quote:
Originally posted by ventilator:
wouldn't it be possible to dynamically increase an entity's erp depending on how much it currently penetrates the level geometry?
Well the underlying concept is that ERP allows you to soften constraints by not enforcing them 100%. If you wanted to make sure that the ball does not penetrate geometry, then set ERP to a large value. As mentioned, I will be looking into how feasible it is to use separate ERP/CFM values for different situations (user constraints, contacts).

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sometimes it's really tricky to find the right combination of parameters. i wonder how they manage to make physics in games like halflife2 foolproof?
It's a lot easier if you know what kind of physics simulation to expect, e.g. if Gordon is not going to encounter any beach balls then the constraints can be made stiffer.

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for example, how do they prevent that a player collects all items of a level with the gravitation gun and throws them onto a pile? all this collisions in the pile really could freeze (<1fps) the game...
Well that's something to try out. The other thing would be squeezing matresses and deformable objects through narrow gaps and see if they explode.

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marco, have you ever worked with other physics engines like havok?
I have played with (and broken ;]) a number of physics demos, including Havok 1.0, but not looked at any other proprietary APIs. Last year I was talking to a game developer using MathEngine or Havok and complaining about parameter tweaking- so you are not alone on this.