I've used Nick Vellios' tutorial to create radial gravity with a Box2D object. I am aware of Make a Vortex here on SO, but I couldn't figure out how to implement it in my project.
I have made a vortex object, which is a Box2D circleShape sensor that rotates with a consistent angular velocity. When other Box2D objects contact this vortex object I want them to rotate around at the same angular velocity as the vortex, gradually getting closer to the vortex's centre. At the moment the object is attracted to the vortex's centre but it will head straight for the centre of the vortex, rather than spinning around it slowly like I want it to. It will also travel in the opposite direction than the vortex as well as with the vortex's rotation.
Given a vortex and a box2D body, how can I set the box2d body to rotate with the vortex as it gets 'sucked in'.
I set the rotation of the vortex when I create it like this:
b2BodyDef bodyDef;
bodyDef.type = b2_dynamicBody;
bodyDef.angle = 2.0f;
bodyDef.angularVelocity = 2.0f;
Here is how I'm applying the radial gravity, as per Nick Vellios' sample code.
-(void)applyVortexForcesOnSprite:(CCSpriteSubclass*)sprite spriteBody:(b2Body*)spriteBody withVortex:(Vortex*)vortex VortexBody:(b2Body*)vortexBody vortexCircleShape:(b2CircleShape*)vortexCircleShape{
//From RadialGravity.xcodeproj
b2Body* ground = vortexBody;
b2CircleShape* circle = vortexCircleShape;
// Get position of our "Planet" - Nick
b2Vec2 center = ground->GetWorldPoint(circle->m_p);
// Get position of our current body in the iteration - Nick
b2Vec2 position = spriteBody->GetPosition();
// Get the distance between the two objects. - Nick
b2Vec2 d = center - position;
// The further away the objects are, the weaker the gravitational force is - Nick
float force = 1 / d.LengthSquared(); // 150 can be changed to adjust the amount of force - Nick
d.Normalize();
b2Vec2 F = force * d;
// Finally apply a force on the body in the direction of the "Planet" - Nick
spriteBody->ApplyForce(F, position);
//end radialGravity.xcodeproj
}
Update I think iForce2d has given me enough info to get on my way, now it's just tweaking. This is what I'm doing at the moment, in addition to the above code. What is happening is the body gains enough velocity to exit the vortex's gravity well - somewhere I'll need to check that the velocity stays below this figure. I'm a little concerned I'm not taking into account the object's mass at the moment.
b2Vec2 vortexVelocity = vortexBody->GetLinearVelocityFromWorldPoint(spriteBody->GetPosition() );
b2Vec2 vortexVelNormal = vortexVelocity;
vortexVelNormal.Normalize();
b2Vec2 bodyVelocity = b2Dot( vortexVelNormal, spriteBody->GetLinearVelocity() ) * vortexVelNormal;
//Using a force
b2Vec2 vel = bodyVelocity;
float forceCircleX = .6 * bodyVelocity.x;
float forceCircleY = .6 * bodyVelocity.y;
spriteBody->ApplyForce( b2Vec2(forceCircleX,forceCircleY), spriteBody->GetWorldCenter() );
It sounds like you just need to apply another force according to the direction of the vortex at the current point of the body. You can use b2Body::GetLinearVelocityFromWorldPoint to find the velocity of the vortex at any point in the world. From Box2D source:
/// Get the world linear velocity of a world point attached to this body.
/// #param a point in world coordinates.
/// #return the world velocity of a point.
