At GDC, Havok is showcasing industry-changing technical breakthroughs in real-time clothing simulation, marking the first time that movie-quality cloth has been seen on in-game characters. The ease of integration of the product is highlighted by the fact that the first games to feature Havok Cloth are launching in Spring 2009.

Havok Cloth is a platform-optimized run-time SDK and toolset that significantly increases the realism of game characters and environments by enabling character designers to add true-to-life, physically-based motion to garments, environmental objects and other deformable items like hair, bellies or tails. Havok Cloth also minimizes the time that artists spend on animating the behavior of character garments and environmental cloth in games.

A growing number of developers have praised Havok Cloth for its superior cross-platform performance and high-quality results.

Colin Mack, THQ General Manager Wrestling & Fighting Games said, “When developing UFC 2009 Undisputed we needed a cloth simulation solution that matched the unprecedented realism of our characters models, animations and fighting simulation - traditional cloth animation methods wouldn’t cut it. We evaluated Havok Cloth and were extremely impressed by the quality and stability of the results and the outstanding performance on our target platforms, PS3 and Xbox 360.”

He adds, “The modular design of Havok Cloth enabled us to get the technology successfully integrated quickly and easily. Havok’s technical support was excellent, and the highly intuitive and powerful art tools allow artists to quickly generate and visualize high quality cloth assets. Our overall experience with Havok Cloth on UFC 2009 Undisputed has been very positive so we intend to use Havok Cloth even more extensively in THQ’s upcoming fighting titles.”

Released in March 2008, Havok Cloth was created to give artists dramatically increased control in the design process, resulting in more engaging and believable characters and a more realistic interactive experience for gamers. Havok Cloth is built on Havok’s award-winning modular suite of run-time technology and artists tools and features out-of-the-box integration with Havok Physics™, Havok Animation and Havok Behavior as well as into existing internal architectures.

“Havok Cloth’s rapid and broad adoption by game developers is testament to Havok’s dedication to being the complete solutions provider for the gaming industry,” said David O’Meara, Managing Director of Havok. “Havok’s industry-dominating software and tools are considered the gold standard with Havok Physics being prevalent in six times as many games sold in the US market as our closest competitor. Havok will continue to build support as developers experience the company’s unsurpassed strength in technical leadership, customer service and high-quality product.”

Information and a demo of Havok Cloth is available at the company’s web site.