[ODE] test program problems

[Martijn Buijs]

Holger Urbanek wrote:
> To learn ODE I would suggest that you
> 
> 1) Read the manual from beginning to the end. It's not complicated. If
> you dont understand something, don't worry, read on.
> 
> 2) Than look at the boxstack example. 
> 
> 3) Try to make your own program where a box falls down on a second fixed box.
> 
> 4) Read again the section about joints.  Fix one box by a joint and
> hang another box to the first one with another joint.
> 
> 5) Try to apply forces (e.g. dBodyAddTorque).
> 
> 6) Now think of what you are planning to do and look at the more
> advanced examples.
> 
> So: At the beginning don't let you bother with the difficult examples.
> Start easy. Recognize the simplicity of ODE.
> And yes, I think, that the examples don't have a fixed framerate ...
> they are yust examples for ODE, so people can lern of that, not
> examples for the art of game-programming, which complicates things and
> brings no deep insight to ODE. (Perhaps for clarification: ODE ist
> just the physics-engine, NO graphics engine. I don't even use the
> supplied OpenGL library, as I more like the inventor-stuff ...)
> 
> Have fun with ODE -- its great.
> 
> Just my $0.02
> 
>   Holger

Hi,

The problem for me is not how to get started, but rather the behavior of test programs themselves. I 
find it quite worrying that they crash. If its ODE itself that causes them to crash, can one 
guarantee my own test programs won't do that?
Besides that, it may scare off others who want to use ODE. And if these programs ARE written to 
learn from, they just have to work correctly imho.

And about the framerate; I do think it's important. It only takes ~10 lines, and when well 
commented, anyone can understand what it does. What I mean is, if the demo programs do have a 
textured and animated sky, why not make them framerate independent to make them work physically correct?

Anyway, I still want to solve the crashing problem. It doesn't seem to be an OS or hardware problem 
as I'm having the same trouble on all of my machines (Windows 98/XP, Intel/AMD). Assuming the 
problem lies either within ODE itself or the test programs code, I have no idea where to start 
looking. Any hints on that? :)

-Martijn