b2Vec2 GetLinearVelocityFromWorldPoint(const b2Vec2& worldPoint) const;
So that would be:
b2Vec2 vortexVelocity = vortexBody->GetLinearVelocityFromWorldPoint( suckedInBody->GetPosition() );
Once you know the velocity you're aiming for, you can calculate how much force is needed to go from the current velocity, to the desired velocity. This might be helpful: http://www.iforce2d.net/b2dtut/constant-speed
The topic in that link only discusses a 1-dimensional situation. For your case it is also essentially 1-dimensional, if you project the current velocity of the sucked-in body onto the vortexVelocity vector:
b2Vec2 vortexVelNormal = vortexVelocity;
vortexVelNormal.Normalize();
b2Vec2 bodyVelocity = b2Dot( vortexVelNormal, suckedInBody->GetLinearVelocity() ) * vortexVelNormal;
Now bodyVelocity and vortexVelocity will be in the same direction and you can calculate how much force to apply. However, if you simply apply enough force to match the vortex velocity exactly, the sucked in body will probably go into orbit around the vortex and never actually get sucked in. I think you would want to make the force quite a bit less than that, and I would scale it down according to the gravity strength as well, otherwise the sucked-in body will be flung away sideways as soon as it contacts the outer edge of the vortex. It could take a lot of tweaking to get the effect you want.
EDIT:
The force you apply should be based on the difference between the current velocity (bodyVelocity) and the desired velocity (vortexVelocity), ie. if the body is already moving with the vortex then you don't need to apply any force. Take a look at the last code block in the sub-section titled 'Using forces' in the link I gave above. The last three lines there do pretty much what you need if you replace 'vel' and 'desiredVel' with the sizes of your bodyVelocity and vortexVelocity vectors:
float desiredVel = vortexVelocity.Length();
float currentVel = bodyVelocity.Length();
float velChange = desiredVel - currentVel;
float force = body->GetMass() * velChange / (1/60.0); //for a 1/60 sec timestep
body->ApplyForce( b2Vec2(force,0), body->GetWorldCenter() );
But remember this would probably put the body into orbit, so somewhere along the way you would want to reduce the size of the force you apply, eg. reduce 'desiredVel' by some percentage, reduce 'force' by some percentage etc. It would probably look better if you could also scale the force down so that it was zero at the outer edge of the vortex.
I had a project where I had asteroids swirling around a central point (there are things jumping between them...which is a different point).
They are connected to the "center" body via b2DistanceJoints.
You can control the joint length to make them slowly spiral inward (or outward). This gives you find grain control instead of balancing force control, which may be difficult.
You also apply tangential force to make them circle the center.
By applying different (or randomly changing) tangential forces, you can make the
crash into each other, etc.
I posted a more complete answer to this question here.
Related
First, before I go on, I have read through: SceneKit painting on texture with texture coordinates which seems to suggest I'm on the right track.
I have a complex SCNGeometry representing a hexasphere. It's rendering really well, and with a full 60fps on all of my test devices.
At the moment, all of the hexagons are being rendered with a single material, because, as I understand it, every SCNMaterial I add to my geometry adds another draw call, which I can't afford.
Ultimately, I want to be able to color each of the almost 10,000 hexagons individually, so adding another material for each one is not going to work.
I had been planning to limit the color range to (say) 100 colors, and then move hexagons between different geometries, each with their own colored material, but that won't work because SCNGeometry says it works with an immutable set of vertices.
So, my current thought/plan is to use a shader modifier as suggested by #rickster in the above-mentioned question to somehow modify the color of individual hexagons (or sets of 4 triangles).
The thing is, I sort of understand the Apple doco referred to, but I don't understand how to provide the shader with what I think must essentially be an array of colour information, somehow indexed so that the shader knows which triangles to give what colors.
The code I have now, that creates the geometry reads as:
NSData *indiceData = [NSData dataWithBytes:oneMeshIndices length:sizeof(UInt32) * indiceIndex];
SCNGeometryElement *oneMeshElement =
[SCNGeometryElement geometryElementWithData:indiceData
primitiveType:SCNGeometryPrimitiveTypeTriangles
primitiveCount:indiceIndex / 3
bytesPerIndex:sizeof(UInt32)];
[oneMeshElements addObject:oneMeshElement];
SCNGeometrySource *oneMeshNormalSource =
[SCNGeometrySource geometrySourceWithNormals:oneMeshNormals count:normalIndex];
SCNGeometrySource *oneMeshVerticeSource =
[SCNGeometrySource geometrySourceWithVertices:oneMeshVertices count:vertexIndex];
SCNGeometry *oneMeshGeom =
[SCNGeometry geometryWithSources:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:oneMeshVerticeSource, oneMeshNormalSource, nil]
elements:oneMeshElements];
SCNMaterial *mat1 = [SCNMaterial material];
mat1.diffuse.contents = [UIColor greenColor];
oneMeshGeom.materials = #[mat1];
SCNNode *node = [SCNNode nodeWithGeometry:oneMeshGeom];
If someone can shed some light on how to provide the shader with a way to color each triangle indexed by the indices in indiceData, that would be fantastic.
