[ODE] New Physics SDK/Stepfast

[Adam D. Moss]

DjArcas wrote:
>>One thing which is interesting to note is that this
>>engine (like most game-oriented engines) seems to have (recently)
>>gone what I can only presume to be an 'iterative solver' (stepfast!)
>>route, inferred from reading their latest news.
> 
> Does ODE use StepFast by default now? or is it a switch I need to flick on?
> does that help me during moments of horrendous islands caused by a dozen
> cars in a pileup? :)

It does indeed help *enormously* for large islands, that being
what is was really designed for.

But, it's not part of ODE *at all*, except as a few-month-old zipfile
downloaded from a not-well-known URL which replaces some of ODE's
files.  And even then it's not enabled by default or transparently,
having a slightly different API to allow tuneable accuracy (this
is fine and quite simple) and some other not-entirely-related
goodies.

And, since it's neither in the ODE tree nor supplied as a patch
file, it's likely to be prone to some serious bitrot over time.

It seems a shame.  (Stepfast was developed by David Whittaker,
who I hope is still on this list, in a short burst of super activity.)

So, I'll try to spend a little time right now coming up with a
fresh patch against CVS HEAD and I'll post a link to the list.

--Adam
-- 
Adam D. Moss   . ,,^^   adam@gimp.org   http://www.foxbox.org/   co:3
"When I was young, I would break down and cry whenever mom made me
throw an empty toilet paper tube in the trash can. I just imagined
it sitting at the dump, all cardboard and sad." -- T.Farnon