[ODE] Camera should be a body with zero mass?

[George Birbilis]

see 3impact.com, they have similar camera demos (using ODE internally in
their engine)
you don't want the camera to "jump" though obstacles, you want it to go over
them etc. (usually attach the camera with a spring [a translational joint
with high CFM / bouncy at the ends] so that it goes smoothly over obstacles
etc., chasing the object you've attatched it to])

the 3impact SDK (if you register the engine) has nice camera classes
implemented which could also be adapted to pure ODE code (3impact API is a
bit of a simplified wrapper over ODE, see the reference.txt in their
downloadable engine [demo version] for the whole 3impact API description)

-----
George Birbilis (birbilis at kagi.com)
http://www.kagi.com/birbilis
--------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Megan Fox" <shalinor at circustent.us>
To: <andresch at cox.net>; <ode at q12.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 5:59 PM
Subject: RE: [ODE] Camera should be a body with zero mass?


> If your camera is a chasecam, instead of modelling it physically, you
could
> just cast a Ray geom back from the player's head and determine that the
> camera location is the first collision point along that ray.
>
> -Megan
>
> > The camera in my simulation is implemented as a body/geom in ode.
> > I want my camera to follow my character as it moves and rotates
> > (third person), so I attach them to each other with a slider, and
> > all is well except...
> > the camera's mass affects the characters movement.  I want the
> > camera affected by the guy, but not the guy affected by the
> > camera, in other words the camera should be a body with zero
> > mass.  If I set it's mass to zero, bad things happen so I'm
> > thinking you're not supposed to do that. How can I have a
> > body/geom that reacts to the things it's joined to but does not
> > affect them?
> >
> > -Andy
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > ODE mailing list
> > ODE at q12.org
> > http://q12.org/mailman/listinfo/ode
> >
> >
>
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