Final Prototype

Well, after all this time, the prototype has been implemented. It's not fully functional and needs plenty of improvement. But the basic idea is there:

The main menu allows user to choose among the three scenes.

First scene showing a physics particle implementation.

Second scene showing steamy non-interactive fluid.

Last scene, showing the mixed scene where the fluid interacts with the jar.

The results of the questionnaire have not been as expected, but very useful in fact.

Method \ Opinion	Most interactive	Most realistic	Would like it most in a game
Physics Method	30%	10%	35%
Grid Method	10%	80%	30%
Mixed Method	60%	10%	35%

The final conclusion, can be said, is that the method proposed can be achieved, but before implementing it one has to think what suits the best for the game. Sometimes a simpler method can serve the purpose and save some time and resources.

Particle Methods in depth for Fluids Simulations

On my most recent research I found a very interesting study made for a Thesis in a Sweden university. They had studied, implemented and compared three different methods for 2D fluid simulations in games. Although all of them were particle based, the document has given me a different point of view, a new perspective. One of them got my atention when they proposed in the paper to use both particle and grid methods, but having the second one just to keep track of the nearest neighbours. That way, the algorithm was very optimized.

However, the rendering of the fluid still has the problem of being composed by metaballs. An option could be changing the way that particles are drawn, but that might be very complex.

As it can be seen in the image above, although many balls can be used (thanks to a better performance), the look is still very unrealistic due to the static shapes of the particles.

Vortex Methods for Fluid Simulation

Recently, it has been published a research on vorticity methods with very promising results. The authors state that "vortex methods have not been developed yet to the level of other techniques for fluid simulation in computer graphics".
In their work, they try to solve vorticity flow equations to produce highly detailed visual fluid simulations. Here are the results: https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/fr/bitstream/handle/10393/23647/Vines_Neuwirth_Mauricio_Alfredo_2013_video.mov?sequence=5

As in the previous post, this work is focused on 3D elements; but still can be of interest if it can be applicable into a 2D world.

First steps on interactive fluids

My Innovation and Professional Development module requires each student to do some research in a specific topic and then try to find ways to improve the techniques used in it. In my case, I chose working with  fluid dynamics (particles, liquids, gases, etc.), in particular I wanted to focus on 2D fluids.

The gap I saw is that there are two main different kind of real-time fluids in games: one is realistic but little interactive (mouse and screen boundaries)

The other kind of fluid is the opposite, physically interactive, but at the cost of being unrealistic:

After a long, deep and unsuccessful research, last week I finally found a piece of work that combined both realistic and interactive fluids using a newfangled technique called tall cell grids; the work is meant for 3D, but it might be helpful if the methodologies are not totally different from a flattened environment. Here's their demo:

NVIDIA Real-Time Raytracing

NVIDIA is a technology company very well known for its focus in computer graphics and GPU manufacturing. Thanks to their innovative attitude they achieved some months ago real-time raytracing; which is, according to many, the future of gaming graphics.

In my opinion, it is really a huge step that will visually enrich the way we play games. Here's the demonstration of the feature:

However, both gamers and developers must always remember that only good graphics don't make good games, but engaging gameplays or deep stories do.

OUYA!

OUYA was created in 2012 to open up the last closed game platform, the TV. The console allows players to have dozens of games (all of them free-to-play) accessible via internet through this Android-based machine. It also offers video / audio streaming and some other features.

The idea of making a console which offers plenty of free-to-play games (and only free-to-play) is very interesting. I think it will attract the attention of many users, who would not want to access a complete library of games paying only the console's prize? At first this is an advantage for developers as well, because their products would be accessed by many. However, I believe that this system might somehow collapse.

From my point of view, free-to-play games are not the only future; although they may have some advantages, having millions of choices available will end up with the "survival of the fittest", making only a few of them profitable. In the end, OUYA will offer little worth games.

The Green Light

Some years ago, Valve created a different way of publishing, selling and buying games. They created the platform Steam. It was a very innovative system which allowed, thanks to the internet, the possibility of self-publishing, something very advantageous for smaller companies and indie developers.

Less than half a year ago, another innovative idea arose within Steam and so Greenlight was born. The idea of this tool was giving players the chance to choose the games they wanted to play in Steam. Some people can see this as an advante for Valve, instead of having their own resources validating and selecting games, they let users decide. While this might be true, many other people see it as an opportunity (specially developers) to access the platform with more ease.

Personally, I think the concept is very groundbreaking and many other communities will soon emulate Valve, once again.

Hello World

Hello readers,

I am Miguel Garde, MProf student at Abertay University, Dundee. This blog will be used to track some innovative stuff related with technology, specially concerning video games and topics realted to particles and fluids systems.

The previous blog I had got lost in the depths of internet; it didn't have a very rich content, but I will try to rescue it from my memory and create some posts within the next few days.

Enjoy!