How do I apply gravity to my bouncing ball application?

Question

I've written a fairly simple java application that allows you to drag your mouse and based on the length of the mouse drag you did, it will shoot a ball in that direction, bouncing off walls as it goes.

Here is a quick screenshot:
alt text http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/3179/ballbouncemf9.png

Each one of the circles on the screen is a Ball object. The balls movement is broken down into an x and y vector;

public class Ball {
    public int xPos;
    public int yPos;
    public int xVector;
    public int yVector;

    public Ball(int xPos, int yPos, int xVector, int yVector) {
        this.xPos = xPos;
        this.yPos = yPos;
        this.xVector = xVector;
        this.yVector = yVector;
    }

    public void step()
    {
        posX += xVector;
        posY += yVector;

        checkCollisions();
    }

    public void checkCollisions()
    {
        // Check if we have collided with a wall
        // If we have, take the negative of the appropriate vector
        // Depending on which wall you hit
    }

    public void draw()
    {
        // draw our circle at it's position
    }
}

This works great. All the balls bounce around and around from wall to wall.

However, I have decided that I want to be able to include the effects of gravity. I know that objects accelerate toward the earth at 9.8m/s but I don't directly know how this should translate into code. I realize that the yVector will be affected but my experimentation with this didn't have the desired effect I wanted.

Ideally, I would like to be able to add some gravity effect to this program and also allow the balls to bounce a few times before settling to the "ground."

How can I create this bouncing-elastic, gravity effect? How must I manipulate the speed vectors of the ball on each step? What must be done when it hits the "ground" so that I can allow it to bounce up again, but somewhat shorter then the previous time?

Any help is appreciated in pointing me in the right direction.

---

Thanks you for the comments everyone! It already is working great!

In my step() I am adding a gravity constant to my yVector like people suggested and this is my checkCollision():

public void checkCollision()
{
    if (posX - radius < 0)              // Left Wall?
    {
        posX = radius;              // Place ball against edge
        xVector = -(xVector * friction);
    }
    else if (posX + radius > rightBound) // Right Wall?
    {
        posX = rightBound - radius;     // Place ball against edge
        xVector = -(xVector * friction);
    }

    // Same for posY and yVector here.
}

However, the balls will continue to slide around/roll on the floor. I assume this is because I am simply taking a percentage (90%) of their vectors each bounce and it is never truly zero. Should I add in a check that if the xVector becomes a certain absolute value I should just change it to zero?

Answer 1

What you have to do is constantly subtract a small constant (something that represents your 9.8 m/s) from your yVector. When the ball is going down (yVector is already negative), this would make it go faster. When it's going up (yVector is positive) it would slow it down.

This would not account for friction, so the things should bounce pretty much for ever.

edit1: To account for friction, whenever it reverses (and you reverse the sign), lower the absolute number a little. Like if it hits at yVector=-500, when you reverse the sign, make it +480 instead of +500. You should probably do the same thing to xVector to stop it from bouncing side-to-side.

edit2: Also, if you want it to react to "air friction", reduce both vectors by a very small amount every adjustment.

edit3: About the thing rolling around on the bottom forever--Depending on how high your numbers are, it could be one of two things. Either your numbers are large and it just seems to take forever to finish, or you are rounding and your Vectors are always 5 or something. (90% of 5 is 4.5, so it may round up to 5).

I'd print out a debug statement and see what the Vector numbers are like. If they go to somewhere around 5 and just stay there, then you can use a function that truncates your fraction to 4 instead of rounding back to 5. If it keeps on going down and eventually stops, then you might have to raise your friction coefficient.

If you can't find an easy "rounding" function, you could use (0.9 * Vector) - 1, subtracting 1 from your existing equation should do the same thing.