Havok Engine now free for mobile devs

[shakirmoledina]

The people behind the engine have brought forward 'Project Anarchy'. The aim of this project to bring the havok engine completely free to mobile developers with certain conditions.

The engine is known for its collision and dynamics management. It contains many tools such as C++ API, lighting and audio tools, animation studio, and AI.

So what's the catch? Apparently they have presented three main conditions (squeezed into a paragraph for 'some' reason) as follows:

1. Be part of the Project Anarchy community
2. Co-marketing for Havok on shipping your game
3. For an android build of your game, you must also build an x86 version that is said to be a straightforward process

With that said, what's the potential and previous history of this engine?
I am sure you have heard of this engine somewhere but refer to the list below for some of its games

• Age of Empires III
• Assassin's Creed Series
• Battlefield 3
• Bioshock 1 and 2
• Call of Duty Black Ops 2 + Declassified
• Darksiders 2
• Elder Scrolls Skyrim
• Fallout 3 + Vegas
• Guild Wars 2
• L.A Noire
• Portal 2
• Sleeping Dogs
• The Last of Us
• Uncharted Series
• Witcher 2

So with that said... you know it has the power.
But can this come as a great competitor against the dominant Unity and powerful Unreal Engine that are both available free?

http://www.projectanarchy.com/about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_(software)

 

[FAST6191]

Sign up to my site
Stick a placeholder in the title screen or just before it.... how unusual
Cross compile something largely based on java and without too many unusual APIs to get in the way. I might be oversimplifying it though.

Now the tricky thing is most devs (in general and in tools/engine world) seems to have been caught not only sleeping but without even the smallest awareness of the world in question so this reads more as trying to grab some marketshare before it gets too difficult. That said games are good and if this allows for more I have no objections, certainly these restrictions are nothing even close to harsh.

 

[chartube12]

Isn't havok a mod of unreal 2.X & 3.X?

 

[shakirmoledina]

I agree fast, it's too complex in terms of coding. its where unity excels.

I think that Unity is still better for the indie developer who is focusing on delivering 'a game'. Be it simplistic but it should be fun and easy to make and not 'Professional' and 'Realistic'.

This along with Unreal has a greater potential with experienced programmers and designers or a group of 'em.

 

[Gahars]

"Cry 'Havok!' and let slip the devs of war." - William Shakesman

 

[Celice]

Havok is the shit man. I love it in all my games:

awesome body physics
realistic momentum
artistic rendering of still-life

 

[Foxi4]

Havoc can truly cause havoc in the wrong hands, as Celice mentioned.



Top-notch physics right there.

 

[Ethevion]

artistic rendering of still-life

I've seen this happen in Guild Wars 2 lol. It only happened once but it was a windmill that was stretched onto the entire map of Queensdale. It was funny at first, but then it just got in the way and was annoying.

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

Putting Portal 2 on that list is a bit of a stretch... While the Source engine does use some Havok code (among many other pieces of other engines) it's been so heavily altered it's hardly fair to give Havok the credit. Admittedly, Source does apparently use some of Havok's (less disatrous or greatly modified) physics, and physics are a huge part of the Portal games.

 

[shakirmoledina]

at the end of the day, everyone one of these guys has borrowed from havok. some have been successful such as AoE/AC2 while others have failed eg. AC3 with their terrible AnvilNext Engine that was good but with heavy bugs. Its how the company uses it and if they are failing, I don't know about indie devs.