03-10-2017, 11:27 AM
As you might know, we've been working for what feels like way too long on a new physics engine. This is necessary to support designs with counter-rotating cylinders, like these:
![[Image: 640px-Spacecolony1.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Spacecolony1.jpg/640px-Spacecolony1.jpg)
It's been a bit of a slog... the math is very dense, and it's a LONG walk from square 1 to where you can get anything at all to actually do anything.
But today we reached a bit of a milestone... we finally got a kinetic tree (that is, a set of connected rigid bodies) to move as expected. This demo has two rigidbodies (three, if you count the stationary base) connected by two joints, with each joint revolving at a constant rate.
![[Image: source.gif]](https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7btWQQcD8BkAnq5q/source.gif)
I know it doesn't look like much, but believe me, this is a victory! It proves that at least some of all that code we've been writing for weeks works as intended.
Now we'll build on this, step by step, until we get those O'Neill cylinders working!
It's been a bit of a slog... the math is very dense, and it's a LONG walk from square 1 to where you can get anything at all to actually do anything.
But today we reached a bit of a milestone... we finally got a kinetic tree (that is, a set of connected rigid bodies) to move as expected. This demo has two rigidbodies (three, if you count the stationary base) connected by two joints, with each joint revolving at a constant rate.
I know it doesn't look like much, but believe me, this is a victory! It proves that at least some of all that code we've been writing for weeks works as intended.
Now we'll build on this, step by step, until we get those O'Neill cylinders working!
Joe Strout
Lead Developer, High Frontier