Talk:Physics engine

Physics is also about optics, so why is it not called game mechanics ?Arnero 20:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Because 'Physics Engine' is what 100% of the people in the business call these software libraries - they might well have chosen the name poorly - but that doesn't in any way alter the fact that 'Physics Engine' is what they are called. If there is ambiguity with something else that's also called 'a physics engine' then create a disambig page - but calling this by a name that nobody in the field uses would be ridiculous. The term 'game mechanics' has a completely different meaning to computer games people - it means (roughly) 'the rules by which the game is played'. Things like: Do you get to pick up more ammunition for your gun? Do you win by killing all of the enemy or by rescuing the princess? So calling this article "Game mechanics" would be terminally confusing for all involved. Nope - the name of the article is 100% correct. Sorry, SteveBaker 14:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This needs more cites, but it's a difficult topic to cite

Other than Second Life and Gary's Mod for Half Life 2, there aren't many easily accessible ways for non-programmers to experiment with physics engines.

Meanwhile, the documentation of how physics works in Second Life isn't written down anywhere in an official manual, but if you start experimenting with physics you will discover these operational conditions sooner or later.

I might eventually provide other video demonstrations like my SL exploding wheeled cart, since about the only way to show how it works is to actually do it and then record the results.

DMahalko 22:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of citations available. Look in SIGGRAPH papers from 1995-2005, especially those of Baraff. He did the impulse/constraint/linear complementarity approach to game physics. That's widely used because, even though it assumes idealized collisions and handles friction badly, it can be computed in nearly constant time for any given scene. Spring/damper methods are more realistic but sometimes slower. --John Nagle 00:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Bouding Box?

In the first paragraph under the Game Engines, it says "The simplified mesh used for physics processing is often referred to as the bounding box." I believe a bounding box is not just any simplified mesh, but as its name suggests, is a box that bounds the object and is used for a preliminary test for collision or for the actual collision test itself.

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BetacommandBot 21:45, 6 November 2007 (UTC)