Open Source Farseer Physics Engine (Box2D) port for Unity (WIP)

Don't get me wrong. Physx is great, fast and reliable, but sometimes you can't do everything with it for a physics based 2d game, and since it is closed source, you can't extend it either (or rely on messy workarounds).
I decided to port Farseer/Box2D because I had a lot of struggle with making custom controllers and joints to work properly on Physx.

The project is on GitHub and I'm making a series of tutorials about how to use it:
Part 1 - Introduction;
Part 2 - Joints;
Part 3 - Collision filtering;
Part 4 - Collision events (soon!);
Part 5 - Controllers (soon!);

I will write more tutorials as needed (after parts 4 and 5 are done).

Some screenshots:

 

Wow !!! Great Thanks.

 

Fantastic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I like your game too (graphics and others !).

6R

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/104312-Box2D-C-Port-Unity/page2
My unfinished port, what uses Unity Math

 

@syko227, well done! Thanks for sharing this...

Is this cross-platform (mobile) or desktop only?

 

It's cross-platform. I didn't test it yet on iOS, so I'm not sure about the performance.

I didn't know that there was a port out there! That's nice. Maybe I could merge your complete math port to it?

Thanks

 

I was literally about to start on this!

Looks like a very solid, polished implementation. Great stuff!

 

I am very curious about the performance on mobile devices. Do you think this is less expensive than PhysX?

 

Awsome! Aldough I must say that I just couldn't get it to do what I wanted with flash as3... Well lets hope I'm a better programmer now ;-) Would it be possible to combine this with 3d objects?

 

Truly awesome! Can't wait to get my hand on this ^ ^ Thank you for your hard work!

 

Wow some cool stuff cropping up around here. This looks great, will definitely be keeping an eye on it!

 

big thank you for your work!

Is it possible to contrain cube's rotation? (I don't want it to rotate, only to move)
I'm a bit new to box2d concepts - sorry if the question is stupid .

 

This is awesome.... Thank you very much for your effort and make it available.

 

This deserves a bump.

Great work so far syko.

Definitely be looking at using this in the future.

 

Want to bring this to the top so more people can find out about it.

 

BUMP for awesomeness Question:

Since I'm developing a 2D game this could be a great alternative to PhysX but before switching Farseer I'd like to know if anyone has compared these 2 performance-wise.

Can anyone share their experiences? (especially on mobile devices that is)

 

The tutorial website is down. When will it be up again?


Peter

 

I am very curious about the performance on mobile devices too.

Do you think this is less expensive than PhysX?

 

Any 2D physics solution is infinitely faster than a 3D physics one - even when the second is low-level optimized. At least with a huge number of objects the Box2D-derived solutions wipe the floor with PhysX in terms of performance. Of course in an ideal world Unity would give us a low-level Box2D implementation, and we've saw they working on it in the latest Ninja camp with astounding results, but I wouldn't count on that kicking into Unity anytime soon. No matter how many 2D users they have, the absolute majority have Unity indie (free) licenses, so 3D will keep being their priority.

 

Good job and thanks. You make me have many choice for making many game type

 

They made a post saying it runs slowly on mobile. Too bad.

 

Interesting - I've been working on this port and have been able to get it to perform very well on mobile, much faster than PhysX.

I will be releasing my edits to Farseer-Unity back as open source soon, since I think the project can benefit from it. I have a fixed timestep w/o FixedUpdate, did some bugfixes that hadn't been released yet for Farseer core, and fully implemented destructable/breakable physics.

 

Awesome! I'll be sure to check it out when you release it.

 

@syko227
Hi syko227,
that project is very jittery on a basic setup. Any ideas what goes wrong?
regards!

 

statonix, add angular and linear dumping to Body component. I added this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     public float linearDamping = 0.01f;
3.     public float angularDamping = 0.01f;
4.  
5.  
6.     public virtual void Start ()
7.         {
8.                 ...
9.                 body.LinearDamping = linearDamping;
10.                 body.AngularDamping = angularrDamping;
11.                 ...
12.          }
13.  

Also you may want to create variable for a Transform and use it in Update() instead of calling standart accesor which is basically means that you are calling GetCaomponent<Transform>() four times per Update for each body you have.

And joints should have a damping too as far as I remember.

And guys please share your fixes and additions.

 

I'm having some issue with it. The example project is runnig fine. I have 400 stacking boxes + lots of joints and it gives me 38 - 45 stable. But in a project that I created and exported unitypackage I have 3fps with 20 stacking boxes. Time settings are the same. Engine settings too.

The difference between my project and the example one is that in my project Farseer is not placed in the plugin folder. Can it be the reason of such perfomance issue? By the way im not running any of my scripts axcept camera controll.

