PHYSICS ENGINE DIFFERENCES

 

While Scythe ultimately exports a file you can implement however you want, regardless of engine, there are inevitably slight variations in how the simulation runs, and in how the settings in the Scythe interface match up with those of each physics engine.

I will implement plugins for as many physics engines as I can, as it is useful to be able to preview physics simulations running on your own engine, and also because in doing so I also provide the engine's addition to the Scythe API.

Inevitably these variations in features among engines will cause certain settings and functions in Scythe to be superfluous, or to work differently, so to avoid confusion I will document them here as accurately as I can.

- Joint limits work for hinges only, not for ball joints, ODE does not have a built-in function for it.

Newton

- Density is not used and defaults to 0, mass defaults to 1

- Skin width property does nothing, it doesn't apply to Newton.

- Fixed , distance , and point-on-line joints not present (for now)

- Newton has hard coded scaling and force limits, so using a global scale value higher than 1UnitPerMeter may cause objects to sink into the ground.

- Motors and springs currently not available, although you can remedy this yourself with the SDK if you convert the joints to custom joints

 

PhysX

- Density defaults to 1, mass defaults to 0 (mass can be calculated automatically based on size and density if set to 0, or can be set explicitly

- The primitives cylinder, cone and elipse are not used and will default to their closest shapes

- Collision meshes can be loaded in from a mesh (eg .3ds ) and then cooked and stored as a cooked mesh file, or you can insert a ready-cooked mesh file.

- Skin Width must be >0. Defaults to 0.01 * units per meter.

 

ODE

- Linear and Angular Damping do not exist in ODE.

- Density calculates mass based on volume, Mass setting will only take effect if Density = 0.

- the Skin Width setting is for dWorldSetContactSurfaceLayer(). Can be 0 or more, will default to 0.001 * units per meter.

- In the edit tab, the CFM and ERP settings are global and for ODE only.

- The joint self-collision flag does not work, its too awkward to implement, it will always be off.

- No mesh collisions, they're too unstable. I may release a Gimpact version later for tri-mesh collisions.

- Very long Capsules, like in the windmill demo, can make the inertia go funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[23.09.08] API update and ragdoll API upgrade

The API can now load ragdolls into an initial pose to match a characters current animation state at his time of death, and to take into account momentum, allowing seamless transitions to ragdoll. Also I have updated the zip file in the download section, it now contains the latest API and SDK.

[27.06.08] New website launced, game announced!

The new project I have been working on all this time has now been announced, and has an official website at www.lofigames.com

[27.06.08] New support forum

A new, properly maintaned support forum is up for Scythe users. The old support forum was closed down due to spambot assaults. You can still read the old one HERE

[10.04.08] Scythe 1.15 minor update

Don't get too excited, this update just fixes a few bugs, mainly the viewport resizing crash, and the flipping camera bug. Also physX plugin updated to 2.8.0 for those too lazy to build their own.

[15.11.07] Phyics Abstraction Layer support

Pål Ruud has  implemented a Scythe loader for the physics abstraction layer, meaning Scythe can now be loaded with a great number of new physics engines. Go HERE for more info.

[18.09.07] Scythe is open-source!

Scythe is now an open-source project. It is now on sourceforge and available by CVS. I can no longer afford to spend much time on Scythe and am moving onto a game project, so I am handing its future to the community. (although I will will be making fixes and additions from time to time).

[11.09.07] Scythe 1.14 update

Small update. Most notably removes the requirement to save scenes in the root directory, and all features are now free to all users.

[07,09,07] API update

[19.6.07] .0bj / .3ds plugins bugfix

[18.6.07] Scythe API update

[04.04.07] Scythe API and SDK updated

[30.03.07] Scythe v1.13 released!

[28.02.07] Release delayed

[02.02.07] Status update

[18.11.06] ODE Plugin and API released!

[10.11.06] Scythe 1.09 released + SDK update

[08.11.06] PhysX API released

[21.10.06] 1.08 released

[04.10.06] .phs format loader API Documentation

[29.9.06] Newton .phs format loader API and demo

 

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