Re: [Adonthell-devel] Re: Next steps ... collision detection

[Kai Sterker]

On 8/26/07, Alexandre Courbot <address@hidden> wrote:

> This topic was of high interest for me a couple of years ago, when I
> wanted to implement collision detection. I never came up with
> something that worked correctly though. :p

I wouldn't be able to do something like that from scratch. My only
excursion into 3D was a little screen saver with a spinning cube I
ported from Pascal to C++ some ages ago ;-). But I think I can
implement what is described in that document. Seems much better than
reinventing the wheel again, too :-).


> Considering how painful tricks are, I'd rather think that your
> solution is much better. It would even become better if you could
> extend the cubes to any kind of polygon.

I'd like to do that too, to a certain degree. Obviously, you could
place multiple cubes next to each other (or stack them on top of each
other) to create more complex forms.
But then you end up with inner faces that should be removed from the
resulting "mesh" for optimization.

So if things work out, we could offer different basic shapes (ranging
from triangle to octagon) or even polygons with any number of points
as per your original idea. In any case, it would start out as a 3D
shape of a fixed height and would then allow to adjust the position of
any given point. (For that, the editor should allow to lock selected
dimensions, so you could precisely move points along the desired
axis).


> Anyway, even though I don't
> think I have the time to significantly contribute on that, I'll keep
> an eye on it. This is the cornerstone of the new engine and a very
> important part of the gameplay.

Hearing your opinion is already very helpful. I'll make decisions in
order to get something done, but if I can run them by some watchful
eyes first, I'll be much more confident that I won't walk off into the
wrong direction. I'd like to avoid dead ends, when I can :-). If I'd
be a student again with practically unlimited time, it'd be different
... not sure if I'd want to switch, though :-P.

Kai