Resources for 2d game physics [closed]

Answer 1

Speaking from experience, implementing a 2D physics engine is pretty difficult. I'll detail the several steps I took when creating my engine.

1. Collision detection. Collision detection can be a difficult problem, even when you're not dealing with 3D worlds or networked simulations. For 2D physics, you definitely want to use the Separating Axis Theorem. Once you've implement SAT, you're half-way done making the dynamics portion of your engine.

2. Kinematics/Dynamics. Chris Hecker has written an excellent online resource which walked me through collision response step-by-step.

3. Everything Else. Once you've got the collision detection/response finished, its a matter of implementing everything else you want in the engine. This can include friction, contact forces, joints, along with whatever else you can think of.

Have fun! Creating your own physics simulation is an incredibly rewarding experience.

Answer 2

Even if you want to learn it all from the bottom up, an open source physics library that is well coded and documented contains far more information than a book. How do I deal with situation x... find in files can be faster than a paper index.

Original response:

What, no mention of Box2D? Its an open source side project of a blizzard employee, has a good community, and well, works great.

In my (brief) experience with Box2D, integrating it with Torque Game Builder, I found the API clean to use, documentation was clear, it supported all the physics objects I expected (joints in particular were a requirement), and the community looked friendly and active (sometime around early 2010).

Judging by forum posters, it also appeared that managers were receptive to source contributions (that did not carry license baggage).

It's island based solver seemed quite fast, as I expected from its reputation, not that I did any major performance testing.