Chaos Physics is a light-weight physics simulation solution available in Unreal Engine, built from the ground up to meet the needs of next-generation games. The system includes the following major features(Unreal Engine Community, 2024):
- Destruction
- Networked Physics
- Chaos Visual Debugger
- Rigid Body Dynamics
- Rigid Body Animation Nodes and Physical Animation
- Cloth Physics and Machine Learning Cloth Simulation
- Ragdoll Physics
- Vehicles
- Physics Fields
- Fluid Simulation
- Hair Physics
- Flesh Simulation
The class mainly introduced the collision, Destruction and Rigid Body Animation system in UE 5.4.
Rigid-body dynamics
Chaos Physics provides many features for rigid-body dynamics. This includes collision responses, physics constraints, and damping and friction. In addition, it provides asynchronous physics simulation and networked physics.
Physics Fields
The Physics Field System provides a tool to directly affect Chaos Physics simulations at runtime on a specified region of space. These fields can be configured to influence the physics simulation in a variety of ways, such as exerting force on rigid bodies, breaking Geometry Collection Clusters, and anchoring or disabling fractured rigid bodies.
Similar to the concept of “domain” in C4D and Houdini, Physics Fields make a large number of objects interact with the mechanical environment in the scene by simulating force fields, so as to make regular movements that simulate real physical laws.
Fields are set up by creating a Field System Component Blueprint and specifying which systems are allowed to query your field. You can configure a field as a World Field to allow Materials and Niagara systems to sample the Field. You can also configure it as a Chaos Field to allow Geometry Collections and other physics objects to interact with it(Unreal Engine Community, 2024).
Reference
Epic Developer Community. (2024). Physics In Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.4 Documentation. [online] Available at: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/physics-in-unreal-engine.