Havok 4

Yesterday Linden Lab announced that Havok 4 is now up on the beta grid for testing. It has many good things listed in the changes, but currently the content-compatibility is rather poor. This means that there is a lot of physics-based content that is rendered unusable in the current Havok beta.

Unfortunately, Union Micro elevators are not working properly in Havok 4. Andrew Linden reports that a lot of vehicles are currently broken and their goal is to have Havok 4 work exactly like the current Havok 1. So, if this is true, the elevators should eventually work in Havok 4.

I’ve experimented a little bit with the elevators on the beta grid but have had only a small amount of success. The problem seems to be that the new physical effects on the elevator car are severely underpowered, making the car slowly fall to the ground instead of ascending.

I suspect that Havok 4 is a long time off from going live on the main grid, so I’m not too worried about anything. I will give Linden Lab time to tweak the physics and get it right before I start trying to “fix” the elevators. If anyone has been testing physics in the beta and has some possible suggestions, I’m more than willing to hear them!