Is Bullet still in use? Recommended for 2016 new title?

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HateDread
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Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:54 am

Is Bullet still in use? Recommended for 2016 new title?

Post by HateDread »

Hey all,

I'm working on a space RTS at solar system scale in UE4, with my own physics engine under the hood (very simple at the moment). I'll be simulating objects moving at high speeds (~0.2c) so will be using CCD, as well as double precision. I know Bullet has both of these features, but I'm curious if this physics library is still in much use? If I get stuck, is there a community around?

Also, does the double precision option still work? I searched around and found people having issues; it sounds like some found lines where a hardcoded float was used instead of the switchable float/double type provided by Bullet, but those posts were years ago now!

I'm considering moving over because of the pain of doing shape traces (which it seems Bullet also has), i.e. tracing with a box shape rather than a line, writing my own CCD, etc. Obviously simple linear stuff is a breeze!

Any advice on whether or not to use Bullet? Is there some major overhaul coming soon that may change your opinion, as well?

Thanks for any input!

- HateDread

EDIT: Also, what's the deal with Bullet 3? I've seen posts from 2013 talking about it being a rework of Bullet that's GPU-only, but which is coming to CPUs. Is this something I should be using instead? How is the GPU-run side of things nowadays? Not sure if still experimental.
Korcan
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 10:26 am

Re: Is Bullet still in use? Recommended for 2016 new title?

Post by Korcan »

Hi,

Yes, bullet still updating. You can follow updates from github.
For UE4 please don't use Bullet. Because right now, i am designing some kind of simulator and using Bullet in UE4. Unreal GC creates a lot of problems and collides with Bullets own memory handling.


From unreal forums user called 'maije' :

I fixed my GC problems compiling my own code into a thirdparty library. At last, the way I found was encapsulate the information provided by my software into C old-style structs and return them. Then, at the Unral Code, use the same struct to get the data en re-encapsulate it into Unreal attributes which can be readed inside the engine.

So I did these steps:
Create your code to do ur stuff
Compile your code into a dynamic library (DLL Win 64bits in my case)
Add your library as a dependency in your project and call the functions you could need
Wrap your structures with Unreal Attributes in order to use them inside the engine


Maybe, this https://answers.unrealengine.com/questi ... -unre.html could be a "need to read" for you, just give it a look to find some interesting tips :-)
hyyou
Posts: 96
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2016 10:11 am

Re: Is Bullet still in use? Recommended for 2016 new title?

Post by hyyou »

I started to create a C++ game, at the beginning of this year (2016).
I have decided to use Bullet Physics.
Now, I still don't think it is a bad decision, and my code is around 10000+ lines now.

I have little experience in UE, but one of my friends (project manager) tell me that:-
I wish my project use Opengl, rather than UE4.
While UE4 can make prototyping game really fast, it is too "heavy-weight".
It is sometimes sad because too much sunk-cost have already put into adopting UE4.
That team are looking into Bullet now.

For me, I love to encapsulate everything before use it, just to be safe.
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Erwin Coumans
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Re: Is Bullet still in use? Recommended for 2016 new title?

Post by Erwin Coumans »

HateDread wrote: Also, does the double precision option still work?
Yes, it works and unit tests on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX make sure it keeps working. Various teams use the double precision build for large game worlds and for more precise simulation for robotics.
EDIT: Also, what's the deal with Bullet 3?
Ignore the OpenCL GPU experimental pipeline, this is not actively developed any more. AMD tried to push it but never allocated a team to work on this. I would recommend to try out the Bullet Example Browser first.

If you already have your own physics engine, you could also just borrow ideas and implementation of Bullet.
Cheers,
Erwin
elect
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:50 am

Re: Is Bullet still in use? Recommended for 2016 new title?

Post by elect »

Erwin Coumans wrote: Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:25 am Ignore the OpenCL GPU experimental pipeline, this is not actively developed any more. AMD tried to push it but never allocated a team to work on this. I would recommend to try out the Bullet Example Browser first.
I guess this shall be added somewhere to the wiki or the readme on Github
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