It was only a few short years ago when in-game physics were a novelty, like lava lamps and black lights. Today, however, like barrels that explode when shot, obeying the laws of physics is expected behavior for objects in most any game. This turnabout is pinned largely on the popularity of Havok's core collection of animation and physics tools, which the company notes that it will make available to PC game developers for free later this year.

The toolset, dubbed Havok Complete, has been used in creating a number of high profile titles, such as Ninja Theory's Heavenly Sword. Beginning in May, Havok will make available these same tools to developers for non-commercial use, while both it and parent company Intel also plan to offer those devs deemed worthy with a free commercial distribution license as well. Says Havok, the move is designed to "boost creative game development throughout the industry," from indies and academics, to PC enthusiasts who for too long have lived without the joy of being able to throw virtual ragdolls down flights of stairs.

The Havok Physics engine has been upgraded to 5.5, according to a press release from today. The release includes new enhancements, features, "dramatically accelerating the development of cross platform, [and] cutting edge electronic entertainment."

The Havok Animation and Havok Behavior toolsets were also updated to 5.5, and the PlayStation 3 tools also received enhanced collision query optimizations. In a separate press release, Havok announced Havok Cloth and Havok Destruction, whose intentions and use are pretty self-explanatory.

If you don't feel like watching an awesome, six-and-a-half minute long tech demo of the physics engines featured in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, allow us to briefly summarize the above video -- things are going to move around very fancily in this game. With the Havok engine controlling the movement of objects, the DMM engine regulating what objects are made from what substances, and the Euphoria engine deciding how enemies react to their environment, the game appears to push the boundaries of physics in gaming. Now we just have to wait until its summer release date to find out whether or not the rest of the game is absolute schlock.

Gamevideos shows two new clips of Pain, the extreme health insurance simulation. Well, like the rest of our murder simulators, Pain only shows the id-worthy, visceral high of crashing your sim-like characters into obstacles. Pain unrealistically omits the months and years of recovery.

Anyway, the jackasses in us have been scoping this upcoming, PS3 downloadable for its visceral high and unrealistic omission of months and years of recovery. See some of the ways you'll torture your characters after the break.

Even if you're not familiar with the name Havok, you probably know of the games that have used the company's technology, a list that includes BioShock, Stranglehold, Halo 2, Half Life 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Crackdown. Intel announced today that they've purchased the entire company, a value of around $110 million. The last $21 million sliver was purchased from an Irish holding company called TVC.

As video game bloggers, it's important for us to use our expertise to frame the news in a context that you can use and relate to your daily life. So, here's what this announcement means to you: When you have to press start to skip through a Havok logo before you can play a game, know that you've helped Intel make some more money. ... That is all.

Havok has officially unleashed Havok 4.5, the latest version of their comprehensive animation and physics toolset for developers. The update adds full optimization for the PS3 and its Cell architecture, and is derived from Havok's cooperation with Evolution Studios in the construction of Motorstorm's physics system. Upcoming games utilizing the 4.5 variant are expected to handle Havok instructions between five and ten times faster than the previous release.

"Havok 4.5's ability to allow developers to massively scale game content will make it possible to develop even more compelling, realistic and complex worlds that harness the full power of new generation architectures," says Havok's David O'Meara. Though the emphasis remains on crafting "realistic" worlds, one might also consider the impact that robust physics and animation have on "unrealistic", fantasy games. When objects and clothing behave as you expect them to, it can lend even the most unusual world a sense of believability and cohesion. It's not all sliding crates and rolling barrels, you know.

Havok announced today that Molyneux and company have licensed Havok Complete for Fable 2. 'Complete' rolls Havok Physics and Havok Animation into one integrated package.

As Molyneux iterated, relying on Havok allows Lionhead developers to focus on the team's lofty aspirations, most-simply defined as dynamic regions, unconditional love, wealth accumulation, constrained combat, and an as of yet undisclosed uber-feature. As with the original Fable, at this stage it's hard to distinguish fantasy from reality (what gameplay elements will and won't make it into Fable 2's final release). But there is now at least one certainty: ragdolls.

[Via 1UP]

ATI made some noise today with a pair of announcements regarding their new physics processing technologies. The 3D graphics leader is introducing the CrossFire X1900 multi-GPU solution, which gives gamers a choice of asymmetrical physics configurations -- what ATI has coined "boundless gaming". The setup requires either one or two graphics cards for rendering, and a separate card for physics processing. "Boundless" refers to the open architecture that allows for different cards to be used in each role, so gamers can decide between various high and low end cards to handle each function. ATI maintains an updated list of CrossFire certified components.

ATI will also be working more closely with middleware provider Havok to promote the Havok FX SDK. Games that have leveraged the Havok technology include Half-Life 2, Perfect Dark Zero, FEAR, and the Splinter Cell series.

See also:

• ATI's new CrossFire aimed at Athlon gamers
• Havok vs. AGEIA: the physics/PhysX showdown

We recently covered the hot topic of physics acceleration, and FiringSquad has gone one further, pitting AGEIA and Havok against each other in an interesting debate. As competitors are wont to do, the companies directly attack each other to a certain extent, but in other ways the arguments exemplify the CPU-GPU/PPU battle.

A user comment sums it up: "Developers are unlikely to make gameplay dependent on the presence of a PPU until it's widely adopted. Until then it'll probably be limited to effects (and taking the gameplay physics load off the CPU)." As PPU adoption becomes more widespread, developers may embrace it, but we need developer support to make the case for adoption -- it's a vicious circle that AGEIA will have to break.

To further fan the flames around physics acceleration, a source close to the DirectX steering committee has told Joystiq that Microsoft's DirectPhysics API may not be going ahead after all. Instead, Microsoft may approach a laissez-faire attitude and snap up whichever acceleration solution emerges as the winner.

[Thanks, John]