Dirk Gregorius said:
As a funny example I didn't even know that the interaction with the chair and headcrab worked this way until I saw it in the video. This was not a planned feature. It just happened to work ?

That's exactly what i expect from this. Like in the real world, unforseen things can happen. Nothing can be more immersive, nothing connects me more with the virtual world. It's not really part of the game or its design, but it proofs me there is more in it than just that. Priceless.
Keep up the great work! :D

Contrary to the approach with mix physics and animations we use only physics, AI code and logic code, presenting procedural animations. If you would like to see physics-driven procedural animations in action (with unforeseen things), you can watch the video “Matali Physics 5.7 Video 4” or you can download Matali Physics Demo from the Matali Physics homepage and see the animations directly on your computer.

Nothing is scripted and all animations of our spidercrabs are controlled directly by the physics engine.

We used our own techniques. In particular, we used advanced object activation/deactivation management, especially important in complex animated objects.

Oh no, more Crabs! :D I was trying Matali demos before, looked pretty solid.

Personally i'm convinced we can replace all animation with simulation, also for bipeds. Just a matter of time, and no more need to hire Keanu Reeves then. >:)

BTW, recently i worked on fluid sim, with the goal of generating terrain and other static content. And something unexpected happened here too:

This starts out as a simple box, and the snaily shapes evolve from some anisotropic shrinking / expansion effects i did. They keep growing and changing all the time.
On the floor i had a static velocity field from sine waves, which i use to tear stuff apart for testing.
So this snail thing started to crawl, and it totally looked alive.
But i could also simulate muscles with material expansion and shrinking, and so make the snail follow a path without external force, and it would just work (The material is pretty stiff and preserves shape.)

With such small number of particles it's also realtime, so we could make a real fluid monster for games. Imagine the fun to shoot out holes of that : )

… just saying - realtime fluid sim becomes possible, but i still think rigid bodies and robotics gives much more.