Tokamak physics engine

#1 I agree. I saw this earlier today and thought, 'good, now I don't have to build a physics engine' ;)

@sam - i will help implement this into RE

#2 One issue with tokamak is there is no source with the free distribution, so if you use it you'll throw out the "coming soon" cross-platform nature of Reaction Engine.

ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) might be a better choice since the source is open, it can be used freely (with a BSD style license, so no *GPL-ish 'code taint') and has been ported at least to Linux (perhaps to Mac too, don't know) already.

IMO either might be a bit much for RE, though. Once you start looking for rigid body dynamics physics engines you might be getting away from this engine's comfort zone and might consider Torque, etc.

Having said that, do whatever you find interesting and fun.

#3 ODE does run on MacOS X :)

#4 I think that we need some sort of physics engine to do any sort of 3D game. I know that I will need at least a simple one for a game that I am doing.. I will share it once it gets to that point.

#5 Basic physics are dead easy to do, even in 3D. You only need a library like ODE if your game is going to be serious about physics; otherwise the effort of integrating probably isn't worth the gains. (Imagine tetris running on a realistic physics engine :)

#6 I agree. I need something between simple and ODE.

#7 I think reaction engine already comes with nearly all the physics stuff that was used for chain reaction.

#8 George,

What this BSD like license means, if you wanna to publish the game
electronically, or in the boxmarket ? U can to use this ODE
for commercial products too ?

#9 BSD license basically says do whatever you want to with the code.. just keep this license intact. It's a true OpenSource license IMO because it gives you complete freedom with the code instead of forcing you to play ball like the GPL does.

#10 @Ben: Tetris and physics, have a look here :)
http://www.chroniclogic.com and find Triptych