Havok is a

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...

software suite A software suite (also known as an application suite) is a collection of computer programs (application software, or programming software) of related functionality, sharing a similar user interface and the ability to easily exchange data with each ...

developed by the Irish company Havok. Havok provides a

physics engine A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer gr ...

component and related functions to video games. In September 2007,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Havok Inc. In 2008, Havok was honored at the 59th Annual

Technology & Engineering Emmy Award The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineer ...

s for advancing the development of physics engines in electronic entertainment. In October 2015,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

announced it had acquired Havok.

Products

The Havok middleware suite consists of the following modules: * Havok Physics: It is designed primarily for

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s, and allows for

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

collision and dynamics of rigid bodies in three dimensions. It provides multiple types of dynamic constraints between rigid bodies (e.g. for

ragdoll physics Ragdoll physics is a type of procedural animation used by physics engines, which is often used as a replacement for traditional static death animations in video games and animated films. As computers increased in power, it became possible to do ...

), and has a highly optimized

collision detection Collision detection is the computational problem of detecting the intersection (Euclidean geometry), intersection of two or more objects. Collision detection is a classic issue of computational geometry and has applications in various computing ...

library. By using

dynamical simulation Dynamical simulation, in computational physics, is the simulation of systems of objects that are free to move, usually in three dimensions according to Newton's laws of dynamics, or approximations thereof. Dynamical simulation is used in computer ...

, Havok Physics allows for more realistic virtual worlds in games. The company was developing a specialized version of Havok Physics called Havok FX that made use of

ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...

and

NVIDIA Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

GPUs for physics simulations; however, the goal of GPU acceleration did not materialize until several years later. *Havok AI: In 2009, Havok released Havok AI, which provides advanced

pathfinding Pathfinding or pathing is the plotting, by a computer application, of the shortest route between two points. It is a more practical variant on solving mazes. This field of research is based heavily on Dijkstra's algorithm for finding the sh ...

capabilities for games. Havok AI provides navigation mesh generation, pathfinding and path following for video game environments. * Havok Cloth: Released in 2008, Havok Cloth deals with efficient simulation of character garments and

soft body dynamics Soft-body dynamics is a field of computer graphics that focuses on visually realistic physical simulations of the motion and properties of deformable objects (or ''soft bodies''). The applications are mostly in video games and films. Unlike in sim ...

. * Havok Destruction (discontinued): Also released in 2008, Havok Destruction provides tools for creation of destructible and deformable rigid body environments. *Havok Animation Studio (discontinued): Havok Animation Studio is formally known as Havok Behavior and Havok Animation. Havok Behavior is a runtime SDK for controlling game character animation at a high level using

finite state machine A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: ''automata''), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number o ...

s. Havok Animation provides efficient playback and compression of character animations in games, and features such as

inverse kinematics In computer animation and robotics, inverse kinematics is the mathematical process of calculating the variable joint parameters needed to place the end of a kinematic chain, such as a robot manipulator or animation character's skeleton, in a g ...

. * Havok Script (discontinued): Havok Script is a

Lua Lua or LUA may refer to: Science and technology * Lua (programming language) * Latvia University of Agriculture * Last universal ancestor, in evolution Ethnicity and language * Lua people, of Laos * Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...

-compatible

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...

designed for

video game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC a ...

. It is shipped as part of the Havok Script Studio. * Havok Vision Engine (discontinued): On August 8, 2011, Havok announced their acquisition of German game engine development company

Trinigy Trinigy was a German software development company. In the second half of 2007, Trinigy expanded to the US and founded a fully owned subsidiary in Austin, TX. The US office is headed by Daniel J. Conradie, one of the original founders of Trinigy. ...

and their Vision Engine and toolset.

Platforms

Version 1.0 of the Havok SDK was unveiled at the

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...

(GDC) in 2000. The Havok SDK is multi-platform by nature and is always updated to run on the majority of the latest platforms. Licensees are given access to most of the C/

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

source-code, giving them the freedom to customize the engine's features, or port it to different platforms although some libraries are only provided in binary format. In March 2011, Havok showed off a version of the Havok physics engine designed for use with the

Sony Xperia Play The Xperia Play is a smartphone with elements of a handheld game console produced by Sony Ericsson. With the marketshare for dedicated handheld game consoles diminishing into the 2010s due to the rapid expansion of smartphones with cheap downloa ...

, or more specifically, Android 2.3. During Microsoft's //BUILD/ 2012 conference, Havok unveiled a full technology suite for

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

Windows RT Windows RT is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a version of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 built for the 32-bit ARM architecture (ARMv7). First unveiled in January 2011 at Consumer Electronics Show, the Windows RT 8 operat ...

Windows Phone 8 Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft. It was released on October 29, 2012, and, like its predecessor, it features a flat user interface based on the Metro design language. It was su ...

and later

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

Usage

Video games

Since the SDK's launch in 2000, it has been used in over 600 video games.

Other software

Havok can also be found in: *

Futuremark Futuremark Oy was a Finnish software development company that produced computer benchmark applications for home, business, and press use. Futuremark was acquired by UL on 31 October 2014, and was formally merged into the company on 23 April 2 ...

's 3DMark2001 and 03 benchmarking tools *a plug-in for

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

animation software *

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...

Source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...

game engine uses VPhysics, which is a physics engine modified from Havok Havok supplies tools (the "Havok Content Tools") for export of assets for use with all Havok products from

Autodesk 3ds Max Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capab ...

Autodesk Maya Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya ( ), is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interact ...

, and (formerly)

Autodesk Softimage Autodesk Softimage, or simply Softimage () was a 3D computer graphics application, for producing 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling, and computer animation. Now owned by Autodesk and formerly titled Softimage, XSI, the software has been predomina ...

. Havok was also used in the virtual world ''

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...

'', with all physics handled by its online simulator servers, rather than by the users' client computers. An upgrade to Havok version 4 was released in April 2008 and an upgrade to version 7 started June, 2010. Second Life resident Emilin Nakamori constructed a weight-driven, pendulum-regulated mechanical clock functioning entirely by Havok Physics in March 2019.

References

{{Microsoft 2000 software Computer physics engines Microsoft software Middleware for video games Video game development software Video game engines Virtual reality