Game Programming Algorithms and Techniques: A Platform-Agnostic Approach

Chapter 7. Physics

Although not every game needs physics, the ones that do implement collision detection and movement at a minimum. Collision detection enables the game to determine whether or not two game objects intersect with each other. A variety of different algorithms can be used to detect these collisions, and the first part of this chapter covers some of the more basic ones.

The movement part of physics takes into account force, acceleration, mass, and the other properties inherit in classical mechanics to determine where objects go from frame to frame. The only way this can be done is by using calculus, specifically the numeric integration methods covered in the second part of this chapter.

Planes, Rays, and Line Segments

Before we ...