EDIT
I've tried looking at providing the shader with a texture as a container for color information that would be indexed by the VertexID however it seems that SceneKit doesn't make the VertexID available. My thought was to provide this texture (actually just an array of bytes, 1 per hexagon on the hexasphere), via the SCNMaterialProperty class and then, in the shader, pull out the appropriate byte, based on the vertex number. That byte would be used to index an array of fixed colors and the resultant color for each vertex would then give the desired result.
Without a VertexID, this idea won't work, unless there is some other, similarly useful piece of data...
EDIT 2
Perhaps I am stubborn. I've been trying to get this to work, and as an experiment I created an image that is basically a striped rainbow and wrote the following shader, thinking it would basically colour my sphere with the rainbow.
It doesn't work. The entire sphere is drawn using the colour in the top left corner of the image.
My shaderModifer code is:
#pragma arguments
sampler2D colorMap;
uniform sampler2D colorMap;
#pragma body
vec4 color = texture2D(colorMap, _surface.diffuseTexcoord);
_surface.diffuse.rgba = color;
and I apply this using the code:
SCNMaterial *mat1 = [SCNMaterial material];
mat1.locksAmbientWithDiffuse = YES;
mat1.doubleSided = YES;
mat1.shaderModifiers = #{SCNShaderModifierEntryPointSurface :
#"#pragma arguments\nsampler2D colorMap;\nuniform sampler2D colorMap;\n#pragma body\nvec4 color = texture2D(colorMap, _surface.diffuseTexcoord);\n_surface.diffuse.rgba = color;"};
colorMap = [SCNMaterialProperty materialPropertyWithContents:[UIImage imageNamed:#"rainbow.png"]];
[mat1 setValue:colorMap forKeyPath:#"colorMap"];
I had thought that the _surface.diffuseTexcoord would be appropriate but I'm beginning to think I need to somehow map that to a coordinate in the image by knowing the dimensions of the image and interpolating somehow.
But if this is the case, what units are _surface.diffuseTexcoord in? How do I know the min/max range of this so that I can map it to the image?
Once again, I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction if these attempts are wrong.
EDIT 3
OK, so I know I'm on the right track now. I've realised that by using _surface.normal instead of _surface.diffuseTexcoord I can use that as a latitude/longitude on my sphere to map to an x,y in the image and I now see the hexagons being colored based on the color in the colorMap however it doesn't matter what I do (so far); the normal angles seem to be fixed in relation to the camera position, so when I move the camera to look at a different point of the sphere, the colorMap doesn't rotate with it.
Here is the latest shader code:
#pragma arguments
sampler2D colorMap;
uniform sampler2D colorMap;
#pragma body
float x = ((_surface.normal.x * 57.29577951) + 180.0) / 360.0;
float y = 1.0 - ((_surface.normal.y * 57.29577951) + 90.0) / 180.0;
vec4 color = texture2D(colorMap, vec2(x, y));
_output.color.rgba = color;
ANSWER
So I solved the problem. It turned out that there was no need for a shader to achieve my desired results.
The answer was to use a mappingChannel to provide the geometry with a set of texture coordinates for each vertex. These texture coordinates are used to pull color data from the appropriate texture (it all depends on how you set up your material).
So, whilst I did manage to get a shader working, there were performance issues on older devices, and using a mappingChannel was much much better, working at 60fps on all devices now.
I did find though that despite the documentation saying that a mapping channel is a series of CGPoint objects, that wouldn't work on 64 bit devices because CGPoint seems to use doubles instead of floats.
