Pre-GDC 2013: APEX and PhysX Presentations overview
 

Official NVIDIA page for the upcoming Game Developer Conference 2013, which will be held on March 25-29 in San-Francisco, is now online.

http://physxinfo.com/news/wp-content...gdc13_logo.jpg

Current schedule reveals several presentations, dedicated to APEX and PhysX Technologies. Let's take a look on what we can expect this year:

March 28th, West Hall, Room #2002

Post Mortem: GPU Accelerated Effects in Borderlands 2

11:15 am - 12:15 pm.

Dane Johnston, Technical Artist, NVIDIA. James Sanders, Director of Visual FX, Gearbox.

Borderlands 2 released to critical acclaim on September 18th, 2012 and showcased a wide variety of NVIDIA CUDA®-accelerated GPU effects. This session will dive into the exact effects that were featured and their benefits to the visual fidelity of the gamer experience.

Side-by-side examples of how GPU-accelerated effects are changing the gaming landscape will be demonstrated in a gaming session. Further examinations into the production process and effects creation will also be explored.

Enhancing Hawken and PlanetSide 2 Through Turbulence and Destruction

2:45 pm - 3:45 pm.

Dane Johnston, Technical Artist, NVIDIA. Aron Zoellner, Technical Artist, NVIDIA.

APEX Turbulence and Destruction allow the creation of a more immersive game environment than was possible in previous-generation games. In section 1, we'll illustrate the workflow and design considerations for the various APEX Turbulence examples in games such as Hawken and PlanetSide 2. APEX Turbulence simulates a massive number of particles combined with the fluid motion of velocity fields to create immersive, next-gen effects.

In section 2, we'll show how a destructible environment can significantly enhance the gaming experience by creating an ever-changing battlefield. We'll cover how the destruction effects are created and how they can be scaled based on the computing platform. In addition, we'll discuss what to consider when using destruction in a networked game.

Finally we'll provide a quick overview of the other APEX modules and tools which can be used to create a richer and more interactive game experience.

While first presentation does not seem to contain any surprises (Borderlands 2 was not even using any of the APEX tech), second one leaves several interesting hints: as destructible environments do not fit in PlanetSide 2 by design, it certanly will be Hawken to feature APEX Destruction. Would be interesting to see.

Secondly, one might expect that full-scale GPU PhysX support in both Hawken and PlanetSide 2 will be enabled before the GDC, otherwise, it makes less sence.

Finally, we hope that NVIDIA will have some new state-of-the-art PhysX demos to impress us with, just like at previous GDC.



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