Hobb, if I were you I'd carry on with it. SketchyBehaviours is on the horizon, but the horizon is very far away

Love the sound of the heli though

@cphillips said:

When I started this I took another look at all the physics engines out there and decided they were unsuitable for one reason or another.

Is it switched to Newton 2.0... or is that not stable enough?

If you use the forum's upload feature to upload the model it'd be easier to tell if the problem is just for you, or is something to do with the model itself

I'm gonna have fun with this one!!

So, will all the newtonServer external commands be available for scripting, even if they're not implemented? I'm just wondering how we can get access to the materials

The way controllers work in SP3 (the version of SketchyPhysics you're using) has changed since the last version, SP2 (which was used to write the tutorial you used). To give more flexibility, the controller field now accepts formulas, (i.e. math), combined with old-fashioned sliders.

To get the result you were expecting, use this formula in the controller field:

slider("name you want")

It must include the quotes ("), but the name can be anything.

As a little example of what you can do with formulas, try making a motor joint, and using this as the controller (note that motors cannot normally reverse):

0.5-slider("Motor")

Sorry, there's no official manual, but you can always ask here

It's kind of complicated, and involves alot of scripting. There's also any number of possible ways to do it, depending on what exactly you want to do. My original path-follower was based on onTouch (when the the nodes were touched, it would increment the path index variable, so the robot would drive to the next node). That was crude, and would only be effective if you could guarantee nothing else could touch the nodes. There are other ways of doing it, but it would always involve alot of scripting.

The problem is, it only works in 2D, and the robot isn't actually fixed to the path, so I doubt it would be much good for most uses of a 'slider-path'

I think the old 'Joints settings' thing is a remnant from the first version of SketchyPhysics that doesn't work any more but hasn't been removed. Just open up the UI (next to play/pause and restart buttons) and select the joint/group with joint in/group attached to a joint, and the joint will pop up in the UI. Click it there, and you can change the settings.

Hehe, that's an old one. I'm afraid it's not a slider in any shape or form, the 'AI' just points itself blindly at the next node in the path. When it gets there, it switches to the next, and so on.

In the super-experimental version which no-one really uses (SP3X Jun27th), you can set a body's damping. What that means is with gravity set to 0, objects will carry on moving forever unless stopped, so you can create a true orbital motion sim by setting a static 'sun' as a magnet (which actually acts more like a gravitational field), and setting the planetary bodies to magnetic. If you give them motion at the start of the sim, they should fall into orbit

This was shown by one of CPhillip's demos, but I don't know where to find it

Anyway, you can get Jun 27th here: http://sketchyphysics.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Outbound&f=SketchyPhysicsWiki&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsketchyphysics2.googlecode.com%2Ffiles%2FSetupSketchyPhysics3x-Jun27.exe, but be warned, not many people use it, since you're not supposed to share models made with it on the warehouse.

It might look a little different to how SketchUp looks normally, but it runs directly in SketchUp's viewport, so you just need SketchyPhysics 3. A 3D graphics card would increase performance, just like it would for normal SketchUp use, but I guess it'd run without one (I've never tried). The download isn't an installer or anything, it's literally just a SketchUp model.

Is this actually a pop-up error message? Are you unable to connect the joints, or is the error preventing you from using the tools?

@unknownuser said:

He actaully has posted...493 posts.

That I have, but it's certainly been a while

I think it's possible, just difficult. From what I've found, you generally have to change the way SP works to achieve deep-down stuff like this, so it'll either only work on your machine, or it'll have to use LazyScript (the problem is the 'runtime' part... joints are initialized at the simulation start using their set attributes). I'll look into it a little further though, it'd be a useful feature to have

SP unfortunately doesn't have an API, and I think it'd be pretty hard to understand if it did

It's been a very long time since any news

This is a simple mistake; basically, SketchyPhysics doesn't recognize the exact shape of the parts you have made (except in the 'special' case of the staticmesh, which cannot move). Instead, it essentially scales the selected physics shape to fit the bounding box of your group. To create complex shapes, with indentations, you need to combine simple shapes... for example, creating some grouped boxes, and then grouping them all together, keeping the overall group's physics shape set to 'default'

Assuming you have SketchyPhysics 3 experimental (SP3 X), you can use onTouch to help with this. First, instead of a spring, use a slider, set a fixed value (0) as the controller, and play with the accel and damp until you get it satisfyingly springy. You can then replace the controller with a variable, e.g. getVar("spring",0)
Then, in onTouch of the same object, use setVar("spring",1)

This means that when the object is touched, the 'default' position of the springy slider will move from the 0 position to the 1 position.

Exploding is only needed if you download directly into your model. Try just downloading as a file, and opening that (don't explode it!). If that still doesn't work, please check you have SketchyPhysics version 3 RC1 (release candidate one) or higher.

Thanks

These are the original, unmodified, low-ish poly vehicles. The larger red one is more detailed, since it was built to be the player's vehicle, although I eventually removed the interior for the game:

This is an arcadey off-road racer, built and running entirely in SketchUp, using SketchyPhysics RC1 with alot of scripting on the side
Features include three path-following AI vehicles, a scripted camera rig, boost, a working HUD, and, of course, a great big track for the race to take place on







If you'd like to check out the full model, download at: http://www.timacheson.com/SkyDrive/DirectLinkRedirect?pageUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fcid-414bedf92f9630f7.skydrive.live.com%2Fself.aspx%2F.Public%2FMotorsketch%25202%2520-%2520SketchGod%2520Mesa%2520-%2520RACE.skp, and, if you have SP3 RC1, you can have a quick race yourself (Download link is to SkyDrive, using Tim Acheson's redirect)

The game has been finished for a while now, and I've actually begun work on a second track that absolutely dwarves this one, and started a small competition to create a third (if anyone's interested )

The AI will follow only their individual routes, you can make each one drive wherever you like

Amazing plugin, can't believe it's actually possible in SU