Book Image

Game Physics Cookbook

By : Gabor Szauer
Book Image

Game Physics Cookbook

By: Gabor Szauer

Overview of this book

Physics is really important for game programmers who want to add realism and functionality to their games. Collision detection in particular is a problem that affects all game developers, regardless of the platform, engine, or toolkit they use. This book will teach you the concepts and formulas behind collision detection. You will also be taught how to build a simple physics engine, where Rigid Body physics is the main focus, and learn about intersection algorithms for primitive shapes. You’ll begin by building a strong foundation in mathematics that will be used throughout the book. We’ll guide you through implementing 2D and 3D primitives and show you how to perform effective collision tests for them. We then pivot to one of the harder areas of game development—collision detection and resolution. Further on, you will learn what a Physics engine is, how to set up a game window, and how to implement rendering. We’ll explore advanced physics topics such as constraint solving. You’ll also find out how to implement a rudimentary physics engine, which you can use to build an Angry Birds type of game or a more advanced game. By the end of the book, you will have implemented all primitive and some advanced collision tests, and you will be able to read on geometry and linear Algebra formulas to take forward to your own games!
Table of Contents (27 chapters)
Game Physics Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewer
Acknowledgements
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
Index

Triangle to Axis Aligned Bounding Box


We can implement a Triangle to Axis Aligned Bounding Box (AABB) intersection test using the Separating Axis Theorem. There will be a total of 13 axes to test. These axes are:

  • Three face normals of the AABB

  • One face normal from the Triangle

  • Nine cross products of the edges of each primitive

Getting ready

We can use the existing GetInterval function of the AABB. We have to write a new GetInterval function for the triangle. We also have to write a new OverlapOnAxis function to test for triangle to AABB overlap. Finally, we have to implement the actual SAT test.

How to do it…

Follow these steps to check if an AABB and triangle intersect:

  1. Declare all three of the new functions in Geometry3D.h:

    Interval GetInterval(const Triangle& triangle, vec3& axis);
    bool OverlapOnAxis(const AABB& aabb, 
       const Triangle& triangle, const vec3& axis);
    bool TriangleAABB(const Triangle& t, const AABB& a);
  2. Create a convenience macro in Geometry3D.h:

    #define...