How hard is it to swap out a game's physics engine?

Recommended Videos

Saulkar

Regular Member
Legacy
Aug 25, 2010
3,142
2
13
Country
Canuckistan
thedeathscythe said:
SL33TBL1ND said:
Not only is it ridiculously hard, but you'd be changing copyrighted material without the permission of the author.
This. You'd have to reverse engineer the game, and then add it, breaking a couple of laws in the process. It won't happen, ever, sorry to break OP's bubble.
I already made it exceptionally clear I had no intention of preforming this task, not now, not ever. I just wanted to learn how hard it is.
 

Saulkar

Regular Member
Legacy
Aug 25, 2010
3,142
2
13
Country
Canuckistan
geldonyetich said:
There's a lot of complicating factors to consider. Lets consider the most basic: do you have access to the source code and know how to compile it?

If so, it's still hard, but doable if you have the necessary skills and code to swap the engine. Basically, you'll have to make changes to the code to harness the new engine appropriately, which likely will require a bit of understanding of physics yourself to be able to pick out where that is.

If not, you can forget about swapping out the game's physics engine, but you may be able to tweak the game's physics settings if the developers put them somewhere you can access it. Assuming they haven't hard-coded these settings, this will be in a text-based file somewhere in the game's directories, sometimes in a special archive file like a .hak or .wad that you can find expander for on the Internet. These values allow you to tweak things like the influence of gravity, the weight of various objects, momentum, ect. Of course, the engine may have limitations that you may not be able to produce ideal results no matter how much tweaking you do.

Of course, there are various legalities involved with doing either. Basically, unless they give you explicit permission to do so, you're not allowed to distribute any changes you make to their game. In fact, you probably don't want to let them know you've even been in there, lest you get slapped with some kind of reverse engineering suit.
Thanks for the input.
 

thedeathscythe

New member
Aug 6, 2010
754
0
0
Saulkar said:
thedeathscythe said:
SL33TBL1ND said:
Not only is it ridiculously hard, but you'd be changing copyrighted material without the permission of the author.
This. You'd have to reverse engineer the game, and then add it, breaking a couple of laws in the process. It won't happen, ever, sorry to break OP's bubble.
I already made it exceptionally clear I had no intention of preforming this task, not now, not ever. I just wanted to learn how hard it is.
I read that you didn't want to, but I think the task is just too difficult for anyone to really perform. I think anyone that could do it, is probably spending their time making their own indie games anyways. Just hope that the next game has better physics, or even write them saying you love the game and want a more robust physics engine in the sequel.
 

Saulkar

Regular Member
Legacy
Aug 25, 2010
3,142
2
13
Country
Canuckistan
thedeathscythe said:
Saulkar said:
thedeathscythe said:
SL33TBL1ND said:
Not only is it ridiculously hard, but you'd be changing copyrighted material without the permission of the author.
This. You'd have to reverse engineer the game, and then add it, breaking a couple of laws in the process. It won't happen, ever, sorry to break OP's bubble.
I already made it exceptionally clear I had no intention of preforming this task, not now, not ever. I just wanted to learn how hard it is.
I read that you didn't want to, but I think the task is just too difficult for anyone to really perform. I think anyone that could do it, is probably spending their time making their own indie games anyways. Just hope that the next game has better physics, or even write them saying you love the game and want a more robust physics engine in the sequel.
Sure, do not see why not.