Quote:Original post by Salmod
But what kind of situations could cause a simulation to "blow up"...? No need to get too technical, but if there is a simple example to explain the concept - that would be nice. :)

Probably the easiest way to find out is to create a scene with lots of objects connected with very stiff springs (or constraints), then start bashing the objects in some way (you'll probably have to turn up the engine's fudge-o-tron (whatever it is) to keep it stable (resulting in loss of high frequency motion)).

Another simple example would be to model a car with very stiff springs and go off of a jump. Upon landing, if the system can't handle the spring stiffness, the car will hit the ground and launch into outer space!

Quote:Original post by Salmod
Out of interest, are you guys allowed to give any details of the projects you are working on? ;)

You've just reminded me to keep my mouth shut, I've censored my posts to keep lawyers apart, sorry for that.

Quote:Original post by Salmod
Out of interest, are you guys allowed to give any details of the projects you are working on? ;)

Quick screen shot from upcoming beta test-demo:


Up to 64 cars, networked. The military-style vehicle will either be removed or replaced with prettier art (was good test vehicle with high center of mass). Cars drive directly on cubic polynomial patches (patches are dynamically tessellated before sending to GFX card). No shaders or other modern GPU elements currently used (mostly old school rendering (multi-pass env maps, bump mapping, specular effects, simple pre-rendered shadow/outlines projected to contact surface, etc.).

Physics engine is impulse-based with an emphasis on kinetic energy correctness. Cars use a flexible tire model. In the "lab", 300ms network lag is fairly well hidden, even with cars traveling at 300+ MPH. We'll see how it fairs out in the wild of the internet [wink].