Game Physics Engine, Overview

Synonyms

Game physics system; Game physics; Physics engine; Rigid body physics

Definitions

A game physics engine is a self-contained subsystem of a game engine which defines the physical characteristics of objects in the game world. The subsystem is typically utilized to simulate and approximate lifelike interactions between game objects. A game physics engine may not be present in all game engines, but when one is defined, it operates on simple geometric shapes and is only invoked when necessary. This is because the simulation of physical interactions is computationally costly and typically only a selective subset of objects in the game world would define physics components and participate in the simulation.

Introduction

Game object interactions that mimic real life have become a key element of many modern PC and console games as well as, more recently, browser and smartphone games. For example, when shooting a basketball in a video game, the player would expect the ball’s trajectory...