[ODE] questions regarding physically based camera modeling using ODE

[Mike Reinstein]

Hi guys:

I have a few questions regarding camera representation in my 
game/simulation:

Question 1: How do most games nowadays do it? Is the approach to generally 
model the cameras as physical objects that the physics system controls? Or 
is it usually one independant of a physics system. It seems to me like 
physical modeling of the camera is the way to go since the gravity, and 
collision detection stuff will be handled automatically, but it presents 
other challenges...


Question 2: Assuming I go with physical modeling, How do I prevent the 
camera from topling over or rotating on any of its 3 axis? There must be a 
way to limit the degrees of freedom for objects...I think Adam from Croteam 
posted something about specifying 3 types of entities (static having 0dof, 
dynamic having 6dof, and "avatar" having 3dof)...I like the sound of this 
approach, but how do you go about limiting dof in an efficient way? (I'd 
rather have the physics system somehow disregard the unwanted 3dof in the 
case of avatars)

Question 3: If I go with physical modeling, how does this tie in with 
multiplayer support? the problem is If I allow the physics system to control 
camera movement and collision response, what data do I send to the networked 
players in the game, and extrapolate expected positions using a curve fit?  
This puzzles me....

Question 4: Pardon my ignorance, but what is an inertial tensor? I have a 
feeling this has something to do with question 2 mentioned above...

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys, thanks in advance!  :)


kind regards,
neko

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