I needed to define my own struct:
typedef struct {
float x;
float y;
} MyPoint;
MyPoint oneMeshTextureCoordinates[vertexCount];
and then having built up an array of these, one for each vertex, I then created the mappingChannel source as follows:
SCNGeometrySource *textureMappingSource =
[SCNGeometrySource geometrySourceWithData:
[NSData dataWithBytes:oneMeshTextureCoordinates
length:sizeof(MyPoint) * vertexCount]
semantic:SCNGeometrySourceSemanticTexcoord
vertexCount
floatComponents:YES
componentsPerVector:2
bytesPerComponent:sizeof(float)
dataOffset:0
dataStride:sizeof(MyPoint)];
EDIT:
In response to a request, here is a project that demonstrates how I use this. https://github.com/pkclsoft/HexasphereDemo
I have clouds of different sizes ( seen in the picture ) and im trying to give them a physics body automatically. But I just dont get how to do it. I have a player, its just something like a Ball so I could go for bodyWithCircleOfRadius.
I make it variable for every spawned cloud with this code :
SKSpriteNode * cloud = [SKSpriteNode spriteNodeWithImageNamed:#"wolke"];
float sizeScale = [self getRandomNumberBetween:0.2 to:0.5];
cloud.xScale = sizeScale;
cloud.yScale = sizeScale;
Now somehow I have to fit a PhysicsBody to it. Id be happy for any help. (maybe an oval or ellipse, but how to make the path variable to its size?)
Kind Regards
For this i would definitely go with bodyWithCircleOfRadius. The reason is a perfect physics body path around an object would take up too much extra computing power. And should only be used when absolutely necessary. According to apple:
When choosing a shape for your physics body, do not be overly precise.
More complex shapes require more work to be properly simulated. For
volume-based bodies, use the following guidelines:
A circle is the most efficient shape. A path-based polygon is the
least efficient shape, and the computational work scales with the
complexity of the polygon.
The Code for a circle would start out like this:
SKSpriteNode *sprite = [SKSpriteNode spriteNodeWithImageNamed:#"sphere.png"];
sprite.physicsBody = [SKPhysicsBody bodyWithCircleOfRadius:sprite.size.width/2];
After some time searching, I have revised my question.
I have found numerous examples of ball to ball collisions, but the only ones that seem to work use Vector2d or Vector2D.
This is a problem, because I am only allowed to use the regular java library, so my main question is: How do I convert the examples (which I will post below) to use what I can use?
I have several variables, both balls have the same mass, the velocities are broken into different variables, x and y. Also I have access to their x and y pos.
This is the ONLY problem left in my application.
I am at a total loss on how to convert the below example.
// get the mtd
Vector2d delta = (position.subtract(ball.position));
float d = delta.getLength();
// minimum translation distance to push balls apart after intersecting
Vector2d mtd = delta.multiply(((getRadius() + ball.getRadius())-d)/d);
// resolve intersection --
// inverse mass quantities
float im1 = 1 / getMass();
float im2 = 1 / ball.getMass();
// push-pull them apart based off their mass
position = position.add(mtd.multiply(im1 / (im1 + im2)));
ball.position = ball.position.subtract(mtd.multiply(im2 / (im1 + im2)));
// impact speed
Vector2d v = (this.velocity.subtract(ball.velocity));
float vn = v.dot(mtd.normalize());
// sphere intersecting but moving away from each other already
if (vn > 0.0f) return;
// collision impulse
float i = (-(1.0f + Constants.restitution) * vn) / (im1 + im2);
Vector2d impulse = mtd.multiply(i);
// change in momentum
this.velocity = this.velocity.add(impulse.multiply(im1));
ball.velocity = ball.velocity.subtract(impulse.multiply(im2));
Here is the URL for the question:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/345838/ball-to-ball-collision-detection-and-handling
And I have taken a look at his source code.
Thank you for taking the time to read this issue.
SUCCESS!
I have found how to use Vector2d, and it works PERFECTLY!
Will edit later with answer!
I'm implementing my own 3d engine in c# based on a really basic 3d open-source engine in JavaScript called a3. I don't know If I have 100% understand you but It sounds like you can only find examples with Vector2d but you are not allowed to use that class?
