I am joint-majoring in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics with a minor in Physics. Will this help teach me the things I'll need to know to develop physics engines for video games commercially after I graduate?

I'm appalling at maths - wish I new it better - I was on a physics forum the other day - the stuff they were lobbing around in their sleep was way over my head.
If your good at it though - you can do a lot more than physics engines for video games - crypto is where the money is imo - tomorows games will need more and more security as impersenation is on the rise.

Your choice of studies is good - I'm envious - I had to scratch my education out of forums and personal research projects - your one lucky person to have such a promising education - good luck with your studies...

I am joint-majoring in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics with a minor in Physics. Will this help teach me the things I'll need to know to develop physics engines for video games commercially after I graduate?

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[color="#1C2837"]With that wording, yes. [color=#1C2837][size=2]Both of those will help you with your own learning process.
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[color="#1C2837"]It will not get you a job developing games. It will not get you a job programming middleware. It will not get you a job programming physics engines.
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[color="#1C2837"]The concepts for using physics software engines in games is trending down. Big g[color=#1C2837][size=2]ames don't use real physics for core features because it tends to behave in unexpected ways.
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[color="#1C2837"]Real physics in particle systems and non-scripted dynamics are a big thing, but is done by hardware. Havok, PhysX, and the rest have been steadily moving to GPU-based processing. Yes, they still need programmers, but it is becoming a job for the driver vendor rather than the game studio.

I'm appalling at maths - wish I new it better - I was on a physics forum the other day - the stuff they were lobbing around in their sleep was way over my head.
If your good at it though - you can do a lot more than physics engines for video games - crypto is where the money is imo - tomorows games will need more and more security as impersenation is on the rise.

Your choice of studies is good - I'm envious - I had to scratch my education out of forums and personal research projects - your one lucky person to have such a promising education - good luck with your studies...

I just finished doing a 2 1/2 hour Calculus tutorial and now I'm spending another 1 1/2 hours studying.


Thanks for the replies guys!

[color="#1c2837"]The concepts for using physics software engines in games is trending down. Big g[color="#1c2837"]ames don't use real physics for core features because it tends to behave in unexpected ways.

[color="#1c2837"]Real physics in particle systems and non-scripted dynamics are a big thing, but is done by hardware. Havok, PhysX, and the rest have been steadily moving to GPU-based processing. Yes, they still need programmers, but it is becoming a job for the driver vendor rather than the game studio.

To put a silver lining on this ominous thundercloud, more knowledge is never bad. At the very least your major choice is applicable to game programming. Though physics is trending towards middleware, having a solid knowledge of physical interactions will give you an outlook that will help you in the long run. The knowledge gained by learning higher level physics will end up applying to a lot of things that may not be directly related to physics.

A lot of the stuff you use in physics can very easily be applied to rendering techniques.

I'm also not sure I agree that "big games don't use real physics for core features..." They may not use perfectly accurate physics, but they still use some variation on real physics. On middleware, a lot of companies are using middleware, but some of the most impressive games don't use any. Crytech's physics system is pretty impressive as is Dice's for BF and Lucas Arts' with their DMM in the force unleased games. I don't think anyone would argue that the physics in any of those company's games is not a "core feature" or that nobody at the company's themselves works on it.

Yes, your major path will teach you very, very useful things for game programming.

However, it's very important to take what you learn and apply it to games, and to work on games while you're in school.