NewtonPlayGround 1.53 (Updated on 22.10.2006)

[Stucuk]

So hopefully this wont let my traffic limit explode

if u need a mirror for the download just ask (iv got quite a bit of BW just sitting around doing nothing. 78GB left this month)

[Stucuk]

Bugs

NewtonPlayGround 1.51
Build 10_02_06

(Basic) Sphere Stresstest

Description of the occured exception :
Type = EConvertError
Message = '2,5' ist kein gültiger Gleitkommawert

(Joints, Dampers) Buggy with hinge suspensions

Description of the occured exception :
Type = EConvertError
Message = '4,52548360824585' ist kein gültiger Gleitkommawert

[Sascha Willems]

Nahh...not again the dreaded comma. Thanks for posting, I'll take the update down until I fixed that.

[Sascha Willems]

The download is back up and now hopefully there won't be any more errors due to a wrong decimal separator (I'm feeling a bit stupid with this issue coming up so often I think I'm getting too old for all this).

So please redownload it if you're having those errors and thanks for that huge pile of feedback, it's great to see that people like my creation.

[Sascha Willems]

I always wanted to create a bike within Newton, so I quickly put this together (it's no beauty, but basically it's how a bike's suspension works) :


Download :
http://newton.delphigl.de/newtonplayground/SimpleBike.xml

It uses a slider (with damper) for the front part and a hinge (with damper) to connect the back part (called "Schwinge" in german, dunno the right word in englisch) with the front part. And if you try it out, you also can see that it stands straight and won't fall over, even if it's dropped down from a higher position. One thing not possible is tilting of the steering part, but that could also be easily added, this was just meant as a quick try to see if/how such a bike would turn out.

[_Tux_]

sascha, that scene doesnt have any joints saved so the bike falls apart

[Sascha Willems]

Oh, uploaded the wrong version. I normally do incremental saves (bike1, bike2, bike3) to be able to easily revert to an earlier stated and I uploaded the first iteration with only the bike itself.

I uploaded the fixed one, so please redownload and thanx for pointing it out.

[Julio Jerez]

I receieve an email from a person concerned with the engine and the play ground. Here is the text of teh email

The moterized beam gives the other beam too much velocity. The bug is highly
reproducible. Just run the attached file.

and here is the file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<root xmlns="root"><fileinfo ID="NewtonPlayGround (2004-2006 by Sascha Willems)
XML-File" Version="1.0"/><globalsettings newtonframerate="300" gravity="9.800"
modelsolver="0" modelfriction="0" visualizejoints="False"
skyspheretexture="1.jpg"/><camerasettings mode="default" state="0" position="0.000
0.000 0.000" rotation="67.500 -37.500 0.000" zoom="-44.800"/><treecollision
filename="env_default.x" startmatrix="1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.00" massmatrix="0.000 0.000 0.000
0.000" color="0.000 0.000 0.000" lineardamp="0.000" angulardamp="0.000 0.000 0.000"
continuouscollision="False" caption="" springcount="0"
material="default"/><primitives count="4"><primitive0><box size="1.000 1.000 1.000"
freezed="False" startmatrix="1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 2.000 0.000 1.00" massmatrix="0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000"
color="0.000 0.000 0.000" lineardamp="0.100" angulardamp="0.100 0.100 0.100"
continuouscollision="False" caption="" springcount="0"
material="default"/></primitive0><primitive1><box size="30.000 1.000 1.000"
freezed="False" startmatrix="1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000 1.00" massmatrix="200.000 33.333 15017.000
15017.000" color="0.239 0.929 0.067" lineardamp="0.100" angulardamp="0.100 0.100
0.100" continuouscollision="False" caption="mass=200" springcount="0"
material="default"/></primitive1><primitive2><box size="1.000 1.000 30.000"
freezed="False" startmatrix="1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 20.000 1.00" massmatrix="2000.000 1.5017E005
1.5017E005 333.330" color="0.165 0.804 0.231" lineardamp="0.100" angulardamp="0.100
0.100 0.100" continuouscollision="False" caption="mass= 2000" springcount="0"
material="default"/></primitive2><primitive3><box size="1.000 1.000 1.000"
freezed="False" startmatrix="1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
0.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 2.000 20.000 1.00" massmatrix="0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000"
color="0.635 0.412 0.435" lineardamp="0.100" angulardamp="0.100 0.100 0.100"
continuouscollision="False" caption="" springcount="0"
material="default"/></primitive3></primitives><ragdolls count="0"/><vehicles
count="0"/><buoyancyvolumes count="0"/><joints count="2"><joint0><hinge
pindir="0.000 1.000 0.000" damperenabled="False" k="128.000" d="4.000"
childbodytype="rigidbody" childbodyID="1" childbodysubID="0"
parentbodytype="rigidbody" parentbodyID="0" parentbodysubID="0" pivotpoint="0.000
2.000 0.000" collidable="False"><motor enabled="True" enablelimits="False"
acceleration="1.000" damping="0.250" minangle="-45.000"
maxangle="45.000"/></hinge></joint0><joint1><hinge pindir="0.000 1.000 0.000"
damperenabled="False" k="128.000" d="4.000" childbodytype="rigidbody"
childbodyID="3" childbodysubID="0" parentbodytype="rigidbody" parentbodyID="2"
parentbodysubID="0" pivotpoint="0.000 1.000 20.000" collidable="False"><motor
enabled="False" enablelimits="False" acceleration="1.000" damping="0.250"
minangle="-45.000" maxangle="45.000"/></hinge></joint1></joints><TMaterialManager
materialcount="1"><material0 name="default" settingssetcount="1" isspecial="False"
specialid="0" specialv1="0.000 0.000 0.000" specialv2="0.000 0.000 0.000"
specials1="0.000" specials2="0.000"><settingsset0 othermaterial="default"
collidable="1" staticfriction="1.000" kineticfriction="0.500" elasticity="0.400"
softness="0.050" continuouscollision="0"/></material0></TMaterialManager></root>

