[ODE] interlinked wheels - imagine gears

[Jon Watte (ODE)]

Tobias Zimmer wrote:
> Now the question: How could I interlink the wheels like gears
> giving them the same velocity in every timestep? My only idea
> is to set FMax to 0 at each timestep, but would they work than
> anyways?
>   

Are the wheels contacting ground? If so, their speed will be dependent 
on the rate of travel over ground (and will vary when the vehicle 
turns). If they're not contacting ground, then your first order of 
business is probably to put them on ground (or rails), if that's where 
you want to eventually end up. The simulation of wheel/support contact 
is a lot more important than the simulation of the suspension and 
chassis, if you want a good locomotion simulation.

The other way to lock the wheel velocities is to make each wheel pair a 
single body, with two geoms (one per wheel). This means that the wheel 
geoms always spin with the single body, and thus by definition at the 
same rate.

Cheers,

          / h+