[ODE] looks like i am moving on

[Michael Powers]

hey everyone - ODE seems to be great for vehicle
effects but, after two weeks of working on simple box
stacking (in a stable 3d engine, not doing anything
fancy) i am not any closer to having a stable
simulation - i went through all the mail archives to
attempt to find my way and posted here often - i am
still in the dark as to where things went wrong - i've
cut and paste - pared it back to minimum code -
changed the sim rate - printed out the contact points
each step - everything suggested

sadly, i think i am drifting away from ODE - i always
try to use opensource when i can but in this case ODE
is perhaps not in the sweet spot (granted its only .35
but it seemed to hold so much promise) - i am looking
to work something out with Novodex or Mathengine who
seem to be open to working a deal that is shareware
friendly - i know that Quest3D was able to integrate
fairly well with ODE but mostly it looks like they
played to ODE's strength (vehicles) and stayed away
from object group interactions.

I think the other thing that is drawing me away is the
development pace of ODE - unlike OGRE which is rapidly
developing into a fantastic 3D engine, ODE remains on
the slow track - it is a fantastic core engine for
physics but it is one mans project - with the success
of mathengine, havok, etc in todays games one would
think that an opensource physics engine would be a
hotbed of development activity - it seems many people
on this list are writing bits and pieces completely
separately (like Pierres soft body effects) but ODE
itself is not moving very fast - most commercial
engines have or will have soft body effects this
quarter and then ... they will keep moving to the next
level - it could be that physics engines are not
mature yet and so the opensource effort does not have
a path to follow or a wide pool of developers
interested in making an opensource one yet

so, take what you will from this commentary - i am
still on the curve for development in windows (but ODE
did not require anything too out of my range) - this
is my first attempt at integrating with physics - and
i am new to ODE

good luck to this effort in the future - i will let
you know how my other efforts work out - i also hear
rumblings in the OGRE forum of an attempt to make an
ODE plugin - so i will watch that effort carefully and
help out where i can - and who knows, if i hit a wall
will the commercial engines you may see me back here
trying again!

michael

ceo
flatland online

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