I that is the case, as you can imagine javascript does not have native Vector2d types so someone had to implement. Don't be afraid of giving it a try, is just a few high school maths functions, you should be able to implement your own Vector2d class in just a few minutes
The following link contain implementations if vector2d, vector3d, vector4d, matrix3, and matrix4 in javascript: https://github.com/paullewis/a3/tree/master/src/js/core/math hope it helps :)
Does anyone know of a tutorial that would deal with gravitational pull of two objects? Eg. a satellite being drawn to the moon (and possibly sling shot past it).
I have a small Java game that I am working on and I would like to implement his feature in it.
I have the formula for gravitational attraction between two bodies, but when I try to use it in my game, nothing happens?
There are two object on the screen, one of which will always be stationary while the other one moves in a straight line at a constant speed until it comes within the detection range of the stationary object. At which point it should be drawn to the stationary object.
First I calculate the distance between the two objects, and depending on their mass and this distance, I update the x and y coordinates.
But like I said, nothing happens. Am I not implementing the formula correctly?
I have included some code to show what I have so far.
This is the instance when the particle collides with the gates detection range, and should start being pulled towards it
for (int i = 0; i < particle.length; i++)
{
// **************************************************************************************************
// GATE COLLISION
// **************************************************************************************************
// Getting the instance when a Particle collides with a Gate
if (getDistanceBetweenObjects(gate.getX(), particle[i].getX(), gate.getY(), particle[i].getY()) <=
sumOfRadii(particle[i].getRadius(), barrier.getRadius()))
{
particle[i].calcGravPull(particle[i].getMass(), barrier.getMass(),
getDistanceBetweenObjects(gate.getX(), particle[i].getX(), gate.getY(), particle[i].getY()));
}
And the method in my Particle class to do the movement
// Calculate the gravitational pull between objects
public void calcGravPull(int mass1, int mass2, double distBetweenObjects)
{
double gravityPull;
gravityPull = GRAV_CONSTANT * ((mass1 * mass2) / (distBetweenObjects * distBetweenObjects));
x += gravityPull;
y += gravityPull;
}
Your formula has problems. You're calculating the gravitational force, and then applying it as if it were an acceleration. Acceleration is force divided by mass, so you need to divide the force by the small object's mass. Therefore, GRAV_CONSTANT * ((mass1) / (distBetweenObjects * distBetweenObjects)) is the formula for acceleration of mass2.
Then you're using it as if it were a positional adjustment, not a velocity adjustment (which an acceleration is). Keep track of the velocity of the moving mass, use that to adjust its position, and use the acceleration to change that velocity.
Finally, you're using acceleration as a scalar when it's really a vector. Calculate the angle from the moving mass to the stationary mass, and if you're representing it as angle from the positive x-axis multiply the x acceleration by the cosine of the angle, and the y acceleration by the sine of the angle.
That will give you a correct representation of gravity.
If it does nothing, check the coordinates to see what is happening. Make sure the stationary mass is large enough to have an effect. Gravity is a very weak force, and you'll have no significant effect with much smaller than a planetary mass.
Also, make sure you're using the correct gravitational constant for the units you're using. The constant you find in the books is for the MKS system - meters, kilograms, and seconds. If you're using kilometers as units of length, you need to multiply the constant by a million, or alternately multiply the length by a thousand before plugging it into the formula.
Your algorithm is correct. Probably the gravitational pull you compute is too small to be seen. I'd remove GRAV_CONSTANT and try again.
BTW if you can gain a bit of speed moving the result of getDistanceBetweenObjects() in a temporary variable.
I implemented the code from the question "Ball to Ball Collision - Detection and Handling" in Objective-C. However, whenever the balls collide at an angle their velocity increases dramatically. All of the vector math is done using cocos2d-iphone, with the header CGPointExtension.h. What is the cause of this undesired acceleration?
