[ODE] Why is it that most commercial entities roll their own collision system?

[Nate W]

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004, Megan Fox wrote:

> There was the racing game awhile ago, Stalker apparently, and so on - all
> apparently using custom collision systems (or other collision systems found
> elsewhere, possibly, not sure).  Is there some problem with ODE's collision
> that makes it non-suitable for commercial games?

I can't say anything about 'most' but in the case of the (hopefully soon
to be) commercial game I'm working on, they already had their own
collision system before they started thinking about physics.  You probably
need CD even if you don't have real physics - you don't want your players
walking through walls or trees - so this isn't really surprising.

And speaking of walls, ODE's collision system doesn't seem very well
suited to indoor environments.  I'm sure you could make it work by
cobbling together boxes, or perhaps by making a tri-mesh out of the
building (would that work??) but I suspect that a purpose built
indoor-environment CD system might work better for most indoor FPS-type
games.

-- 

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA
http://www.natew.com/