Today's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) keynote saw Andrew Bond, Vice President of Engineering for Havok announce the physics SDK being made freely available for developers working on Intel's AppUp store.
The second full day of IDF San Francisco has been dedicated to the ongoing development of the Atom platform combined with the netbook-centric AppUp store going gold.
Bond announced the company has been working hard to optimise the Havok SDK for the Atom platform and said: 'we are making our physics technology available on the Intel component catalogue and it will be freely available for any developer who wishes to develop games for the AppUp store.'
Bond went on to explain that by making the full physics SDK available to developers they can pick and choose exactly what parts they want to utilise for their games, "to control exactly what they want out of the simulation technology".
"In games it's about 20% simulation and 80% whatever you can get away with; fakery, he says. 'We focus on the 20% though...''
By making the Havok option available to developers working on less graphics-intensive games for the netbook, handheld and tablet markets, Intel is hoping to create a groundswell of physics-enabled titles for its new store.
Havok was acquired by Intel almost exactly three years ago, pre-empting Nvidia's purchase of rival physics-lovers, Ageia and its PhysX technology. Both companies have been working hard to get its own physics simulation out to developers.
