Zero Gear - Kart racing game using Bullet

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hiker
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:52 pm
Location: Australia

Re: Zero Gear - Kart racing game using Bullet

Post by hiker »

Hi,

thanks for your quick reply!
Murphy wrote:Things have changed quite a bit since I last posted in this thread. We are now using a convex hull for our kart physics shape.

The reason for this change was mainly because we wanted the kart to bounce off surfaces in a different way. We wanted more curvature to the kart's body than a simple box provides. We also put a small "hump" at the top of the shape and as a result, the kart doesn't get stuck upside down anymore :)
Ah, makes sense. We added an 'upright' constraint, which helps that our karts stay parallel to the ground while they are in the air. And if a kart should end up upside down (even though somewhat unlikely), it will get automatically rescued.
We use the same physical shape for all karts regardless of graphics. The physical kart is only on the server so doesn't even know that graphics exist. We have then just tweaked all the different variables of the kart (and still tweak every week in some way) until it generally feels right.
OK, I guess your karts have a more similar size. We are re-doing two models now, the two with the biggest problems in terms of physics.
It is enough effort to tweak one kart type, we didn't want to complicated things by tweaking each and every graphical kart. There are some minor graphical glitches I suppose but nothing I notice and nothing that gets in the way of enjoying the game at least.
Yes, that's a good point. We have done this in the past (one extremly small and tall kart was actually using a 'normal' physical shape, and no one ever complained about). Guess I was a bit too perfectionist in trying to have all shapes/sized 'correct'.

Thanks a lot for your quick answer!
Joerg