Physics of Projectile Motion in Computer Games :: physics video game computer

IntroductionPhysics define the rules by which we live our physical existence. many another(prenominal) of us go about our day to day lives without any true understanding of the Laws which govern how we inter sour with our surroundings. Physics is our way of making sense of the forces which act upon us and shape the way we accomplish even the most menial of tasks. From walking to driving to playing a game of catch, anyone can see physical science in action.A computer game programmer must take a special look at the forces at work around us. The programmers who label flight simulators, first person shooters, and similar games, often need to model their virtual world as closely as possible to our own. In this devise we lead look at the first person combat simulator called Tribes, by Dynamix. We will focus mainly on projectile motion, but we will overly discuss the challenges the programmers had in computing ranges for projectiles, friction, and momentum. Also touched on, will be ho w they succeeded and failed in their efforts.ChallengesIn Tribes, the programmers had to create an environment for the players. The challenge is to model our real life history Laws of physics as accurately as possible. However, programmers are not physicists and it would take a super computer to accurately model all physics in a real world environment. This environment includes a variable gravity. This was important to game play in that the programmers could now make different worlds for the players to fight in. A planet of different mass will obviously have a different gravity. The following equation shows the horizontal range of a projectile, R = (Vo / g) * sin(2) (Halliday, et al 60-64). Where R is the range, Vo is the initial velocity, g is gravity, and is the angle the projectile is fired at. It is easy to see from the equation that a change in gravity will affect the total horizontal range achievable by a projectile. An interesting note is that a 45 degree angle will fork o ut the maximum horizontal range for the projectile, no matter what the force of gravity is. (Assuming gravity does not equal zero).We are neglecting air resistance in our calculations, as did the makers of Tribes. When the programmers did this however, they got some unexpected, yet fun results. While projectile motion was not affected greatly, a person flying in the game could reach fey speeds, as there was no terminal velocity.