I'm trying to simulate different drive trains with the physics engine and I'm having an issue creating this type of wheel:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 727729.jpg
I would rather not make each roller on the wheel and attach them all with constraints to a larger cylinder. Instead, I would rather simplify the problem and say that the cylinder entity representing the wheel has high friction on it's Z axis and low friction on it's X axis (or something similar).
Is there any way to easily and efficiently create this type of wheel?
Thanks.
Different friction for each axis
Re: Different friction for each axis
It would not be trivial to change how an entity handles friction to work that way.
A good approximation would be to use something like the Vehicle class and its wheels. They have separate rolling friction/sliding friction coefficients. With this approach, note that there are no physical wheels; they are just raycasts.
The vehicle class is also going open source soon, so if you find a need to make some minor modifications, you will be able to do so. For example, you may want to motorize the lateral movement. Sliding friction, by default, acts like friction and always tries to slow things down. However, since the sliding friction is basically a motor targeting 0 velocity, it would be trivial to change the target speed.
A good approximation would be to use something like the Vehicle class and its wheels. They have separate rolling friction/sliding friction coefficients. With this approach, note that there are no physical wheels; they are just raycasts.
The vehicle class is also going open source soon, so if you find a need to make some minor modifications, you will be able to do so. For example, you may want to motorize the lateral movement. Sliding friction, by default, acts like friction and always tries to slow things down. However, since the sliding friction is basically a motor targeting 0 velocity, it would be trivial to change the target speed.