MathEngine Karma Documentation Set 

Welcome to the documentation for MathEngine Karma, version 1.2

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GreaseMonkey and Actor

These programs showcase our products. They are designed to show the core capabilities of Karma in an action-packed game-like environment

GreaseMonkey

GreaseMonkey may look like a car racing game, but it's actually an interactive test-bed demonstrating the power of Karma to simulate a wide range of vehicles and behaviors in real time.

This is a Renderware-based application. It is only available for Win32 and Sony PlayStation®2.

Actor

The Actor Technology Demo features Vivid Image's latest 3D game engine using Karma.

This demo demonstrates the successful application of physics in a gaming environment. Highlights include the manipulation of complex dynamically-simulated objects that demonstrate natural behavior. There are some little surprises to discover too, just click away!

Executable demo available only for Win32.
Demo movie available in AVI format.

Examples

These demos are intended to show how an interesting and often complex physical system can be solved by Karma.

BallMan

A man is created using limited joints. You can throw him down the stairs to see the joints in action. Ball and sockets and hinges are used.

Chair

 This example shows chairs formed as aggregates of several primitive geometries being pushed by red balls and destroyed by rocks that are thrown at them.

ConvexStairs

A few convex objects fall down some stairs. An example of the use of convex objects.

Crane

An implementation of a crane. Demonstrates how to build simple machines with powered and limited hinge and prismatic joints, and how to design simple controls for such machines. It also demonstrates using the Asset Database and the Asset factory to load and instance XML-based Karma assets.

ManyPendulums

 

 A large array of pendulums disrupted by a falling wood block. The large number of pendulums does not slow down the simulation.

Quadbike

This example demonstrates how to create a more complicated game object. This example can also be found in tutorial form. See the user guide.

Tank

A tank rolls around on a heightfield. The program demonstrates how to implement simple vehicles with MathEngine, and illustrates the generation of heightfield collision using triangle lists.

Topple

 Numerous objects are stacked into piles which you can knock over by throwing balls at them. Rotate the view and take aim, then throw a ball. Alternatively you can drag objects around by clicking on one whilst holding down shift.

Technical Examples

The technical demos are designed to provide source level examples of how to use features of the toolkit.

Cone user geometry

 This example shows how to add a user geometry to Karma - in this case a cone.

Cubes

A large number of cubes bouncing on a plane. Simulating single bodies is very cheap compared to rendering them.

Friction

A demonstration of the box and normal force friction models. With the box friction model, the friction limit is independent of the normal force, so the lower box slides first. With the normal force model the friction limit is proportional to the normal force, so both boxes begin to slide at the same time.

Hinge

A body is connected to the world with a hinge joint. The hinge can be motorized and you can set rotational limits. Explore all the limit properties using the menu provided.

HiSpeed

This example shows how to stop objects moving at high speed from penetrating or passing through collision surfaces.

Prismatic

This example shows a primatic joint constraining two bodies.

RainbowChain

Shows the speed with which a long chain can be simulated. The chain can collide with itself without a speed penalty. Try applying mouse forces to the chain.

TriangleList

This example demonstrates some objects colliding with a triangle list. Experiment with the menu options to see how the triangle flags alter the contact generation behaviour.