[ODE] Re: Roller-coaster

[Erwin Coumans]

That is a good idea, but realize its not just the normals that are used for 
friction. When sliding an object over a triangle-mesh you might encounter 
collisions with the 'internal edges', even when you discard friction. One 
way to solve this is to handle this is to preprocess the mesh and 'remove' 
the internal triangle-edges from collision detection. This requires some 
non-trivial work.

Erwin


>Hmm, given that for smooth lighting, normals are interpolated, couldn't
>normals be interpolated for friction purposes to avoid the "catching"
>problem? I am not sure if this is possible with OPCODE but it seems like
>it's the right thing to do long term if you want good friction behavior
>with triangle meshes.

erwin at erwincoumans.com wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I would say ODE is probably very suitable and using a triangle
> collider is not that bad at all. However if you really want a more
> 'smooth' ride, without discontinuities on the triangle-edges, you can
> consider writing a bezier-patch system, like in SSX. See gamasutra
> (requires a login):
> http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2002/features/rayner/rayner_01.htm
> Erwin Coumans