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Re: [pygame] The introduction of my Google Summer Code Project
This looks great, I was meaning to get into Box2D but
hadn't researched enough to see how easy it would be
to implement into PyGame.
RE: GSoC
Seems like it would make more sense to use parts of
Box2D or another open source physics implementation
that is stable, tested, and fast, and then gut the
parts that are bloat and adjust as needed. But if you
want to do it from scratch, more power to you. I look
forward to testing it if it gets to a useable state!
Devon
--- Chris Hager <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> We are a team also working on 2d physics for python,
> and I thought I
> could maybe post a useful comment :) Congratulations
> for your GSoC
> project btw!!
>
> First of all, I think it's extremely ambitious to
> write an own physics
> engine, especially considering the quality of Box2d
> and Chipmunk. They
> are stable, quick and fully featured -- especially
> Box2D being grown up
> since a while and actively developed and driven by a
> large community. I
> think it will take a few man-years to get to that
> point in terms of
> stability, speed and functionality, although maybe
> not all functions are
> required.
>
> There are Python ports for both, Box2D and Chipmunk.
> One is "pyMunk"
> which is a CTypes Interface to the Chipmunk physics
> engine
> (http://code.google.com/p/pymunk/).
>
> The other project is called "Elements". It's on the
> one side a python
> port of Box2D with a SWIG Interface, on the other
> side an API for easy
> usage of Box2D (even for kids), and a lot of
> examples and demos. We
> spent a lot of time on the SWIG Interface and on
> speed optimisations, as
> we also run it successfully on the XO Laptop. We
> also ported the (as of
> yesterday) current Box2D testbed demos to python and
> pygame as well as
> opengl. I hope you can find a few inspirations from
> our code:
>
> "svn co http://svn2.assembla.com/svn/elements";.
> Absolutely use "python
> -O ..." -- it improves the performance a lot with
> these demos (up to
> 100% with opengl).
>
> I also worked with Chipmunk and did speed tests with
> both engines
>
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Physic_Engines/Speed_Tests).
> Box2D (C++) is a
> lot faster with Python (SWIG Interface), compared to
> Chipmunk (C) with
> CTypes Bindings.
>
> Another thing: Current 2d physic engines have
> problems with concave
> polygons ([1], [2]). We detect and support both,
> with breaking a concave
> poly up in rectangles. (Not very efficcient, but
> it's very hard to find
> open tessellation algorightms; many developers seem
> to use the OpenGL
> Tessellater ([2]), but it has a strange half-free
> license [3]).
>
> Also the "Elements" project supports drawing with
> pygame, opengl and
> cairo, and we have compiled box2d libraries with
> python swig interface
> for windows, linux 32 and 64 bit (+ instructions for
> the other
> platforms). You can just copy them and start playing
> around! :)
>
> Best,
> - Chris
>
> [1]
> http://www.box2d.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=83
> [2]
> http://www.box2d.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=719
> [3]
>
http://www.box2d.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=719&p=4200#p4223
>
> --
> \___/ Chris Hager
> |___| GSoC '08 Mentor for OLPC --
> http://wiki.laptop.org
> \___\ Elements Developer --
> http://elements.linuxuser.at
>
>
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