[ODE] new user

[Ryan O'Connor]

If you use microsoft visual c++ it should come with opengl headers all
ready. You might want to install opengl extensions though, for more
information on getting started look here:
http://www.opengl.org/resources/faq/getting_started.html
 
I would recommend using a simple graphics engine with ODE instead of trying
to code opengl from scratch, if you don't have any experience with it. That
way, you can easily toggle things on later like shadows and not worry about
the rendering side so much (just focus on the ai). Someone on this mailing
list will be able to recommend a good engine, there's one that a lot of
people not so interested in gaming use on this list, but I can't remember
what it's called..
 
As for ode, I believe it should be good for this situation. If you don't
need completely accurate dynamics, go for it. You will want to use the
unstable branch of ODE because the stable one on the website hasn't been
updated for years. In most cases the unstable one is more stable because it
has more patches applied. For this you will need to install CVS (TortoiseCVS
for windows) because this is an open source project, and get the UNSTABLE
branch from opende repository. Others will be able to help with this if you
have problems. Make sure you read all of the help guide in tortoiseCVS, it
is very helpful if you are new to version systems.
 
.tar is an archive file. It should open with a recent version of winzip. You
should instead forget about this approach and use CVS. Then, build the ode
library yourself from the source code.

  _____  

From: alaysamhak at aol.com [mailto:alaysamhak at aol.com] 
Sent: Sunday, 5 February 2006 11:02 a.m.
To: ode at q12.org
Subject: [ODE] new user


Hello All, I just recently subscribed to the mailing list, just wanted to
say hello. I would like to use ode to design a robot. I would like to see if
this robot can learn to walk, by applying certain forces to multiple joints
at each time step, and see if I can compute the end velocity of the entire
body. This is mainly for a thesis I'm working on. Do you recommend I use
ode? if not are there other options?
 
-ALso I'm having trouble getting started, I'm pretty good at programming in
c++, however, I typically have problems getting started with the software,
configuring everything. I went to the website and I downloaded binary
releases for windows, since I'm most comfortable with windows. However I get
this ode-0.5.tar file, I tried opening it in microsoft visual studio 6.0,
however, it seems like it can't read the file. Can someone help me get
started, let me know what kind of software and development environment I
need to use?
 
ALso to be able to draw the spider it seems like i need opengL, where can I
get it from and how do i configure it with ode?
 
Thank you very much in advance,
 
-Bill
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