Resources for 2d game physics

c# f# 2d physics
Erik Forbes picture Erik Forbes · Oct 3, 2008 · Viewed 13k times · Source

I'm looking for some good references for learning how to model 2d physics in games. I am not looking for a library to do it for me - I want to think and learn, not blindly use someone else's work.

I've done a good bit of Googling, and while I've found a few tutorials on GameDev, etc., I find their tutorials hard to understand because they are either written poorly, or assume a level of mathematical understanding that I don't yet possess.

For specifics - I'm looking for how to model a top-down 2d game, sort of like a tank combat game - and I want to accurately model (among other things) acceleration and speed, heat buildup of 'components,' collisions between models and level boundaries, and missile-type weapons.

Websites, recommended books, blogs, code examples - all are welcome if they will aid understanding. I'm considering using C# and F# to build my game, so code examples in either of those languages would be great - but don't let language stop you from posting a good link. =)

Edit: I don't mean that I don't understand math - it's more the case that I don't know what I need to know in order to understand the systems involved, and don't really know how to find the resources that will teach me in an understandable way.

Answer

mistrmark picture mistrmark · Oct 3, 2008

Here are some resources I assembled a few years ago. Of note is the Verlet Integration. I am also including links to some open source and commercial physics engines I found at that time. There is a stackoverflow article on this subject here: 2d game physics?

Physics Methods

Books

  • "Game Physics Engine Development", Ian Millington -- I own this book and highly recommend it. The book builds a physics engine in C++ from scratch. The Author starts with basic particle physics and then adds "laws of motion", constraints, rigid-body physics and on and on. He includes well documented source code all the way through.

Physics Engines

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