[ODE] more specific questions on physical movement of players..

[Mike Reinstein]

Hey all:

I started implementing my the movement for players in the simulation. 
Following the advice hplus, I represent a character as a sphere, and apply 
forces to the sphere to make it move. It seems to work as I would expect, 
but now I need to take away some of the physical aspects to make it more 
realistic. Here are my questions:

1) when I release the movement and strafe keys, my moving entity keeps 
moving quite a bit. I think this is due to the fact that the sum of forces 
acting on the body are greater than 0, and because my friction is not high 
enough...I've also noticed that my sphere cannot come to rest on a set of 
stairs; it slides down the stars shortly after releasing the movement keys 
which im assuming is another result of the aforementioned issue involving 
friction and net forces...Am I correct? How do I go about fixing this?

2) I have implemented a jump, which basically just calls this:
   dBodyAddForce(bodyID, 0.0, 80.0, 0.0);
  This works ok, but the problem is if the user holds down the jump key, the 
force keeps getting applied, and the user quickly starts ascending. How can 
I fix this?

I have other problems too, but these 2 are the most irksome...it seems like 
my problems come from the fact that I'm applying continuous forces in trying 
to achieve more discrete physical actions.
Any help woyld be appreciated!

thanks y'all!

neko

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® 
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963