Havok
Physics middleware
Havok was the Dublin physics middleware that released beta code in 1999, merged with Ipion in 2001, aimed version 2.0 at ragdoll characters in 2003, and by 2005 was, in Edge's words, the standard by which the others were judged, with Half-Life 2 and Halo 2 to show for it.
Havok is the Dublin physics middleware that went from beta code in 1999 to, in Edge’s 2005 judgement, “the standard by which the others are judged”. Its early customers were racing games, where vehicle dynamics were the point; Havok 2.0 in 2003 turned it towards characters, and Half-Life 2 made it the physics people had played.
Fast facts
- Origin: “Spun out of research from Dublin University”; beta code released in 1999, the full package shown in 2000.
- Merger: with German physics company Ipion, reported by Edge in March 2001, producing version 1.5.
- Havok 2.0: launched at GDC 2003; “up to ten ragdoll models in realtime”.
- Named users: Valve (from 2000), Remedy (Max Payne 2), Ion Storm (Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief III), Nihilistic (StarCraft: Ghost), Bungie (Halo 2), EA.
Arrival
Edge’s November 2000 Codeshop column called the company’s situation “a licensing frenzy”: a year after the beta, six months after the complete package, and the team had “already grown from eight to 35”. Business development officer Alan Murphy was already saying “We are working with Valve”. By March 2001 Havok had merged with the German outfit Ipion and was combining the two codebases into version 1.5 of what its communications director called “our Uber-engine”, with a cut-down rigid-body edition at a lower price for studios that did not need soft bodies. In June 2001 came Reactor, a physics plug-in for 3DS Max: rope, cloth and fluid dynamics inside the modelling package, for £745.
The rival was Oxford’s MathEngine, whose Paul Topping put the pitch for the whole category in one line: “It’s not about better physics, it’s about a faster implementation of physics while making games.”
Havok 2.0 and characters
Chief technical officer Steve Collins explained the first wave to Edge in March 2003. Middleware had made its “initial impact not by providing developers with a set of new features but because it offered existing features cheaper and faster”, and so the first titles “were concentrated within realistic genres such as vehicle-based racers”, where dynamics were the gameplay and the processor budget followed. But “70 per cent of top ten games are about characters”, and “gamers aren’t happy seeing characters sliding along with their shoulder or arm embedded in the wall anymore”.
Havok 2.0, due at that year’s GDC, was the answer: a re-engineered core that could “run the dynamics of up to ten ragdolls” where its predecessor had struggled with one. The ten beta partners included Remedy, whose Markus Stein reported “collision detection and character controllers” implemented “in a short timeframe” for the Max Payne sequel; Nihilistic on Blizzard’s StarCraft: Ghost; Ion Storm on Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief III; Activision; and Valve.
In games
Edge’s Max Payne 2 review (January 2004) noted that “most objects within the game are animated with the Havok physics engine” while the light sources stayed static. Its May 2004 review of Astro Boy called it “the first Japanese title to use the Havok physics engine”, used “tentatively rather than with the abandon seen elsewhere”. And its Half-Life 2 review, December 2004, announced the change in kind: “Finally we have a game in which physics are more than just an excuse for ragdoll deaths… This time the world is there to be grasped.” The gravity gun was “the core tool”, used “to drag objects, pick them up and carry them about” and, in its second mode, “to drop, throw or smash them away”.
The standard
By May 2005 Edge’s survey of physics vendors put Havok first: “the standard by which the others are judged — not least in terms of the games it powers, which include Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Full Spectrum Warrior and Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault.” The product line had added Havok Animation, and Collins’s attention had moved to tools and to the next consoles: “We can’t wait for Cell.” His summary of what the company sold by then: “Physics engines aren’t about lines of code any more… Tools are what we spend most of our time on.”