The four main reason why I want to use a 3rd-party physics engine:
1. Because I think I might lack the mathematics knowledge currently
2. Because I would have to write less code and focus more on other aspects
3. Because it would most likely be highly optimized and high quality code
4. Because reading the features list makes me drool :D

I am currently a Junior in High School and I am taking Algebra II right now. I will take Pre-Calculus after Christmas and Calculus AB/BC next year. I have finished 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development and I understood everything except I mainly lack a little bit of understanding with two things:
1. Quaternions
2. Rotation Transformation about an arbitrary axis

I am also currently reading Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach and I just finished reading Chp. 10 on Lighting last night. I will also get Real-Time Rendering 3rd Ed next week. As it is, the game I want to make is pretty complicated and surprise, surprise, I want to make what I like to call a MORPG. I plan on doing all the graphics code myself, and I am the one with the most mathematical experience on my team so if I wanted to do my own Physics engine that would fall almost all on my shoulders. So I am looking for a "plug-and-play" physics engine that isn't likely to break and has good support behind it. I want it to mainly do these things:
1. Collision Detection, and also tell me where objects collided, i.e. coordinates, index to vertices, etc
2. Ragdoll Physics
3. Simulation of forces such as winds
4. Integration with Animation would be nice, like Havok Animation
5. Possibly cloth simulation

Like I have said before, I know that I am taking on a huge project. But I plan on organizing it with some UML and using Scrum for the development process while breaking up tasks so we are advancing the project with "little babysteps".

Thanks,
Mikfig

Edit: I forgot to mention that so far Havok sounds like the better choice.

Quote:Original post by grhodes_at_work

Quote:Original post by DonDickieD
I was not talking about the engine, but the source for the Maya plug-in which is indeed open source now. See Nima in the Bullet forums

Oh, cool. That was unclear in your original message. But, for the sake of clarity, Nima was originally a third party plug-in, developed by Feeling Software and not Ageia or nVIDIA.

I read through DonDickieD's post again. Reading it now, more slowly, his original intent is more clear.

It's really important that D* immediately brought up the issue of content tools. If one really wants to produce a game, the content pipeline is tremendously important. I would venture to say it eventually, even quickly, becomes more important than knowing how to use the API.

Thank you all for your advice. I have decided that I will use Havok. However, since this is the Math and Physics forum, I have one more question. Where is the best place/book/etc to gain a better understanding of Quaternions?

Also I have trouble understanding rotation of a vector about an arbitrary axis when it comes to rotating by an acute angle. Because the way 3D Math Primer solves it is by projecting the vector, lets call it v, onto a unit vector you are rotating about. It then uses a vector that is mutually perpendicular to the unit vector and the perpendicular portion of v that was projected. Then it uses the sin and cos on the mutually perpendicular vector and the perpendicular portion of v that was projected to solve for the image of v that would be the result of projecting the image of v onto n. Then it adds the portion of the projection of v that is parallel to the unit vector to the image of v's perpendicular portion. However, if you were using an acute angle then why would you need the mutually perpendicular vector?

Thanks,
Mikfig

[Edited by - mikfig on November 21, 2008 8:49:55 PM]