Trigger Happy
virtual players will respond to physical knocks and tackles through a system based on detailed mechanical models of the human musculo-skeletal system, rather than through predetermined animations. Motioncapture techniques, based on filming human actors and digitizing the results, synthesize “realistic” movement from the outside, and so in-game possibilities are strictly limited to those that have been filmed in the development studio. Physical modeling, on the other hand, synthesizes movement from the inside, from the interaction of fundamental parts, and so allows a theoretically infinite range of character movement.
Other Mathengine demonstrations include a ball bouncing onto a slatted rope bridge, whose resonant swings and twists differ every time according to where exactly the ball was dropped; and a string-puppet articulated elephant, controlled just as in reality by a wooden cross from which the strings hang, and which can be tilted on two axes by manipulating a motionsensing joypad attached to the computer. One begins to have an ever stronger sense of moving objects, rather than mere patterns.
Mathengine provides a software development kit for games designers and other industries that allows the developer to use “real,” very accurate and
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