might want to try asking in another thread.. :roll:

With the addition of the ODE RBD solver in H10, the door is now open for enterprising individuals to incorporate other solvers in to Houdini's dynamics environment. The source code for ODE is included with Houdini's distro as an example of how to integrate a 3rd party solver as a first class solver in DOPs. The limitation isn't with the architecture. It's just that no one has attempted a port of PhysX in to DOPs as another rbd solver as far as I know.

There is an active group on OdForce that is working at integrating the Open Source Bullet Solver in to DOPs:
http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?/forum/58-opensource-bullet-physics-rbd-dop-solver/ [forums.odforce.net]

I am sure that doesn't help you out much, but it is “possible”.


As for Larrabee and cuda, I am sure there is interest in these technologies from pretty much all software developers. Larrabee is clearly on the near future Intel roadmap. If Intel delivers on their roadmap, in a couple years it will be pretty hard to buy an intel processor that didn't have intel gpu's on board…

VEX in SOPs/COPs/POPs and other Houdini contexts utilize the MMX extensions on both intel and AMD processors and can be threaded per proc easily for several releases/years now. H9 sported a build of Mantra that took advantage of the Sony Cell processors which is pretty seamless. The way it should be imho.

Moores Law is now being pushed in to massive parallelism and each release of Houdini is showing more and more threaded features. H9 introduced a threaded UI. H10 saw threaded sim enhancements, support for GPU acceleration in some COPs, and more.

@Jeff,

No that helped thanks. ODE is an option, but would prefer PhysX. Sounds like things are moving that direction. But seeing as I need to start exporting soon, and my programming knowledge for these type exporters still needs some honing, I may be forced to buy a lic of 3DS Max.

But thanks for the info and links.. Will definitely check into it.