This is in Lite-C, but it's about physics, so I hope it's appropriate to post here...

I have an action function that I apply to models that I've manually added to my level via WED. When I run the level, the physics stuff that I implemented in the action cause the models to act as expected. The model falls to the ground because of gravity, and when i apply force to it, it does it's thing. Everyone's happy.

However, when I create an entity of the same model using ent_create, and apply the same action, it does not work. It does not fall to the ground, and the force I apply does nothing whatsoever.

Attached is the code I am using. Can anyone here explain and solution this phenomenon? Why does manual creation work, but not dynamnic/on-the-fly creation?

Thanks.

Code:

---

void main(){

...
	ent_create("thingydoo.mdl", vector(-1405,-264,210), myPhysics); 
	wait(1);
...
}


action myPhysics()
{
	my.eflags |= (FAT|NARROW);
	wait(1);
	c_setminmax(me);
	my.emask |= (ENABLE_ENTITY|ENABLE_IMPACT); //|ENABLE_FRICTION
	my.flags |= (CAST|SHADOW);
	my.alpha = 0;
	my.event = apply_physics; // when it collides with something, its event function will run
	my.scale_x=1.5;
	my.scale_y=1.5;
	my.scale_z=1.5;
	temp.x = 0; 
	temp.y = 0; 
	temp.z = -386; // earth gravity factor, g = 9.81 m/s2
	ph_setgravity(temp); // set gravity...crashes if i do this in main :/
	phent_settype(my, PH_RIGID, PH_BOX);
	phent_setmass(my, 2.0, PH_POLY);
	phent_setfriction(my, 80); //play with this
	phent_setelasticity(my, 1, 25); //play with this
 	phent_setdamping(me,20,40); //play with this
	wait(-3); // let gravity kick in...works on manual entities, but not ent_created for some reason
	phent_enable(my,0); /// disable physics on this entity until apply_physics is triggered
  	
}

function apply_physics()
{
           // In this case, I am going to apply a force if i was collided with 
           // by a model containing the text "bullet" in the filename ( a bullet model )
	if( str_stri(str_for_entfile(NULL,you),"bullet") > 0 ) {
		wait(1);
		phent_enable(my,1); // re-enable
		phent_addforceglobal(my,vector(75,75,500),normal); //mess with these numbers
		if( !snd_playing(hThump) ) {
			hThump = ent_playsound(my,SND_THUMP,1000);
		}
		
		/// more code here to remove the physic object...
		//wait(-6);
		//phent_enable(my,0); // mot sure if necessary since we're about to remove the entity
		//ent_remove(my);
	}	
}

---

put that thinks into a function;
Code:

---

 
        ph_setgravity(temp); // set gravity...crashes if i do this in main :/	
        phent_settype(my, PH_RIGID, PH_BOX);	
        phent_setmass(my, 2.0, PH_POLY);	
        phent_setfriction(my, 80); //play with this	
        phent_setelasticity(my, 1, 25); //play with this 	
        phent_setdamping(me,20,40); //play with this	
        wait(-3); // let gravity kick in...works on manual entities, but not ent_created for some reason	
        phent_enable(my,0); /// disable physics on this entity until      apply_physics is triggered  	 

---

i'm afraid there's no reason for that to fix it.

do you mind showing us all of the main function? it might have something to do with level_load and wait.

everything else looks basically fine from here.

julz

I got it to work, but unfortunately, I am not very happy about the solution. Not something I can't live with, however, and overall it's good enough. Perhaps there is a simpler solution - some overlooked flag or something related to my world or terrain or something.

Anyway, one thing I tried was copy the code out of the earthball demo that dealt with the creation of the earthball and applying the earthball physics stuff to it. Didn't work - earth just hung in the air, and was passable. So, I went back to the drawing board, and modeled my main() after the earthball demo. Instead of loading a World created in WED that contained a terrain and a few miscellaneous models, I instead loaded my terrain directly with level_load, then added the earthball model via ent_create and applied all of the earthball demo physics. Aha - It worked! The earth falls out of the sky and bounces gently to my terrain.

By the time all was said and done, I had my own physics scripts and models working happily together. I now load an empty world with level_load, and add all models, including the terrain, via ent_create. Of course, it took some head-scratching and tweaking to get all of the other stuff that was working, working again, too.

So, is that it? if I want dynamically generated physics objects to work properly then I cannot use a world, complete with a terrain and static entities, pre-baked in WED?

did your pre-baked WED level have a sky-box around it?

perhaps the entity was being created out of the level bounds (a sky-box is a good way to set the level bounds).

good luck,

julz

I was adding the skybox using ent_createlayer w/ the SKY flag. I haven't tried adding the skybox via WED. I'll give that a try.