Trigger Happy
processor-cheap physics in his or her applications. If a game company is writing a racing game, for instance, using a kit like Mathengine’s the car can be defined as a certain mass resting, through a suspension system, on four wheels, which have a certain frictional relationship with the road. From this very simple mathematical definition, it turns out that “realistic” car behavior, such as oversteer and understeer, loadshifting and tilting, comes for free. Whereas games developers used to have to “kludge” the physics, to laboriously create something that approximated to realistic behavior, physical modeling makes it all happen as behavior emerging from a simple set of definitions.
And this process directly affects the videogame player’s experience. As Mathengine’s product manager Paul Topping puts it, “Dynamic properties are a very intuitive thing.” We are used to handling objects with mass, bounce and velocity in the real world, and we can predict their everyday interactions pretty well. You don’t have to be Paul Newman to know roughly how a pool ball is going to bounce off a cushion; you don’t have to be Glenn Gould to know that striking a piano key with force is going to produce a louder sound than if you’d caressed it. And anyone who plays tennis is
92
