Possibility of NVidia Flex Support?

This is a question partially aimed at the developers at Unity Technologies, but also to any other developers who may have used this or even integrated Flex into Unity themselves.

What is the likelihood of NVidia Flex particle system (most popularly used for water) being usable in Unity any time soon?

https://developer.nvidia.com/content/nvidia-flex-08-released

 

In my opinion too much of FleX is currently nvidia-hardware only, and this puts a serious damper on desire and momentum towards integrating it into the likes of Unity.

 

Hi Labyrith, did you find a way to install Flex on Unity?

 

Unfortunately not yet.
I did find some promise with someone elses conversion for Nvidia's HBAO system (first link), but I haven't had any time to work on this in some time, I have been quite busy reworking my character controller.

 

Yep, I found this too. But we tried and it seems that we would still need to write our own C++ wrapper for Unity to flex.

Do you know any other way that this could be done without having a write a wrapper?

 

Writing a C++ wrapper would be the only way to communicate between NVIDIA GameWorks and Unity.
Another example (since HBAO has been mentioned): Unity Japan is implementing HairWorks into Unity and it also uses a wrapper.

 

Thanks Mauri,
How complex would be writing a wrapper for Flex? Is this something a skilled developer could do in a a day? Or week?
best

 

Depends on the complexity of the library itself, and what there is in place of already existing support (very little in Unity).

If you do manage this though, I urge you to consider releasing it, or selling it as it would REALLY help out others.

 

I'm working on this and will let you know if we move forward!

 

GPU support would be nice.

 

There isn't anything stopping Unity from hardware accelerating particle physics themselves. Except the lack of clever people to hire. And they are hiring all the time

 

I only see two way that is going:

1. Nvidia will provide fitting wrapper.
2. Someone will do it themself and bring a solution into the asset store.

Unity doesn't see (and me nighter) the big range off application that would benefit from it.
It always depends on what makes more sense at the moment and other stuff seems to be more useful.
(not saying that it would not be awsome to have flex capabilities in unity.)

 

I don't know anything about the author but someone posted this video on youtube the other day:

The description says:

Published on Mar 26, 2016
uFleX - NVidia FleX plugin for Unity3D
Available soon on AssetStore. Subscribe to channel for development updates.

 

Trying to work with CPU physics is like beating a dead horse. Doesn't work in PC. I will look forward for that addon. Even though i despise nvidia for destroying AMD and cross-compatibility.

 

Looks like whoever is writing that Unity FleX plugin has posted some more videos.

eg:

 

They released it! Early days, lots still to do, but cheap!

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/uflex-nvidia-flex-for-unity3d-unified-visual-fx-released.397836/

 

I can't possibly see this as being any more than a gimmick, it can't be taken seriously for as long as all consoles run amd gpus and the world is filled with variable hardware. It's great tech, but how can it possibly be used on anything except a narrow amount of hardware? why is this stuff even considered as a solution?

 

Well yes, in the grand scheme of things it's silly and I'd hoped we'd be well beyond the CUDA era by now.

I'm still interested in it because for some projects I have the luxury of being in control of the desktop hardware used. And I'm interested in the possibilities of the underlying technique beyond FleX nvidia gpu-specific implementation. I know someone is building Unity plugins that uses their own implementation of these particle techniques that are not nvidia only, which has way more legs, although at this present moment I've forgotten what its called.

 

http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/09/o...-the-best-graphics-software-across-platforms/

Not sure if it has legs let alone wings though.

 

They'll try to use it for their own products but I don't know if it will ever go beyond that.

eg:

https://www.fxguide.com/featured/nvidia-gtc-2016-day-one-report/

 

simulators with budged more that 10000 usd
like here

im workinkg on such project. and our most big problem is realistic ground. we released already more that 10 types of simulators and spend dozens $ for making real ground. but our solution is nothing before uFlex.
when i first time saw that plugin cost... i thought i will break my head on wall... all this time great solution was near. it cheap, its real, its already work!
ffs, i want that!!!! unity engine not only for consoles.