Say I have a car-game, and want to move the car by integrating the car's acc and vel to get the position each time step.

This is the way I would do it:

In pseudo code:

proc integrate( deltaTime )

; dv = a dt

v = a * deltaTime

; a = F / m
; a is the car's acceleration where a = ( thrust - breakForce ) / mass

; 1: ds = v dt - with fixed velocity and acceleration = 0
; 2: ds = at dt - with fixed acceleration
; s = a dt^2 / 2

s = v * deltaTime / 2

; Moves the car.
; Because I have both fixed velocity ( the vel from last time step )
; and fixed acceleration, I must use both integration formulas
; pos += v t + a t^2 / 2
add xPos, ( xVel * deltaTime ) + s * cosAngle
add yPos, ( yVel * deltaTime ) + s * sinAngle

; Adds to the car's velocity
add xVel, ( v * cosAngle )
add yVel, ( v * sinAngle )

end proc

I think this would work, but I am not sure. Is there another way to do the intergration? I have heard about Eulers method, but I don't know how it works.
Posted on 2002-02-06 04:20:19 by caudieux
Afternoon, caudieux.

How accurate do you need this to be?:tongue:

You could just:
get the time elapsed (dt)
multiply acceleration by dt
multiply velocity by dt
use the two results for updating xpos and ypos.

Change the acceleration with keys/mouse (thrust/brake).

Cheers,
Scronty
Posted on 2002-02-06 05:10:33 by Scronty
Hi, Scronty

This is what I think you said I should do:

I have skipped the sin/cos part

a *= dt;
carVel *= dt;
carVel += a;
pos += carVel;

When I look at the formula, i see that carVel is multiplied by dt, but wouldn't this cause a problem?

Let's say that the initial velocity of the car is 10m/s, there is no acceleration, and that dt is 0.0002s.
If i multiply 10 with 0.00125 the velocity next time step would be 0.0125m/s, and the car would stop.

Posted on 2002-02-06 09:27:00 by caudieux
Afternoon, caudieux.

heh.
In your proggy, you have variables holding the values for (acceleration)(velocity)(direction)

These are the *world* variables. i.e. velocity == 10 m/s .

When it comes to updating these variables, you have to take into account the current timeslice (i.e. 0.0002s).

To make it easier to understand to start with, use extra variables to hold the *current timeslice* information.

If carAccel = 0 (m/s/s)
and carVel = 10 (m/s)
plus TimeSlice = 0.0002s

then dcarAccel = carAccel * TimeSlice
and dcarVel = carVel * TimeSlice
dcarVel += dcarAccel

dcarAccel is the acceleration *added* (could be -ve for deceleration) to the velocity for this timeslice
dcarVel is the velocity of the car for this timeslice

carVel += dcarAccel
carVel also gets incremented by the acceleration timeslice

Use dcarVel for the distance travelled when calculating where to position your car (the sin/cos part:grin: )

Note that the only thing changed to the *world* variables, is the addition of any acceleration to the velocity.
To adjust the *speed* of the car, just change carAccel with keyboard/mouse.

Cheers,
Scronty
Posted on 2002-02-06 15:42:01 by Scronty
Ok, thank you Scronty!
Posted on 2002-02-07 04:39:47 by caudieux
Afternoon, caudieux.

Ummm. You're welcome?!?:confused:

I'm not used to seeing many "thank you"s around here. Replies usually end up as arguments:tongue: . I've just glad hardly anyone comes to the Game Programming forum:grin: .

Is this going to be a "top-down" car game? (i.e. viewed from above). 2d/3d? GDI/DX/OpenGL?

Or you dunno yet - this is just for a learning experience?

Cheers,
Scronty
Posted on 2002-02-08 00:15:51 by Scronty
It's gonna be a car game in 2d viewed from above, and I'm making it primarily for learning experience.
Posted on 2002-02-08 01:54:05 by caudieux
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