[ODE] Assembling Bodies

[Wesley Smith]

Hi Jaap,
These are my bounce params:

contactPoints[i].surface.mode = dContactBounce;
contactPoints[i].surface.mu = 250;
contactPoints[i].surface.bounce = 0.6;
contactPoints[i].surface.bounce_vel = 0.25;

I'm even more of a newbie here and as I try more things with ODE, I
just get more lost.



> I understand it, if two spheres collide, you want them to connect
> instead of bounce off each other. is that correct? Do you need to
> connect more than two bodies? if it's just spheres of the same size,
> that makes it easy to calculate the center of mass of the new
> (connected) body.
>

It would definitely be more efficient to just make them one body. 
I'll potentially be connecting N number of bodies.  Right now, the
most I've seen is 4.  The thing I want to preserve when I connect them
is the dGeom shape.  So, if I have 4 bodies connected, they bounce
around like 4 connected spheres and not one bigger sphere with the
mass of 4 spheres.  In any case, thanks very much for your help.  I'm
practicing my ODE on a simpler example right now so I can get
everything straight in my head.

cheers.
wes