Workshop: Physics Simulation from First Principles

Josep Maria Pujol will be leading a hands-on workshop where we crack open the "black box" of physics engines and build real-time simulations from scratch — no magic, just math and intuition.|

Josep Maria Pujol - Software Engineer, Unity

We start with the fundamentals — position, velocity, acceleration, and time stepping — building an intuitive sense of how objects move. Next, we tackle collisions, impulse response, and simple rigid body simulation, seeing how objects bounce, collide, and respond to forces in real time. Finally, we explore constraints and stability with Position-Based Dynamics (PBD) and Extended PBD (XPBD), also giving a glimpse into how other more complex physics systems work.
Through hands-on exercises, you'll experiment in the Unity Editor, tweaking parameters and instantly visualising the effects — turning abstract physics concepts into interactive intuition and building transferable skills for working with physics engines in games.
By the end, you'll understand not just how simulations work — but why they work.

Workshop repo: https://github.com/JosepMariaPujol/PhysicsWorkshop

Program:
17:30 - Sandwiches, sodas and mingling
18:00 - Welcome
18:10 - Workshop
19:15 (approx.) - Mingling continues
21:30 - Venue closing