Newton tracked tank proof-of-concept demo released
Posted on March 16, 2008
| Sascha
Finally, here it is : The demo of my proof-of-concept for realizing tracked vehicles (tanks) using only Newton’s material callback system. Head over here to download it (~3,6 MBytes) and please refer to the readme.txt before playing around with it. Also note that it’s possible that not all gamepads will work, if that’s the case just use the keyboard controls.
New tracked tank video
Posted on March 14, 2008
| Sascha
I have uploaded a new video (wmv-format, ~60 MBytes, ~5:40 mins) of the tracked tank vehicle implemented in newton. This video shows a more advanced, and almost finished version that allows you to control each track separate (using two analog sticks on my gamepad), as well as rotating the turret, which is implemented with a derived custom joint (and controlled using two neck buttons on the pad). It also allows for realistic turning when the tank is moving, something that wasn’t working in the version that the first video showed.
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Tracked tank with Newton
Posted on March 5, 2008
| Sascha
Back in 2006 I tried to simulate a tracked tank in Newton using a very uncommon method. Instead of moving the tank around with forces I tried to implement an “inverted” conveyor belt material for the tracks, to achieve a more realistic movement. Sadly it didn’t work out 100% perfect back then, but recently I revisited my demo and I now got something that almost perfectly moves like a tank.
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The day(s) after
Posted on February 7, 2006
| Sascha
The launch of NewtonPlayGround turned out to be more or less smooth. Though the people that downloaded it already found some bugs, none of them were real showstoppers (which are actually a coders nightmare). Up until now there have been 8 bugs/problems reported, with none of them being something really serious and so I already fixed all those bugs and found two more by myself (also just really small ones).
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Media Update
Posted on January 10, 2006
| Sascha
Well, I’m still working hard on the NewtonPlayGround to get it out of the door not too long after the final bugfix release of Newton 1.5, so here is a media update to inform you on what’s up with it.
And so to show how much I did with the PlayGround, here are some screenshots : And here are the descriptions (from left to right) : Shot 1 : This is the most recent scene, and I just finished it some minutes ago.
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Bugs here, Bugs there, Bugs are everywhere
Posted on January 7, 2006
| Sascha
So every programmer out there knows them and as more complex your programs get, the more likely you’ll encounter them. But what also happens is, that you often (at least when doing hobby development) don’t catch those bugs since they don’t occure to you, but only happen for other users. And especially with a complex application like the NewtonPlayGround, where there is no real limitation in what to do for the user, it’s hard to catch all those bugs.
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Newton 1.5 is finally out
Posted on January 3, 2006
| Sascha
Yes, it’s finally out! Though it’s no longer called 1.35, but 1.5 instead due to the huge number of changes/additions. So go to the Newton Page and download it ASAP.
And then get the Delphi/Pascal headers from my Newton Subdomain. This time, it’s not only the updated header, but it also contains a translation of the custom joints that are included in the Newton SDK (see my last news post for more info on what that actually is).
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Newton's custom joint interface
Posted on December 28, 2005
| Sascha
So one of the most interesting features of Newton are the so-called custom joints, which basically expose Newton’s low-level functionality for joints and allow you to create all kind of joints. In the end, this means you’re not bound to the given set of pre-defined joints (like it’s the case with other engines, even most commercial ones like Novodex) and so if you need a joint that Newton doesn’t offer you just create it yourself.
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1.35 is around the corner
Posted on December 14, 2005
| Sascha
Newton 1.35 Believe it or not, but the 1.35 release of Newton is almost upon us! We SDK-developers are getting constantly updated SDKs (almost every two days or so) and it looks better and better with each SDK. The only thing that’s really left for the Newton makers is now the overhaul of the vehicle container and some tweaking and testing.
Julio (the main man behind NGD) already said that he wants to release 1.
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New Newton Beta SDK
Posted on November 28, 2005
| Sascha
So much for the regular updates, but the last weeks have been very dull in terms of coding (did almost nothing with Delphi or any other programming language).
But this weekend we SDK-developers got another beta of the Newton 1.35-SDK to try out, so I fired up Delphi, updated the header to the recent beta-SDK and also fixed some minor bugs in the NewtonPlayGround to test it with the new SDK.
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