SV: [ODE] Particle/cloth/skeleton (was: Re: Choleski factorization)

[Joakim Eriksson]

> A "cloth"-simulator is a lot of fun. But I would think it has 
> more to do
> with rendering and visual effects than physics, and a cloth simulation
> isn't physically accurate either, in the form ODE is, in my 
> opinion. Fun?
> Yes. Accurate, physical, useful for all users of ODE (not just Batman
> creators)? No, I don't think so. But it would be nice to have 
> a "plug-in" package available for download for use with ODE, but it
may 
> not need to be distributed with ODE as a default.. ?

A cloth simulation surly doesnt have to be just a simple visual effect.
You can throw rigid bodies in it and other fun things like that.

However what goes againts using a verlet approch is that I think it
would be very hard to integrate the two systems.
That is the cloth have to affect the rigidbodies and the bodies
have to affect the cloth. Doing that using two diffrent systems
(LCP & Verlet) is hard. If you do it wrong the body would simply
pass through the cloth when it has a high enough speed.
And that would sort of break ode in a way. Then you would be
forced to think about max speeds and such and take away some
of the stability that ode has. Not good.

/Joakim E. - http://www.planestate.net