Havok 4 Reaches the Main Grid

Back in April, the Lindens (Joe Miller specifically) announced that they were upgrading Havok from version 1 all the way to version 4. Havok is the physics engine that lets objects move and collide. It allows you to stand on the second floor of a large mall without falling through the floor.


There have been plees for an upgrade as well as promises that it is being looked into. Most of us expected an upgrade (if any) to version two. Much to our surprise, we got version four.


The problem with havok one is that it is outdated. Many problems arrise when you have too many things happening at once. Races with cars cause servers to go down. Lots of people at events have problems as well.


There is also a limitation of 31 prims for physical objects. 31 prims may sound like a lot at first. Once you start to try and build a car, you quickly find that 31 is only a small number. Havok 4 will initially let us use 32 prims. The reason for just one extra prim is because it is a nice round number (in binary terms 100000, or hex it is 0×20). Additionally, Andrew Linden reported that Havok 1 was supposed to have a 32 prim limit for physical objects to begin with. There have been tests to drive it up to 64 on the beta grid. A bug (SVC-744 was actually filed against the increase in prims.


Havok 4 sims have already reached the main grid. Now the Lindens have introduced a Havok4 Early Adopter Program on their blog for private estate owners. The instructions provided were very simple and I was able to send in my request for Woodbridge.


Once the woodbridge sim is upgraded, anyone will be able to look at the help menu and click “About Second Life…” and see something similar to the following: “Havok4 Beta Server 1.18.6.77587″.


I’ll be sure to keep everyone informed on my blog about my Second Life experiences with Havok. I’ve played around a little on the beta grid and found a few of my products actually work over their when they are broken on the main grid. Perhaps they will work on the Woodbridge sim once it gets the update.