Bullet suitable for distributed Physics ?

Please don't post Bullet support questions here, use the above forums instead.
Post Reply
Alewinn
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:45 am

Bullet suitable for distributed Physics ?

Post by Alewinn »

Hello,

Is it ?
Or do you think it can ?
mikeshafer
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:45 am

Re: Bullet suitable for distributed Physics ?

Post by mikeshafer »

You could make a distributable wrapper around Bullet that distributes collisions around or slightly modify Bullet to do it. I think Bullet calls pair-wise collision candidates islands so look at btSimulationIslandManager.h/.cpp. You could make it so each island runs on different threads/processors. This is just a tip though. What are you trying to do? Distributed simulation project or an industry project. Because most industry applications can run bullet on a separate thread or processor (just one for physics) along side your update thread/processor and your render thread/processor, etc, etc. This is just off the top of my head, hope it helps.

Mike
Alewinn
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:45 am

Re: Bullet suitable for distributed Physics ?

Post by Alewinn »

Thanks for the quick reply Mike.

I'm working on a solution to build a massive multiplayer scalable physic simulation engine, so this is more from the first category (distributed simulation).
The solution i would like to work on is the one used in Roblox or something similar (see http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1 ... ernational)
Can Bullet handle this kind of distributed architecture ?
mikeshafer
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:45 am

Re: Bullet suitable for distributed Physics ?

Post by mikeshafer »

While I'm no expert on the subject, you could use any physics package to do this. Just understand that most games use physics that are pair-wise (i.e. collision/dynamics between 2 objects) and you can take this binary nature and delegate the binary packages. I'm not sure how much networking stuff there is in Bullet, but most objects have a serialize function which tells me you can package the collision data up to send elsewhere. You would have to ask Mr. Coumans if it really possible. I felt bad that you didn't get a reply and I replied, I'm no expert. Good luck :).

Mike
Post Reply