Restaurant Reviews

Game Physics Engine for Deformation and Destruction

One of the nice things about living in the Bay Area and traveling fairly often is that I have the opportunity to try nice restaurants on a regular basis.  If you’re interested in my opinion concerning some of these restaurants, you can find it here:

Prof. O’Brien’s Opinions Concerning Various Restaurants

I’ve been working with a startup company, Pixelux Entertainment, on developing a real-time simulation engine for modeling fracture, deformation, and destruction in video games.  The simulation engine is being sold under the name DMM and it was used in the LucasArts game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (a.k.a. TFU) was released on several game platforms including the PS3, XBox 360, and Wii.  They all share a common plot (which I think is a better story than several of the movies) but the game code was adapted to match the capabilities of the individual platforms.  The PS3 and XBox 360 versions include DMM simulations for wooden structures, metal blast doors, stone buildings, and many other things.  At this time TFU is the top selling game ever put out by LucasArts with over 5.7 million copies sold.  According to feedback from players, the destructible environment is one of the game’s best features.