Torque physics

#1 Assuming it's a Shape, you can use the script command applyImpulse to do such a thing. Search around in the existing stuff, particularly radiusDamage, and you'll get the idea.

#2 Sounds good I'll looking into it tonight
thanx

#3 Dale,

Yes you can, but it's really a hack (applying the impulses and such). Torque's physics are mighty good, but by no means do they stand up to ODE, Karma or Havok powered games... rumor has it that a couple groups are working on integrating ODE with torque, but I haven't heard much more than a few whispers (not that I've really been listening very hard).

IMO, Torque is a great engine for hobbiests or people who enjoy fixer-uppers, but I've had the pleasure of working with a scratchbuilt high end engine using havok 2, gamebryo and some incredible networking tech from butterfly.net (free cookie to anyone who finds the development company using this engine and gives me the name ;-)) and let me just say, torque is fun for playing around with and simple games, but anything very complicated (again, IMO) requires some serious tweakage to the engine...

Good luck,
Jeff

#4 (IMO, anything very complicated would require tweakage to any engine.)

#5 Yeah I knew it would probly take some programming I was just wondering if it was already implimented before I get into it.
thanx

#6 Jeff: I think you have to qualify what you are saying. If you had a game type where the realism of the physics played a key role in the gameplay...then Torque physics is truely lacking. If the game you are making requires only "game physics" then Torque is perfect for that. Your assertion that only "hobby games" can be made with Torque is not really defensible. Many commercial quality games do not have physics at realistic as ODE.

#7 Dale: the simplest route might be to have this object be an Item object that is not marked as "static". The Item class has a very simplistic notion of impulse (it will only move and never turn as a result of forces, unlike the Player and Vehicle classes), but if you only want it to move this is an easy way to start that would require scripting changes only.

#8 Having used ODE in the past, I have to say that while it is GREAT for some things, everything isn't completely peachy. For one thing, it is very difficult to get a stable system up and running in ODE. Try making a wheeled vehicle that isn't super-wide.. You'll be looking at a lot of effort trying to get that thing balanced (by putting the center of gravity way under the vehicle, for instance) so it won't tip over all the damn time. Getting a system of stacked boxes that doesn't jitter and fall over on its own is another chore.

ODE is great, don't get me wrong, but there are many cases where 'game physics' really are good enough, and in those cases you're better off using 'game physics' which have much less of a tendency of becoming ridiculously unstable all of the sudden due to trying to mix realistic and complex physics algorithms with the imprecision of floating point units in current computers.

Unlike ODE, the commercial physics libraries like Havok are much easier to plug & play with, but they just cost too damn much to even be a consideration when it comes to indie gaming.

As far as Torque's physics being unusable...My current favorite game, by far, is Planetside. The vehicle physics aren't at all realistic (and Torque's buggy demo feels a lot better than the Planetside buggy, IMO) but the game is really fun anyway. I paid $50 for the game and pay $13 a month to keep playing it, and I don't intend to stop anytime soon... and judging by the number of people on the game at any specific time, I'm not the only one... So I think that blows holes in the idea that "professional" games need life-like physics.