New physics GUI Editor available : ezphysics.org

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ls129
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New physics GUI Editor available : ezphysics.org

Post by ls129 »

I've been working on this for a while. The editor is almost presentable (not
enough to expose the source code quite yet..) so you can download the
binaries and at least run the simulation with a few pre-cooked files and
tweak around various ODE parameters. I also bought a domain name for the occasion: http://www.ezphysics.org

Image

and check out the video clip http://ezphysics.org/video2.avi

The system has two components, an editor/simulator and an API:

Editor & Simulator—Lets you interactively embed objects supported by ODE
into 3D meshes, attach joints and constraints to the physics objects, save
the “physically rigged” scenes into files, and run simulations.

API(not available yet)—Lets you embed the “physically rigged” meshes into
your application. This involves classes and methods for reading the editor
files and manipulating the physical aspects of the objects, such as applying
torques and forces to joints.


let me know what you think!
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psyclonist
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Post by psyclonist »

Very cool.

Just a question: A lot of people have custom APIs and use custom interfaces for physics simulations and using 'yet another' is not always an option. Are the file formats flexible and stable enough to be read by client applications instead of using your API (which ties Ogre and ODE if I understand it correctly) ? If they are very ODE specific that's not a problem as it is quite easy to apply the parameters to whatever another physics lib expects.

-psyclonist
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Post by Guest »

Looks very nice. When the first version of Api will be released to public? I would like to do some testing on Api, not on Editor...
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ls129
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Post by ls129 »

psyclonist wrote:Very cool.

Just a question: A lot of people have custom APIs and use custom interfaces for physics simulations and using 'yet another' is not always an option. Are the file formats flexible and stable enough to be read by client applications instead of using your API (which ties Ogre and ODE if I understand it correctly) ? If they are very ODE specific that's not a problem as it is quite easy to apply the parameters to whatever another physics lib expects.

-psyclonist
The file format is XML and it should be easy modify the class that deals with TinyXML to read the file into your own structures rather then those supplied. However, as for "stable".. :oops: i would wait a while..

Have a look at the *.sim files that are in the ZIP that you downloaded.
copy something.sim into something.xml and look at it with your browser; every node on the tree in the editor is mapped in the file to a "<SimNode ...>". You will recognize the ODE parameters (that may or may not be relevant for say TokaMak) and also the geometry parameters that you are looking for.

If there's enough positive response for EZPhysics, I plan to port it to TokaMak, Havok, the new Novodex, and to Linux and .. and..
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Post by psyclonist »

Thanks, ls129. I'll take a look at it when I get home. Looking forward to it!
ls129 wrote:If there's enough positive response for EZPhysics, I plan to port it to TokaMak, Havok, the new Novodex, and to Linux and .. and..
I'm using a generalized physics format, maybe that would make sense for your editor, too ? I understand that there are properties which are specific for certain packages, but most of them can be converted nevertheless, for example, it is easily possible to calculate more generally usable spring and damping values from ODE's erp and cfm values (which don't directly have a meaning in other physics libs).

-psyclonist
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Post by ls129 »

Anonymous wrote:Looks very nice. When the first version of Api will be released to public? I would like to do some testing on Api, not on Editor...
I'd guestimate it to be 4 weeks away. I need to fix many known bugs, to clean up the code quite a bit, and port it from Ogre 0.12 to 0.13. there were some API changes in 0.13 related to mesh transparency that need exploring..
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Post by sinbad »

Fantastic, this sort of editor is exactly what many people need to speed up physics setups. Great job, I look forward to tinkering with it. :)

[edit]Did you solve the linking-bodies-to-skeletons problem then? KayNine is working on getting ragdoll support linked up to skeletons, but have you already done it? If so, even better![/edit]
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Physics animatot rool

Post by Lee04 »

Hi

Greet tool,

I was tring Novodex Rocket tool also great, but what I am missing is
a physics tool that lets you animate multiple forces over a time line just like animation tools work in general but know putting in different force points and animate the point and force vector strength durations etc.


That would lead to small animation files that would craete alot of motion for little animation file.

I am not sure if it would look OK though for all kinds of applications but for some I gues a monster in a game could move using this kind of animation.

Know when I come to think about it I know a way to do this using 3dsmax
and one of our custom plugins...


I must try it.


Cheers
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Phantom
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Post by Phantom »

Great work!

[EDIT] Figured it out, but heres the original endpart of the post anyway[/EDIT]
You meantioned the file format being xml. Is this the XODE format someone(can't remember the mans name:P) on the ode mailing list has done? Or some format of your own?(If yes, i suggest taking a look at xode) Can't find a link right now but he keeps updating its status on the ode mailing lists...
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Post by SpannerMan »

Looking great, ls129.

I especially like the short video clip. The robot falling down is very realistic, and quite comic at the same time. Reminds me off many a drunken student night...
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Post by jacmoe »

Sorry for this act of necromancy, but I downloaded the ezphysics lib just now. :) Version 0.1.0
And the editor.
This is really good stuff! 8)

It hasn't been touched since June 11th last year - I wish we had it back then.

Just a little FYI. :wink:
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