Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
The Bottom Line
Use the appropriate collision bounds for what you need.
Bullet enables a variety of different collision
bound types, which vary in how quickly they can be calculated for real-time interaction and in how accurate
and realistic the collisions are that they can produce.
Master It
Create a rigid body simulation consisting of a ball, a plane, and a torus. Make the torus and
the ball drop onto the plane such that they both exhibit realistic rigid body behavior and the ball drops
into the hole in the torus.
Experiment with cutting-edge physics features.
When doing paid work or other mission-critical projects,
it's safest to work with a single official release of Blender from the beginning of the project to the end.
However, a lot of times you may find yourself wanting or needing to work with developmental features. This
is fine, but it requires some caution. Try to stay abreast of development notes and always keep your work
safely backed up. Keeping some backup files “quarantined” by not opening them with development builds
will ensure that you never lose an unacceptable amount of work because of development bugs.
Thatsaid,forthepurposesoflearning,there'snoreasonnottoworkwiththemostbleeding-edgebuildsavail-
able. Learning new things incrementally is much easier than having to relearn Blender from scratch every
few years. If you haven't done so already, you should download a copy of the Bullet integration branch from
Graphicall.org and familiarize yourself with its features.
Master It
Set up a rigid body simulation with animated parts, along the lines of the one in the second
section of this chapter, using the most recent Bullet integration development build for your system from
Graphicall.org. Run the simulation without using the game engine.
Take ragdoll physics to the next level with Bullet integration.
Bullet integration will be a welcome devel-
opment for a variety of reasons. One thing that it enables is integration of ragdoll physics with keyframed
character animation, making ragdoll simulation much more interesting.
Master It
Using a simple ragdoll setup such as the one described in this chapter, create an animation in
which a character is struck by a heavy flying object while walking along and then picks himself up off
the floor.