 

I'm still very interested in using the improved port you mentioned. I suppose I can use the original Farseer port and maybe switch to your version when you release it. I'm working on a 2D platformer that could really benefit from it.

 

WOW! Awesome to find this! I'm making a 2D shooter and this kind of stuff will help alot.

 

I tried this out and it behaves really nice, but, how exactly can one control it? Like, i made my Character a ConcaveShape-Object, what exactly do i have to do via script to move him around (influence velocity/gravity etc.)

 

Is this project dead? Looks amazing =)

 

Not sure about the original port, but our branch, Rage Farseer, just went live. It's fully open source of course, and since it supports vector2 lists instead of only game object lists it's much easier to generate colliders with it - RageSpline 1.5, for instance, can generate a Farseer collider from any complex vector shape instantly. We intend to keep enhancing it and adding more features soon, read more / download right here: http://ragespline.com/ragefarseer/

 

Hi, the project isn't dead.
I'm making some changes (as suggested by the community, by email) and adding some neat features.

People can submit feature requests here:
http://dev.catsinthesky.com/farseerunity/issues/open

Good. You know you could give some credit sometimes, it wouldn't hurt.

 

I don't know if you'll responde to that post, since you guys don't react to my emails i send you the last weeks/months...

So, i am making a 2D Plattformer, which is not heavy-physics based. It kind of didn't worked out using Unity Physics, so i am using your neat Plugin, which works pretty well. I am using Uni2D for the Leveldesign and Farseer to give my Plattforms physics, like this:



So these are 24 Boxes, and i got 4 more plattforms (in the very first Level of the game!) which an alike amount, so ~100 Farseer-Boxes.

My Stats are, i think, pretty okay:



The DrawCalls are around 15, the Tris around 100. In the Editor the FrameRate is stable. BUT as soon i Build&Run it on my Device (an iPhone 4) it is kinda slow. I made a Basic GUITexture to watch for the FPS and they show me something between 20-28 with, of course, some jittering while the Main-Characters moving (of course, he has Farseer-Physics, too!). I also used the "Application.targetFrameRate = 60" Line, but it didn't work at all. Same FPS on the Device.

I can't imagine this is a Drawcall/Rendering-Issue. I read on your blog, that your FarseerPort isn't optimized for mobile, but there around 100 simple boxes and 4 Dynamic Bodies (the Main-Character and three Enemies).

Could this really be an Farseer-Issue or did i mess something up?

 

I want to port this http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2009/04/06/two-ways-to-make-box2d-cars/ (2nd example - Truck car game)

to Unity using Farseer - Anyone interested in doing the project as commercial work?

 

Would love to see this as a port!

 

Excellent contribution!

A friend and I are working on a 2D mobile game with Unity and just download the Farseer package like 3 weeks ago. Is amazing and we can cool stuff with it!

The only problem is that, it seems it does not run smoothly on mobile devices which is a big shame. Is there a way to optimize it for mobile games?

Thanks a lot.

 

I made an attempt at porting the vehicle demo - I am afraid that due to my lack of experience I couldn't get it right.

Anyone else want to give it a try?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ztjx9de3qbt3jk/FarseerUnity.zip

 

Look at their homepage (Catsinthesky.com). It says, that there isn't any room for optimisation on mobile devices, cause it is already "optimised".

As much as i like the Plugin itself, the support here is a shame :/

I know it is a free Plugin, but as the developer one have a certain responsibility. Would like to see more explanations/tutorials on their webpage.
I managed to do some things on my own, though, working with generel Box2D and Farseer Tutorials on the Web.

 

Anyone reply the performance on mobile when using box2d farsee....
on android/ ios?
i check the buil;d but fps drop........

 

Can anyone enlighten us new users of this plugin how to move objects with this?

Maybe something like rigidbody.AddForce() function? Or transform.Translate... anything that will respond to user input.

Looking awesome btw.

 

It is in the Test or FsMousetest script.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I was looked at this script before and... correct me if I'm wrong... it looked like a spring joint mechanism.
The object is anchored on a Vector2 location (mouse x,y).

I'm wondering how do you push objects in Farseer ... say a vehicle or a character?

Normally I would just: rigidbody.AddForce() in Unity... how is this accomplished in Farseer?

Do the objects that I need to apply force need to have a joint for me to give it a force?


Kind regards,
Arvie

 

If you want to push with mouse:

somewhere define:

at Start() (or where you want )

and in update:

It will push the object with mouse... kind a basic, but it worked for me.

Now, i see that i misunderstood your question.... probably someone smarter will answer you
Edit2: look for: fixture.Body.ApplyForce or joint motors, maybe this is what you are looking for

 

How do you remove a joint via script? I've tried a bunch of things with world.removeJoint() but nothing has worked.

 

i wanna know is it support rigidbody.constraint???

 

Other GameObject hit in (how to Destroy gameObject)