Vortex - ease of use

[arennuit]

Hello,

I believe it is generally assumed that Vortex is "more physically rooted" than Bullet or ODE, e.g.
* The fine / tweaking parameters Vortex uses have a physical meaning rather a strictly numerical meaning
--> The engine-specific parameters for Bullet & ODE are (for example) ERP & CRM. These have no physical meaning, they are only meaningful for the numerical simulation
--> The Vortex-specific parameters are compliance, damping, kinetic loss... Which all have a physical meaning
* Also with Vortex it is possible to use real dynamic parameters (i.e. inertia & weight) and expect to obtain a stable simulation
---> as opposed to Bullet and ODE where you often have to tweak the dynamic parameters to ridiculous values to get a stable simulation

I have no experience with Vortex but from the above observations can I assume that Vortex is much much easier to use than its competitors? i.e. can I assume that with Vortex you setup your scene with the real dynamic parameters and it just works with no fiddling around to get your simulation stable?

Thanks,

Antoine.

[coppelia]

Hello Antoine,

Can I assume that Vortex is much easier to use than its competitors?

Unfortunately we can't assume such a thing. Setting up correct masses and inertias is certainly easier with Vortex than with the other engines. But at the same time Vortex offers so many more parameters to adjust, that it could get tricky to find out about all those parameters. In addition to that, the other engines are naturally more stable since a lot of automatic damping happens here and there. With Vortex, overconstrained systems can be unstable (but you have means to relax joint axes appropriately with Vortex). Bullet and ODE usually do not complain too much with overconstrained systems.

Cheers

[arennuit]

That's very interesting know how. Thanks!