Introducing Aerodynamic Forces [Studio Beta]

[autoMATTlc]

Game. Changer. This is arguably one of the best updates physics wise Roblox has done in a very long time. This is completely groundbreaking. Absolute bravo.

[C_Corpze (Corpze_TheDeadestOne)]

This is insane! Actually a pretty innovative update as not many game engines have this as far as I know.

I think this would look really cool with skydiving and whatnot.
We can finally make working fly machines and wings without requiring lots of scripting which is crazy on it’s own.

And I’d imagine with wind this would also look pretty funny and wacky if you have a bunch of ragdolls that tumble over with strong winds.

[thefloorslippery210 (floor)]

i really like this update, don’t have much to say. good job!

[drewbluewasabi (Drew)]

This is a great update, but will we see a way to make custom sources of wind?

I feel a wind instance that could be used similar to spotlights would be very useful, especially in obstacle courses with planes or something like that.

[weakroblox35]

Please do more physics-based updates like these! They’re so useful!

[GeorgeOfAIITrades]

@FGmm_r2

Wind occlusion: right now, the global wind exists everywhere, even inside buildings. We’d like to develop a system that automatically detects occlusion of the wind and incorporates that into the aerodynamic model.

Would there be any plans to include wind occlusion via fast moving objects, reducing drag to objects that are directly behind them?

Or in essence, will we get some NASCAR style drafting?

The Science Behind Draft and Drag

[Chiseled_Cheese]

This looks amazing! Can’t wait for this to be fully integrated

[SilentFish20 (rolbloxbro73465)]

This is a really cool feature, and I can’t wait to experiment with it. My only worry is that - like so many other beta features - it will just be forgotten and never leave studio. Is there any guarantee this won’t happen?

[baackup_1st (Backup)]

@FGmm_r2

The aerodynamics model also includes a decay of air density with altitude, similar to the real world. This decay is tuned so that the local air density is 5% of the Workspace > AirDensity at an altitude of 100,000 studs (or 28,000 meters). Below y=0 we assume a constant density value of Workspace > AirDensity.

@FGmm_r2

In the real world, wind generally transitions from a “low” speed near the ground, where the surface slows the wind down, to a “higher” speed at several hundred to thousands of meters. The average velocity through this transition (or boundary) layer looks something like the following diagrams.

To balance simplicity with realism, the Roblox Aerodynamic system has a wind profile that automatically scales the horizontal (x-z) wind speed relative to altitude. We chose a profile that is fairly realistic for a wide variety of conditions, with the top of the transition layer at 1000 studs (or 280 meters). If you have already started playing around with the globalWind property to get realistic looking grass / clouds / particle visuals , you might have noticed that the clouds move at a different speed from the grass. Our aerodynamic wind profile matches this behavior.

I would like to be able to modify these altitude based effects.
Maybe a 161616 voxel grid for air density that can be manually written to?
Or maybe a object that sets pressure to a defined value at the centre that slowly lowers according to a radius property?
Both these suggestions would also make a wind blowing from high pressure to low pressure for realism.

I am thinking for game ideas similar to Kerbal space program where there is planets that the players can use rockets that they designed to launch off without loading into separate places for in/out of atmosphere and different planets.

I don’t want to use nan fallen parts destroy height with a script to manually change density to overwrite the altitude density/wind curves.

[TZ_Godspeed (tz swag)]

Incredible I did not expect this to actually release this early lol. This tech will definitely open a massive amount of cool opportunities for making things!

[Hexcede]

People underestimate the tech behind this, and the complexity that this allows for. This is amazing!

[abidbmt]

I’ve waited very long on this feature since the only limiting factor to somewhat accurately simulate realistic aerodynamics was the engine so far but this hopefully changes now. Rightnow I’ve tested it and experimented with the F-15 example but I’ve ran into some issues, the aerodynamics behave very mysterious. The plane starts to yaw into different directions and control unrealistically. This effect is even larger when the air density is set lower than 0.005.

Edit: I am also getting warnings about the scripts using deprecated methods??? This is a very bad example for developers and you should honestly put more effort into these examples…

[lolmanurfunny (lolman)]

Phenomenal update, roblox has redeemed themselves.

[dthecoolest]

I think this is a great feature which will give developers to more tools to work with which is great just similar to proximity prompts.

But I wonder will we developers be able to custom our own custom tuned aerodynamic forces with greater access to the core physics engine?

One example use case scenario is with my custom character controller uses drag force to handle movement, a simple proportionality to velocity squared applied to a vector force ignoring the surface area factor. However this faces an issue with low fps computers where it can cause the force to be integrated over a larger timestep and cause too much acceleration causing the character to disappear (Since vector force treats this proportional velocity constant during the RunService heartbeat/stepped process 60 hz while the physics engine is 240 hz).

This goes the same with other forces that are not constant over time such as custom spring forces for a spring suspension vehicle using vector force which is a shame as it limits arcade like car behavior.

Any thoughts on potential solutions such as giving access to the 240 hz physics engine cycle or physics substepping like in other game engines?

Or maybe perhaps an option for geometry to not affect the aerodynamics perhaps an extra enum alongside enable fluid forces part property?

[zoox12345559 (zoox)]

I’m not sure if you’ve actually used any of the community-made aerodynamic systems; I think an easy example of their limitations is in the “Spinning Things” example – this kind of stuff couldn’t dynamically or optimally be done without actual engine access. I emphasis “dynamically” because (as is the way of development) anything can be faked if you limit the scope enough.

In my eyes though, the performance and developer experience aspect of it all is the most important. I would quite honestly rather not fidget with some system some guy made for aerodynamics that hardly works for my use case and absolutely kills the framerate of my game, and I definitely don’t have the experience in physics to fake it myself.

[PlanckDEV]

This is currently in Beta so it is not known as to the extent as to which this could be optimised to. Also I believe your point about dynamics is generally invalid since if something can be done using other things as reference (i,e the spinning things) I am unsure as to how this legitimately helps. It may be suprising and legitimately do good however, I am skeptical. P.S I do indeed use aerodynamic systems made by the community especially for environmental effects.

[santafatso28 (TheOlive)]

Updates like this are no longer a rare W, these are common roblox update. I now expect consistent good updates from roblox, just because of the sheer amount and quality they are releasing.
Great Job Roblox.

[greenboo5]

Awesome update! One suggestion I have is providing developers a way to create “AOE wind gusts” that override the global wind.

One example of this is in BOTW. You can use updrafts to gain height, or horizontal winds for extra speed, etc.

[papers_please111]

With this current model is it possible for me to replicate a sailboat and have functioning sails?

[imdaros]

THEY DID IT, REJOICE!

I’ve been anticipating and waiting for this update for ages now, can’t wait to play around with it!