[ODE] More Newbie Questions

[danielkramer at gmail.com]

Thanks for the help Jon.  I'll give it a try.

Just curious.. being new to this api it seems that a lot of my
questions have probably been asked many times before.. There doesn't
seem to be a web interface to search the list archives.. I'm sure I
could answer most of my questions by searching around.  Does this
exist?

I even tried to download the entire archive and search locally, but I
got a server error and couldn't download

daniel


On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 12:05:59 -0700, Jon Watte <hplus-ode at mindcontrol.org> wrote:
> 
> The way to have static objects is to create Geoms for them,
> but connect the geoms to the "0" body (static environment).
> You don't need to create a body at all for the fixed parts.
> This makes the simulation more efficient, to boot.
> 
> For key-framed objects, you must decide on some maximum
> force and maximum slop time that you allow. Say, 1000 force
> units and 0.1 slop time. Then, when playing back the animation,
> you look at where the animation wants you to be in 0.1 seconds,
> look at where you are now, calculate what velocity (linear and
> angular) you'd need to get where you want to go in the time
> indicated, subtract the current velocity, multiply with your
> force constant, divide by time step, and out comes the linear
> force and angular torque you should apply to the object.
> 
> If you try to just position the object using "full kinematics"
> then your simulation is likely to be poorly behaved and blow
> up quickly.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>                         / h+