Game Dev Insights: Introduction to Physics in Unity

Objective: This blog post aims to provide you with an introduction to the world of physics in Unity.

Unity enables you to incorporate physics simulations into your projects, guaranteeing accurate acceleration, collision response, and interactions with gravity and other forces. Depending on your project requirements, Unity offers diverse physics engine implementations: Built-in physics engines for object-oriented projects and Physics engine packages for data-oriented projects.

Built-in physics engines for object-oriented projects

If your project follows an object-oriented approach, you can utilize the relevant built-in physics engine provided by Unity:

• For 3D physics, Unity integrates the powerful Nvidia PhysX engine.
• For 2D physics, Unity integrates the widely-used Box2D engine.

Physics engine packages for data-oriented projects

If you’re working with Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS), there are specific physics packages you’ll need to install. Here are the available options:

• Unity Physics package: This package includes the DOTS physics engine that is essential to install by default for simulating physics in any data-oriented project.
• Havok Physics for Unity package: It provides an implementation of the Havok physics engine specifically designed for Unity. This package can be utilized as an extension of the Unity Physics package. Please note that using this package is subject to a specific licensing scheme.