[ODE] XODE - finalisation

Thu Mar 25 18:47:52 MST 2004

I apologize if I'm sounding stupid here, but...

what's the difference between...

<body mass="5">
...
</body>

and...

<body>
   <mass density="5">
   </mass>
</body>

Is that redundant, or is my inexperience in ODE showing?

And I hope I'm not bothering anyone but what does <mass total="1"> do 
exactly (I can't tell from the document) ?

Finally....

I don't see a way to combine masses that are not all at the same center 
of gravity...

Is that supposed to be done like this?

<mass density="1" total="1">
  <cylinder radius="1" length="2">
    <transform>
      <position x="0" y="0" z="0" />
      <rotation x="0" y="90" z="0" aformat="degrees" />
      <scale x="1" y="1" z="1" />        
    </transform>
  </cylinder>
</mass>

If so, that invalidates using <cylinder radius="1" length="1" />, or, 
rather, you could use this shortened form when no sub-elements are needed..

I.e., if no transform or anything else is needed inside it, you could use:

<cylinder radius="1" length="1" />

but if you do need transform, use what I pasted above.

Should there be some sort of documentation as to which arguments and 
elements are mandatory? I.e. I think radius and length should both be 
mandatory for <cylinder>

Sorry I got so long-winded :)