rigid body physics in Blender (was Re: [Bf-committers] SOC idea)

[Erwin Coumans]

It is in my interest to get Bullet Physics library in Blender. More users, 
more feedback, better quality.
As you know, Bullet is already integrated in Blender, for Game Engine, and 
it allows to bake keyframes from there.
It would be a rather small step to extend that to regular Blender.

Is there a new GSOC 2006 project for ODE-Blender? I only remember a halted 
GSOC 2005 project.

So my preference would be to decide how to integrate it, use a physics 
abstraction,
add Bullet physics first, and then ODE (and perhaps PhysX) in a second 
release.

Thanks,
Erwin

PS: There is also a preliminary Bullet-ODE blend indeed, but its best to go 
non-blended versions first.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Willian Padovani Germano" <wgermano at superig.com.br>
To: "bf-blender developers" <bf-committers at projects.blender.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2006 8:55 AM
Subject: rigid body physics in Blender (was Re: [Bf-committers] SOC idea)


> Hi Erwin,
>
> Should have emailed you already about this. You probably know that 
> integrating ODE in Blender has been in the plans for some time (and 
> available in experiments via Python probably for longer than that).
>
> I've made some quick tests a couple months ago, been reading ODE mailing 
> list archives and the BULLET forum and now and then we discuss a little 
> about it during irc meetings. Now I should have time to try to code it 
> properly, using groups to define spaces, possibly adding a new type in 
> Blender to represent joints, etc.
>
> From what I've gathered (specially from your posts to the mentioned list 
> and forum), it seems it would be desirable to have both ODE and BULLET 
> integrated in Blender, at least with BULLET as alternative for ODE's 
> collision detection (you released ODE with BULLET support some months ago, 
> from what I recall). We can also have both as alternatives for dynamics, 
> you're obviously the right person to opinate about that.
>
> So, in short:
>
> - Integrating rigid body dynamics in Blender directly is a current and 
> "approved" project.
> - There are coders interested, experimenting in C or Python with ODE.
> - A C API for BULLET is a welcome addition, for sure.
> - The details have not been decided yet: if rigid body should become an 
> object constraint (Ton's informal suggestion), modifier or be independent.
> - I'd like to know your opinions about the integration: ODE + BULLET?
>
> As I said I'm interested and working on the ODE side and it's great to see 
> you interested in working on physics in Blender, too. Unless you prefer to 
> code it all yourself "in one go", I and probably others here would enjoy 
> participating.
>
> Finally, as Ton frequently points, properly integrating rigid body physics 
> with particles,  softbodies, cloth, and the rest of the animation system 
> is also an important goal.
>
> This seems to be a good time to discuss / coordinate efforts, so others 
> interested please say so, too.
>
> Erwin Coumans wrote:
>> In that case it would be useful to integrate Bullet collision detection / 
>> physics more tightly into Blender (independent from the Game engine).
>> With some performance improvements it would be very useful for 'advanced' 
>> particles too. I can easily add a C-API to it (to avoid C++ hassle).
>>
>> I would like to do this, but need someone who helps pointing out the 
>> hooks in Blender. Would it be a rigidbody 'modifier'?
>> Erwin
>
> --
> Willian
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