[ODE] Normal maps

[Geoff Carlton]

The first thing you'll want to do is ditch the current normal 
calculations and use a normal calculated from the triangle itself.  This 
has been mentioned a few times on the list already, but I don't know of 
any particular patch that has been made up.  It is most obvious when 
there is a flat trimesh - you end up getting all sorts of wierd contact 
directions at the triangle boundaries, despite the overall shape of the 
trimesh being a flat plane.

Whether its a simple scheme of a fixed normal result per triangle, 
interpolating between normal vectors stored on each vertex, or bump 
mapping, anything at all beats the current setup.

Geoff


John Donovan wrote:

>I've just had a thought, has anyone tried using normal maps for
>collision response? I've been playing around with ODE, and getting my
>spheres to roll around a mesh bowl looks great, but they can exhibit
>little jumps as they cross triangle edges. This is perfectly normal, and
>for the most part unnoticable. But if the collision point could be used
>as a lookup into a normal map, I could generate continuous normals thus
>smoothing things out.
>This is just an idea, so I've no idea if this is feasable. Any thoughts?
>
>John Donovan
>Programmer - Magenta Software Ltd.
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