[ODE] Planted objects

[Ian Overgard]

Heya,

Right now in my game I'm trying to make it so that objects such as trees or fences that are "planted" in the ground act in a realistic fashion when something like a tank runs over them. What I'm aiming for, is having it so that the objects are fixed to the ground with a joint, and try to hold themselves up until a sort of maximum amount of pressure is applied and it "breaks" (ie. it stops trying to hold itself up and the joint is released -- I imagine the breakable joints contrib would be perfect for this)..

The problem is that I'm not certain how to model this with the current joint set. Originally I was going to use a universal joint, but I can't apply any motor forces in that case, so even the smallest amount of pressure would cause the object to fall. Hinge2 doesn't seem to work, because as far as I can tell I'm only allowed to get the angle for one of the hinge axis, but not the other, so I'm not sure how I'd be able to know what motor forces to apply. Hinge doesn't work because I need this to operate on two axis (x and z), not just one. I was thining of using a ball joint with an amotor, but it seems like I can't attach the amotor to the world, and I'd rather not have to create a second body since that would require a lot more proccessing. 

I'd rather not have to apply the forces directly, as it's seems inelegant (and I'm lazy ;) ). Anyone have any ideas of a way to model this?

--Ian


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