The following is an example of increase in speed:
Input:
mass == 12.56637
velocity.x == 1.73199439
velocity.y == -10.5695238
ball.mass == 12.56637
ball.velocity.x == 6.04341078
ball.velocity.y == 14.2686739
Output:
mass == 12.56637
velocity.x == 110.004326
velocity.y == -10.5695238
ball.mass == 12.56637
ball.velocity.x == -102.22892
ball.velocity.y == -72.4030228
#import "CGPointExtension.h"
#define RESTITUTION_CONSTANT (0.75) //elasticity of the system
- (void) resolveCollision:(Ball*) ball
{
// get the mtd (minimum translation distance)
CGPoint delta = ccpSub(position, ball.position);
float d = ccpLength(delta);
// minimum translation distance to push balls apart after intersecting
CGPoint mtd = ccpMult(delta, (((radius + ball.radius)-d)/d));
// resolve intersection --
// inverse mass quantities
float im1 = 1 / [self mass];
float im2 = 1 / [ball mass];
// push-pull them apart based off their mass
position = ccpAdd(position, ccpMult(mtd, (im1 / (im1 + im2))));
ball.position = ccpSub(ball.position, ccpMult(mtd, (im2 / (im1 + im2))));
// impact speed
CGPoint v = ccpSub(velocity, ball.velocity);
float vn = ccpDot(v,ccpNormalize(mtd));
// sphere intersecting but moving away from each other already
if (vn > 0.0f) return;
// collision impulse
float i = (-(1.0f + RESTITUTION_CONSTANT) * vn) / ([self mass] + [ball mass]);
CGPoint impulse = ccpMult(mtd, i);
// change in momentum
velocity = ccpAdd(velocity, ccpMult(impulse, im1));
ball.velocity = ccpSub(ball.velocity, ccpMult(impulse, im2));
}
Having reviewed the original code and the comments by the original poster, the code seems the same, so if the original is a correct implementation, I would suspect a bad vector library or some kind of uninitialized variable.
Why are you adding 1.0 to the coefficient of restitution?
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_restitution
The COR is generally a number in the range [0,1]. Qualitatively, 1 represents a perfectly elastic collision, while 0 represents a perfectly inelastic collision. A COR greater than one is theoretically possible, representing a collision that generates kinetic energy, such as land mines being thrown together and exploding.
Another problem is this:
/ (im1 + im2)
You're dividing by the sum of the reciprocals of the masses to get the impulse along the vector of contact - you probably should be dividing by the sum of the masses themselves. This is magnifying your impulse ("that's what she said").
I'm the one who wrote the original ball bounce code you referenced. If you download and try out that code, you can see it works fine.
The following code is correct (the way you originally had it):
// collision impulse
float i = (-(1.0f + RESTITUTION_CONSTANT) * vn) / (im1 + im2);
CGPoint impulse = ccpMult(mtd, i);
This is very common physics code and you can see it nearly exactly implemented like this in the following examples:
Find collision response of two objects - GameDev
3D Pong Collision Response
Another ball to ball collision written in Java
This is correct, and it ~isn't~ creating a CoR over 1.0 like others have suggested. This is calculating the relative impulse vector based off mass and Coefficient of Restitution.
Ignoring friction, a simple 1d example is as follows:
J = -Vr(1+e) / {1/m1 + 1/m2}
Where e is your CoR, Vr is your normalized velocity and J is a scalar value of the impulse velocity.
If you plan on doing anything more advanced than this I suggest you use one of the many physics libraries already out there. When I used the code above it was fine for a few balls but when I ramped it up to several hundred it started to choke. I've used the Box2D physics engine and its solver could handle more balls and it is much more accurate.
Anyway, I looked over your code and at first glance it looks fine (it is a pretty faithful translation). It is probably a small and subtle error of a wrong value being passed in, or a vector math problem.
I don't know anything concerning iPhone development but I would suggest setting a breakpoint at the top of that method and monitoring each steps resulting value and finding where the blow-up is. Ensure that the MTD is calculated correctly, the impact velocities, etc, etc until you see where the large increase is getting introduced.
Report back with the values of each step in that method and we'll see what we have.
In this line:
CGPoint impulse = ccpMult(mtd, i);
mtd needs to have been normalised. The error happened because in the original code mtd was normalized in a previous line but not in your code. You can fix it by doing something like this:
CGPoint impulse = ccpMult(ccpNormalize(mtd), i);