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Physics....

Squishy, Bouncy, Springy, Rigid, ...Bodies...

 

Game Physics

by Ben Kenwright

 


Simply put, game physics makes your game look amazing. From objects falling to the ground under gravity, or connected objects with springs such as bridges and ropes....with just a little bit of extra work, you can make effects that will make almost anyone drewl. Most people when you say .Game Physics....they usually give a shudder, and think of all the maths and equations......but hopefully after reading a few of my tutorials on the subject you'll be able to throw together some great effects.....such as simple cloth effects using Verlet Integration or Springs....Stacks of blocks using rigid bodies....or even a racing car with bouncy spring suspension.

I find a lot of the problems with Game Physics is the way its explained, or don't show the simple hacks to solve problems like sinking or jiggling, which I'll show you.

But be warned....physics programming is not an easy road....god only knows how many papers and books on the subject I've read, and everyone out there seems to have there own way of solving different problems, ....some of the solutions to me seem to involve so much maths and problem solving it can put you into a coma ....still, stick with me and I'll try and get you through it.

The beauty though, at the heart of most things, it pretty simple, and I'll hopefully enlighten you to the hows and tos of things, and also give you some simple demos that you can experiment with to take you to the next level of understanding....and before long you'll be wondering why you'd never done it before :)

 

Understanding the Basics

 

Well its always best to start simple I say.....We'll start with simple objects and various things, such as gravity, constraints and collisions and expand on them, step by step...Hopefully you.ve got a bucket of coffee on your desk as some of it can get pretty boring..... lets roll out...



Workshop Series on Game Physics

 

A range of mini-workshops to help you focus on refining your skills in a particular area. Starting off with the basics, the laws of mechanics (Newton's equations) and gradually working your way up to more complex and juicy concepts, such as, soft body (squish) object and fluid dynamics (splishy sploshy and gases).




Misc Physics Things

 

A complete game engine can be a monster task...I mean there's companies who do this for a living (i.e. Havok and MathEngine)...so for us, we'll just see how far we can take this....simple rigid bodies....constraints....some ragdoll effects Collision Detection of Objects (Cubes, Spheres, Sausages...) Gravity and Impulses Constraints and Sticking Together Springs Character Physics, Ragdoll Effects Cloth System ....

 

Simple Physics Demos

Penalty Basic Game Physics DirectX X Direct X Direct-X- X File Format X DirectX X Jacobian Solver, LCP Solver, IK, Ragdolls, Physics tricks, matrices, DirectX API X File Skinning X Animation X NULL, fast, demos, sourcecode, tutorial, File Mesh X API

I'm always experimenting and testing out new ideas, so to test out my ideas and help me visualize and prove what's happening....as if you read around...some different book, or some research papers or web sites....then you'll pick up lots of new ideas and things to try to fix problems you have....and until you actually sit down and code these things...you never get to actually say .ha....so it worked :)



Description Source Code  Screenshots
A simple...I mean very simple example of some rigid body spheres bouncing around in a room BallPhysics { Updating }
Impulse Based Systems - Expanding onto Ragdolls Impulse Demo  
Introduction to Game Programming Physics Book

 

A step-by-step introduction to the fundamental principles of game physics using practical no-nonsense examples and illustrations.

Book


A lot of the work I've done is through trial and error, so there might be a few mistakes or improvements that can be made....please feel free to email me any suggestions or comments, as I.m always glad to hear.  bkenwright@xbdev.net

 
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