How is physics used in game development?

Question

IT education

I really want to become a game developer and I know that knowledge of physics is needed there. But I do not understand where and how exactly they are applied? At what level do you need to know? If you can, please give specific examples of the tasks assigned to the game developer, where he will need to know physics. The bigger, the better.
Thank you all very much!

Answer 1

Just imagine that you are developing one of the following games:
Billiards
calculation of the trajectories of balls, taking into account the force vector applied to the ball and the point of its application, rotational moments, the effect of braking (decreasing speed) of the balls over time.
Racing simulator
calculation of the trajectory of the car, taking into account braking / acceleration, inertia, collision with obstacles / other cars, calculation of deformations of body elements during impacts, etc.
Shooter
scattering trajectories of fragments/bodies/objects during explosions. Vehicles (if any) as in racing simulators. Behavior of the body model (reclining trajectory) of a player/character/mob under physical impact on it (hit by a car with a tool/club/butt/frying pan, bullet hit, fall from a height), taking into account the distribution of the impact energy accepted by the model over the body, the force of this impact and the point his applications. For example, they hit the head - throws back the head, hit the right shoulder - the shoulder tilts and the body turns, while the opposite one first lags behind the turn and then flies with acceleration around the body along the rotation trajectory.
Space simulator
complex influence of gravity sources on each other and on ships, taking into account the masses of all objects participating in the interaction and, as a result, their inertia
All this is physics and geometry, quite intricately intertwined.

Answer 2

Physics can be useful in order to make the graphics more realistic, pleasing to the eye. Knowledge of physics can help in understanding how to build a particular level.

Answer 3

If you want to quickly "touch" the physics in games, use Unity and this tutorial
https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/movement/

Answer 4

Of course, you don’t need to know physics, it’s enough to know some kind of physics engine , for example, for 2D games - Box2D . Games are written on game engines, for mobile the most popular is Unity , physical engines are already built in there, you just have to google usage examples .