It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now, a kiting (possibly kite-boarding) simulator, the plan was to originally do it a Wiimote project, but they’re damn expensive on their own, and I already have a (much cheaper) Xbox 360 controller, so I figured I’d use this.
At the moment I’m daunting myself with the task of getting the physics sorted, I’m amazed at how, despite being a kiter for several years now, I’ve never really appreciated how much kites defy the laws of physics. To make the job easier I’ve implemented PhysX, though this means you’ll need PhysX installed on your own PC should you ever want to try out this creation.
First ever screenshot of the project, early days.
I’m currently toying around with PhysX, working out how best to build the kite with what the engine has to offer. Cloths seem an obvious choice for the bridle, except as far as I can work out, PhysX doesn’t yet support non-rectangular cloths, so for now, the bridle only looks remotely kite-like. I’m almost having to use cloths for the lines, as it’s the closest PhysX has to offer in similarity to lines, the problem here is that if i make the lines any less wider than they are in this screenshot, the engine struggles to handle the physics of so many vertices, (the engine works cloth by cutting it up into squares, with thinner lines, the squares are smaller, so a lot more have to be fitted in the length of the lines). There are several work-arounds to this problem,I’ll investigate them in due course. The other problem at the moment is attaching the lines to the kite, I wont go into the details of how it’s done, but you can see the results in the screenshot. For the purpose of this shot, the wind is simulated with an invisible force applied to the cloth, which is pinned into place at 5 points along the top and bottom of it (hence the ridges you can see in the kite). Where I’m going to go from here? Well, despite only just starting, I need to take time off for exam revision, and then I’ll decide.