maybe you have a better idea of what does it means.

[Sascha Willems]

Very odd, I really don't see where the problem should be. Im no physics expert, but from my point of view the scene behaves exactly like it should, so maybe just ask him to join the forums and describe exactly what he means.

Maybe his problem is that the motor doesn't loose energy (dunno how to exactly describe it in english) when there is a resistance?

P.S. : Here is the scene posted above in XML form. Maybe others (that know more of physics) can see what that users want's to tell us.

[Sascha Willems]

The days after :
Well, Feedback has been so-so. NPG has been downloaded far over 2000 times already and besides the feedbacks on the boards I posted (with the Newton board being the biggest source of useful feedback) there hasn't been any feedback at all (no single E-Mail, no user-submitted scenes). So I'm a bit disappointed, but maybe this will change, so my past experience showed that the ratio between downloads and feedback of my games/stuff has been real big, with about 1 E-Mail in 10 thousand downloads.

Future :
I just started about thinking another game idea (since I'd like to start something new now that NPG is out of the doors) and began proto-typing in NPG itself. Here are some screens :



Right now I don't know if I'll make it into a full game, but I started to think on the story and background of the game. It may at some point become a post-apocalyptic racinggame with weapon-enhanced cars that battle and race it to death.

But finally NPG got handy for me too, so instead of having to code a new demo to test out my idea I just made the 3D models and tired it out with NPG, which gave me an instant idea of how my vision would look like.

[kallaspriit]

I think NPG could be more then a demo tool for showing off what newton can do. It could be a Newton visual editor for setting up complex scenes. You would provide some kind of interface for importing created scenes into your own application that we could use. If you make one just for DX, community will follow and make it work with different graphics engines like Irrlicht and Ogre. The concept needs some thinking over but I believe that there are many people interested in such tool, atleast I am. It is very hard to create such complex joint setups like in the demos but doing it in NPG is really simple.

Is this thinkable? Anyway great work on the NPG

[Sascha Willems]

That's exaclty what the XML-Import/Export feature is supposed to do. You save your scenes to a human readable XML-Format, so that it's very easy to later on load the scenes into your own applications/demos. So as I wrote on the page for NPG you can use NPG for creating maps/levels/scenes for your games, demos or applications.

[kallaspriit]

If you shared your loading code then more peaople would get into it, everyone wouldn't have to figure it out themselves and converting it to other graphics engines should not be too hard.

[walaber]

the file format couldn't get much simpler... and the loading code is still project-dependant.

just to grab a library like tinyxml and use it to parse the XML file... and grabe the information you need for your app!

[dazza]

I Agree Walaber,
I hadn't really considered using NPG to create scenes for my Game, but looking at it today made me reconsider, it has some excellent features.

I'll look at writing a simple parser in CPP, and release the source for all CPP Programmers to use.

Cheers
Dazza