Open source physics engines
One of the best ways to learn is to examine the existing technology. There are a large number of open source physics engines that we can study. I'm only listing open source engines, which means that closed source SDKs, such as Havok or PhysX, are left out of this list. Out of all the physics engines listed, you really need to go through the Box2D Lite source code.
Box2D Lite
This is, by far, the must-read physics engine! The project is small and easy to nagivate. The entire project consists of six .cpp
and six .h
files. Even though this is a 2D engine, it can easily be extended for 3D support. To download and have a look at Box2D Lite visit http://box2d.org/files/GDC2006/Box2D_Lite.zip
The most important thing about this engine is the arbiter implementation. Box2D Lite provides a full arbiter implementation. The engine uses a similar impulse solver to the one that we covered in this book; this makes the arbiter provided with Box2D Lite easy to use with our...