[pygame] Collision detection

[Matt Bailey <mattb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Howdy all,

   The time has come in my current game to work on collision detection. Always 
before I've done basic detection....like, a simple rect colliding with 
another rect that always moves by a discrete XY displacement, no rotation, no 
physics, etc. Right now I'm doing a simple (haww....well, it's supposed to 
be) top-down racer. The car turns and goes where it's pointed, as opposed to 
simply "sliding" in the style of the old arcade racers.
    I started with a collision-point approach. I currently have seperate 
collision point objects which I can "attach" to the car, by specifying an 
angle and distance from the center of the car. This yields an absolute XY 
coord, so I do currently know where my collision points are. That's about as 
far as I've gotten. :) If I just wanted the car to run into rectangular 
buildings (just checking to see if a point has come within the XY range of 
the building), it would probably be relatively straightforward. But that 
isn't satisfactory, plus I need to be able to have cars run into each other.
   I've been google'ing but so far haven't come up with much. I figure SURELY 
other Pygame designers have come up with solutions to this sort of 
problem. :) I was wondering if some of you folks would care to share your 
techniques or some general pointers. I don't really know where to go from 
here, and I'm not exactly sure what kind of approach would work best at this 
point anyway.

	-Matt Bailey