[ODE] using ode for only collision detection on certain objects

[Mike Reinstein]

Hey all:

I've been in the process of building a 1st person shooter for a while now, 
and I've roledl my own primitive collision detection/response system based 
on the q3 model format (stores brushes containing groups of planes to ollide 
against) with mixed success. I did this for simplicity sake, but I think I 
need a more powerful collision detection system base on triangles rather 
than planes to fix the issues I'm having such as stair climbing, 
interactivity with doors/elevators/objects, etc.

I noticed that ODE provides a very elegant wrapper for the OPCODE collider 
library.
What I want to do is be able to register my scene as a mesh, register my 
players as Spheres or cylinders, but I dont want ode to resolve the 
collisions because itll start changing the orientation of my cylinders. My 
motivation for this is based on the fact that several months ago I was tring 
to model physical movement using ode, but just couldnt get the stability I 
needed; I think I probably shouldn't have ODE modify my objects, instead 
just useit to detect collisions, and resolve them myself and position the 
objects explicitly each step.

Would anyone care to comment on this strategy? I know you hard core physics 
guys probably cringe at what Im suggesting, but I don't know how else I can 
enforce the stability constraints in a fashion similar to some of the 
slightly aging standards out there (think q3 arena)

kind regards,

Mike

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