Game Physics Engine Development, 2nd Edition

5.4 Summary 87

As before, one instance of this class could be shared among any number of objects

that have the same drag coefficients.

This drag model is considerably more complex than the simple damping we

used in Chapter 3. It can be used to model the kind of drag that a golf ball experi-

ences in flight, for example. For the aerodynamics needed in a flight simulator, how-

ever, it will still not be sufficient: we will return to flight simulator aerodynamics in

Chapter 11.

5.3 Built-In Gravity and Damping

Using the generators above we can replace both the damping and the acceleration

due to gravity with force generators. This is a valid approach and one used by many

different engines. It allows us to remove the special code that processes d amping,