Yesterday morning I was startled by a pig flying past my window, which heralded the Linden Lab announcement that the Havok 4 physics engine is in beta testing. No, your eyes aren't playing tricks. The upgrade the Lindens have promised as being just around the corner (for the last four years) appears to be... well... still just around the corner, but now we can see the corner at least.

By upgrading the Havok physics engine from version 1 to version 4, Linden Lab promises several improvements, including these (from the Linden blog):

• Reduced simulator crashes
• Less lag in the physics engine
• More reliable prim linkage
• Stacked dynamic objects react when supporting objects are removed
• Improved collision management - uniform spheres collide as spheres, rather than as faceted shapes
• Penetrating dynamic objects will be automatically pushed apart by Havok4?s collision solver
• Vertical simulation extent has been increased to 1024 meters
• Some slight dynamic changes - avatar movements have changed slightly

To achieve only a few of these goals, particularly "less lag in the physics engine", would vastly improve the flight experience for virtual pilots. I do wonder, though, about this point, "Vertical simulation extent has been increased to 1024 meters". I don't mean to be needlessly cynical, but that claim seems 1984-ish when currently the simulation extent is 4096 meters. Increased? Really? I hope it doesn't "increase" any more.

I took the SL beta viewer for a test spin yesterday (download it here). To me it seemed to be more than just a little rough around the edges, although I can imagine just how much work it must have been to get it to this level of functionality. Replacing the physics engine would be like performing a brain transplant. I know Dr. McCoy was able to replace Spock's brain, but he was only able to accomplish it under the influence of an alien knowledge device. I doubt the Linden devs have the benefit of alien tech.

So it's impressive to see Havok 4 in action and mostly working. That said, it's not even close to "prime time". I logged some of my observations, which included sluggish controls, out-of-place collision boxes, and severe time dilation. Please log in to jira.secondlife.com and vote for/comment on issue SVC-722. I know the Lindens have already reviewed it, but more testing is better. And if you have access to an alien knowledge device, please mail it to Linden Research Inc, 945 Battery St., San Francisco, CA 94111. Include snacks. I have a feeling that a few developers will be working late nights for a while.

Today I added a new "Gallery" link to this blog. The page is a mini-gallery of some of the things I've created in SL.

Oh, and in other news, there is no secret Green Monkey Room.

That is all.