Battlefield3/Frostbite 2.0+ Havok(physics engine)

One of the first demos I played on my PS3 was 2008's Battlefield:Bad Company, and I LOVED IT! Not only was there a fun atmosphere, a great multiplayer, with big maps, classes and vehicles. Although nothing came close to experience the beautiful frostbite engine's destruction for the first time. In its debut game, the frostbite engine did destruction that few other games could do in its time. Today its one of the most powerful engines in the industry, and a engine of choice for Electronic Arts.

To my surprise this powerful engine uses Havoc to handle all of its crazy physics. The Havoc physics engine widely used in the gaming industry and is used as a middle-ware for physics. This blog will focus on Frostbite version 2.0, which premiered in the highly popular game Battlefield 3.

Battlefield 3 One of the more popular shooters of today, mostly due to its large scale battles of its multiplayer. These matches can reach up to 64 players, and take place in maps up to 5 Kilometer square. The player has access to many gadgets, to the dozens of vehicles, and a ton of guns, all spread out over 4 special classes. With-in the sqauds of 4 teamwork is encouraged, and makes the game fun with friends.  One of the game changing events, is the destruction featured in majority of the buildings.

Havok – Havok is only used for physics (and not cloth physics) ever since Battlefield bad company 2, since the animation is using the ANT systems from EA’s sports franchises .

Wall debris 

Whether it be just a simple pillar, to a full concrete wall, you will see chunks of it fly off when you shoot at it. This is especially true if you fire a rocket at a wall, and the debris will fly outwards from the explosion. Sometimes of the debris will be rotating outwards based on the centre of the object, and where the force is applied. Some debris will hit the group on its side, and roll away until it stops on its side. With this, just shooting a simple tiled wall can be graphically amazing, just look at the gif below.

Whole buildings 

When the whole building collapses, you can see every bit of wall crumble. Like above, you can see rubble tumbling outwards from the building, however sometimes the rubble will stay inside the building. The roofs will instantly lose support, and being accelerating the ground. Also when the roofs will split and rebound off the rubble, depending on how much rubble is already on top. Seeing a building collapse in battlefield was a sight for sore eyes.

“Bullet drop” for missiles and projectiles 

With the concept of bullet drop, a simple application of gravity on to the bullet. This concept is also applied to tank shells, grenade launchers, and regular missiles. Also with long ranged projectiles, they have a form of traveling distance associated with them, it takes estimation to hit with them. Theoretically is can be managed easily, however this will be done with all the projectiles of 64 players, and all the destruction occurring.

With the large battlefields snipping can be challenging at times

Driving Vehicles 

When driving vehicles, there are physics involved with handling the vehicle. Some land vehicles will have a suspension based wheels, so you will bounce and land after flying throw the air. Helicopters seem to have a gyroscope system, where the vehicle will accelerate dependant on the rotation of the copter. Jets can perform crazy acrobatic moves such as loops, corkscrews and will stall if they fly too high.

The cock pit of airplanes can be confusing with all the angles along each tilt being displayed

Sometimes the physics allows for some silly vehicular mayhem. For example when you destroy a fast moving jeep/jet, its main body will still exist and retain the velocity which it was at. This is has resulted in the death of hundreds of players including me. A more hilarious approach is launching a light vehicle with explosives, with friends. This will require a lot of explosives, and correct vehicle positioning. If vehicle is too far from the pile of explosives, this will just push the vehicle forward. Done right and you will have a very nice view of the battlefield, for about 5 seconds.

Conclusion

            All the physics for Battlefield 3 combined with the amazing animation, graphics, and amount of content makes Battlefield 3 a great game. With this the frostbite engine 2.0 was a great iteration of the engine utilizing Havoc and other technology/techniques. In the end, Frostbite 2.0 was originally designed forthe “next generation” of consoles, although a Frostbite 3.0 is close to completion right now. With Battlefield 4 almost a month away, I'm honestly excited to see what the Frostbite 3.0 engine will do.