[ODE] Non-deterministic behavior

[Josh Welber]

Does anyone have experience with ODE giving non-deterministic 
results?  What I mean is specifically this:  We have a simulation where you 
shoot a ball out over a terrain and it starts rolling from there.  The only 
user input is the direction/spin/force that the ball is launched with -- 
and all these are set with discrete controls. The collisions in this case 
are all between spheres and triMesh.  We have found that the ball does not 
in a deterministic manner -- but rather bounces oddly sometimes, sometimes 
acts as expected.  This is sometimes worse if there is friction in the 
collision contact, but even for frictionless collisions it still reacts in 
a non-deterministic way.  Does anyone have any ideas about this one, seen 
this behavior themselves?  I saw the posting regarding friction causing 
unexpected results -- this is a different problem.

thanks



Josh Welber
partner/tech wrangler
Large Animal Games
http://www.largeanimal.com
t: 212.989.4312
f: 305.489.5790