Verlet Help

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/Verlet Help

Knight #51(Posted 2008) [#1]
Hey guys,

WHAT THE HECK IS A VERLET??????????


Pongo(Posted 2008) [#2]
Verlets are simply a system of doing physics that work by linking several points with constraints. Each loop through the constraints are satisfied several times.

There is a good explanation of how things work here:
http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20030121/jacobson_01.shtml


Here is a simple b3d example




Knight #51(Posted 2008) [#3]
I still don't get it.


Stevie G(Posted 2008) [#4]
Verlet is actually the name for an integration method which can be used for position based particle physics. Some people call the particles verlets ( probably due to the integration method ) but really they are just particles / point masses.

There are loads of different integration methods which can be used for particle physics : Euler / Leapfrog / Runge Kutta 4 to name a few. Each has it's positives and negatives in terms of simulation accuracy, stability and ease of use. With Verlet, the velocity of particles are implied by old position / current position rather than defined explicitly which makes it extremely stable when compared to Euler which can suffer floating point inaccuracies / error buildup and eventually simulation explosion.

The truth is that is doesn't get any simpler than Jacobsens paper so if you can't understand that ..


Knight #51(Posted 2008) [#5]
Cool. I understand now, thanks :)