"No Physics" Mode

P01

  • Posts: 155
In addition to simple physics and Box2D, could we get a mode which doesn't use physics at all? It would be appropriate for grid based games, word games, and all non-game apps like organizers, calculators, education/health apps, etc.

I feel like a whole physics/collision system is a bit overkill for most apps

captaincomic

  • *
  • Posts: 6108
I was thinking something similar when I read that "Disable Physics" puts an actor into Simple Physics mode now. Would it make sense to have three options there: Box2D, Simple Physics and Disabled Physics? Some actors (e.g. GUI) don't need physics even in a game that uses Box2D or Simple Physics.

P01

  • Posts: 155
Definitely. Something about the simple collision detection system is slowing down my game, especially when I have many actors using "move x/y position" blocks simultaneously. All I really want the movement blocks to do for disabled physics actors is change the draw position of an actor on the screen.

Jon

  • *
  • Posts: 17524
If you dunk actors into a non-colliding group (a new group which collides with no others), you won't be hit by any collision overhead from simple physics. Introducing a third case inside the engine sounds like a recipe for introducing new bugs (and overhead).

captaincomic

  • *
  • Posts: 6108
Okay, so for no physics at all, one would just have to set the actor to Simple Physics + Not affected by Gravity + Some non-colliding Group (Doodads). Sounds good.

P01

  • Posts: 155
Another thing I noticed was that if I not only best all actors to doodads, but then deleted all collision groups from my game (apart from none locked ones) there seemed to bean increase in performance. I'm not sure if it was caused by that for sure though.

Jon

  • *
  • Posts: 17524
That's an interesting and unusual observation.

captaincomic

  • *
  • Posts: 6108
In 3.1 there will be minimal actors, which are basically what the OP suggested.