[ODE] ODE in Myst V: A Postmortem

[Colin Bonstead]

No, we made a decision at the start to not make any physics based 
puzzles.  For one, they're a testing nightmare, and two, pretty much 
everyone hated them in Uru.  As a matter of fact, we don't really use 
any obvious physics.

We really weren't sure what ODE would be able to handle, so we made sure 
that nothing critical in the game would depend on physics.  We actually 
could have gotten away with just using ODE for collision detection and 
having a non-physical player controller.  However, I was hoping that we 
could use physics more in a future game so I did make the avatar 
physical, so I could work out all the issues with that.  It is possible 
to create dynamic physicals in the engine right now, but aside from some 
testing I did it won't be used.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Oost <h.b.oost at student.utwente.nl>
Sent: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 03:18:28 +0200
To: Colin Bonstead <colin at cyan.com>
Subject: Re: [ODE] ODE in Myst V: A Postmortem

On Tue, 2005-06-21 at 15:58 -0700, Colin Bonstead wrote:
> I've pretty much wrapped up the physics work in Myst V, so I figured 
I'd
> send out an email to the list with the details of what kind of issues 
I
> ran into.

Do you use ODE for the puzzels or are they entirely scripted? If so, did
you ran into any trouble making sure ODE gave the exact same results
everytime you ran the puzzel?

Also, and I understand if you don't answer this, I'm curious to learn
about the extent of the physics interaction in Myst V. Will we able to
interact with the scenery, like realistically wading through the long
grass I saw in some of the scenery?

Although I'm a bit sceptical about a Myst in a non-prerendered
environment, I'm excited to hear you're making progress.

-Peter