Bullet and ODE?

Stratosphere · Post by **Stratosphere** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 7:20 am

Well, it's been a while since my last question, and now I have something that is a little more speculation, and I wanted to ask some more experienced devs if it would be possible.

I've heard in several places that bullet is a great physics engine, I looked at it and also think its great, but I've also heard that ODE has more advanced physics, but has really bad collision detection. Would it be possible to use ODE for the physics and Bullet for the collision detection?

I'm in the middle of trying to assemble parts for the back end for my game and need to know this so i can have the best foundation possible. No code right now I'm just asking your opinion.

If you would like to know, I'm making my own complete toolkit for my self. I am using Raknet for networking, irrlicht for rendering, BASS for audio, and I was debating on the physics library, which is why I posted this message.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 8:09 am

I don't know Bullet by have some experience with ODE. I know that it's possible to use any collision detection lib with ODE as long as it provides the right data, i.e. i guess you would have to convert the data you get from the Bullet detection to make it compatible with ODE, but it should be possible.

Stratosphere · Post by **Stratosphere** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 8:56 am

yeah, I looked again into their docs (I have been dealing with problems in my life lately and not had time to do as through research as I would like) and i have found that ODE has better ridged bodies and doesn't support soft bodies(at least to my knowledge I need to look deeper o_O)

so i would use Bullet for its Discrete and continuous collision detection and it's soft bodies, ODE for it's ridged bodies and vehicle simulation, though vehicle rigging isn't important right now, I will probably use it in a future project.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:32 am

I think that would mean you have to do a deeper mix of ODE and Bullet. ODE doesn't support soft bodies, that's true, but I guess that this feature sticks deeper within the whole collision handling code, not only the collision detection.

Stratosphere · Post by **Stratosphere** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:10 am

I guess I'll just use bullet because I want soft bodies in my game. I'll just deal with it's less advanced physics ridged body wise.