What gives? Terrain Square size messing with Physics
by Jesse McKinney · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 05/02/2008 (8:52 pm) · 3 replies
So its it just my imagination or does changing a terrains square size completely mess with how movement physics are calculated? I think I noticed this back in the TGE days with legacy, then we moved to TGEA in the EA days and could leave square size alone because we could use larger terrain areas, but with us moving to mega terrains for some of our medium and smaller sized maps due to the editing capabilities the problem has seemed to re-surface.
Right now for instance I have a map with a square size of 2 and a mega terrain map I built with a square size of 16. Physics feel "right" (ie you can actually fall and move at a decent rate) in the map with a square size of 2, but in the map with a square size of 16 it feels like you are floating around in low gravity, or moving through tar. I don't think its an illusion caused by physically larger terrain as you really do take a long time before physics kicks in and you start moving down after jumping off a cliff for instance.
So am I going crazy or what? Is there a work around, a physics scalar function someone wrote for instance, that scales the appropriate physics values depending on square size, so that regardless of a terrains square size physics are always calculated the same so movement feels the same regardless of square size? Has anyone else tackled this problem in a different way than I am asking about? Or is this all in my head?
Right now for instance I have a map with a square size of 2 and a mega terrain map I built with a square size of 16. Physics feel "right" (ie you can actually fall and move at a decent rate) in the map with a square size of 2, but in the map with a square size of 16 it feels like you are floating around in low gravity, or moving through tar. I don't think its an illusion caused by physically larger terrain as you really do take a long time before physics kicks in and you start moving down after jumping off a cliff for instance.
So am I going crazy or what? Is there a work around, a physics scalar function someone wrote for instance, that scales the appropriate physics values depending on square size, so that regardless of a terrains square size physics are always calculated the same so movement feels the same regardless of square size? Has anyone else tackled this problem in a different way than I am asking about? Or is this all in my head?
#2
However, I thought they fixed it with TGEA 1.7.x and mega-terrains. Perhaps you might submit a bug?
05/10/2008 (5:16 am)
I think it's always been like this--possibly as far back as in Tribes2. However, I thought they fixed it with TGEA 1.7.x and mega-terrains. Perhaps you might submit a bug?
#3
05/10/2008 (6:05 am)
Interesting discussion, but honestly - why speculate? Just try it out, print out your velocity.len () or something on your screen and see if it makes an impact at all when switching square size. That way you'll be certain. 
Torque Owner Henry Todd
Atomic Walrus
More subtle changes in height between each terrain vertex could help make the terrain feel more smooth, and a higher resolution for the terrain texture will produce a more appropriate "feel" when moving past the terrain (as changing the squaresize will result in large, blocky textures). Placing some random ground cover will also help as it draws attention away from the terrain object itself.