Rigid Body Motion

Game Physics
Linear physics physics of points
particle systems, ballistic motion
key simplification: no orientation

Rotational physics
orientation can change

Rigid Bodies
No longer points: distribution of mass
instead.
Rigid bodies: distances between mass
elements never change.
Orientation of body can change over time.

Rigid Body Translation

Can treat translational motion of rigid
bodies exactly the same as points
Single position (position of center of mass)
F=ma (external forces)
v = a dt
x = v dt
momentum conservation

Rotation
Rigid bodies also have orientation
Treating rotation properly is complicated
Rotation is not a vector (rotations do not
commute, i.e., order of rotations matters)
No analog to x, v, a in rotations?

Angular velocity
Infinitesimally small rotations do commute
Suppose we have a rigid body rotating
about an axis

Can use a notion of angular velocity:

= d/dt

Angular velocity
Connection between linear and angular
velocity
Magnitudes: v = rperp
Want vector relation
Nice to have angular velocity about axis of
rotation (so it doesn't have to change all
the time for an object spinning in place)
Let v = x r

Angular velocity
v=xr
Or, = r x v / |r|2
Note: , r, v vectors
Angular velocity defined this way so that
constant angular velocity behaves sensibly
spinning top has constant

Applying force
What happens when you push on a
spinning object? (exert force)
F=ma, so we know the movement of the
centre of mass
How does the force affect orientation?

Torque
T=rxF
r is vector from origin to location where
force applied
for convenience, often take origin to be center
of mass of object

F is force
Magnitude proportional to force,
proportional to distance from origin

Intuition for Torque

Larger the larger from the centre
Lever action: small force yields equivalent
torque far from fulcrum

Direction of Torque
T=rxF
Perpendicular to both location and force
vectors
Direction is along axis about which
rotation is induced
Right hand rule: thumb along axis, fingers
curl in direction of rotation

single particle
T = r F sin
T = r Ft
Ft = mat = mr
T = mr2
Let I = mr2
T = I

Many particles
Real objects are (pretty much) continuous
Game objects: distribution of point masses
not always, but common

Can get reasonable behaviour with (e.g.)

four point masses per rigid body
Single orientation for body
Single centre of mass (of course)

Changing Coordinate Systems

We dealt with changing coordinate
systems all the time before
Rigid bodies are much simpler if we treat
them in a natural coordinate system
origin at the centre of mass of the body
or, some other sensible origin: hinge of door

Need to transform forces into body

coordinate system to calculate torque
Transform motion back to world space

Angular momentum
Define angular momentum similarly to
torque:
L=rxp
Note that with this definition, T = dL/dt, just
as F = dp/dt

Force and Torque

Note: a force is a force and a torque
Moves body linearly: F=ma, changes
linear momentum
Rotates body: produces torque, changes
angular momentum

Linear vs. Angular

linear quantity

angular quantity

velocity v

angular velocity

acceleration a

angular acc.

mass m

moment of inertia I

p = mv

L = I

F = ma

T = I

Conservation of Angular
Momentum
Consequence of T = dL/dt:
If net torque is zero, angular momentum is
unchanged

Responsible for gyroscopes' unintuitive

behaviour

The gyroscope is tipped over

but it doesnt fall

Moment of Inertia
Said that moment of inertia of a point
particle is mr^2
In the general case, I = r^2 dV where r
is the distance perpendicular to the axis of
rotation
Don't know the axis of rotation beforehand

Moment of Inertia
I = (x,y,z) y^2 + z^2 -xy

-xz

-xy

x^2 + z^2 -yz

-xz

-yz

dxdydz

x^2+y^2

Diagonalized Moment of Inertia

Luckily, we can choose axes (principal axes
of the body) so that the matrix simplifies:
I=

Ixx 0
0

Iyy 0

0 IxxIzz
where,0 e.g.,
= m(y*y + z*z)
Off-diagonal entries called "products of
inertia"

Avoiding products of inertia

Do calculations in inertial reference frame
whose axes line up with the principal axes
of your object
Transform the results into worldspace
Moment of inertia of a body fixed, so can
be precomputed and used at run-time

Moment of Inertia
In general, the more compact a body is,
the smaller the moments of inertia, and
the faster it will spin (for the same torque)

Fake I
Not doing engineering simulation
(prediction of how real objects will behave)
Can invent I rather than integrating
Large values: hard to rotate about this axis
Avoid off-diagonal elements

Fake constants
For that matter, can fake lots of stuff
Different gravity for different objects
e.g., slow bullets in FPS
e.g., fast falling in platformer

fake forces, approximate bounding

geometry

Case in 2D
In 2D, the vectors T, , become scalars
(their direction is known only magnitude
is needed)
Moment of inertia becomes a scalar too:
I = prdA

Single planar rigid body

state contains x, y, , vx, vy,
Have
F = ma (2 equations)
T = I
x = vx dt
y = vy dt
= dt

Integrate to obtain new state, and proceed

Rigid body in 3D
Need some way to represent general
orientation
Need to be able to compose changes in
orientation efficiently

Quaternions
Quaternion: structure for representing
rotation
unit vector (axis of rotation)
scalar (amount of rotation)
recall, store (cos(/2), v sin(/2) )

Can represent orientation as quaternion,

by interpreting as rotation from canonical
position

Quaternions
Rotation of about axis v:
q = (cos(/2), v sin(/2))

"Unit quaternion": q.q = 1 (if v is a unit

vector)
Maintain unit quaternion by normalizing v
Arbitrary vector r can be written in
quaternion form as (0, r)

Quaternion Rotation
To rotate a vector r by about axis v:
take q = (cos(/2), v sin(/2)
Let p = (0,r)
obtain p' from the quaternion resulting from
qpq-1
p' = (0, r')
r' is the rotated vector r

Rotation Differentiation
Note:
q(t) = (s(t), v(t))
q(t) = [ cos((t)/2), u sin((t)/2) ]
For a body rotating with constant angular
velocity , it can be shown
q(t) = [0, ] q(t)
Summarize this q(t)

Rigid Body Equations of Motion

Using quaternions gives

d/dt

x(t)

v(t)

q(t)

q(t)

P(t)
L(t)

F(t)
T(t)

P and L
Note that
v = P/m (from P=mv)
= I-1L (from L = I)

Often useful to use momentum variables

as main variables, and only compute v
and (auxiliary variables) as needed for
the integration

Impulse
Sudden change in momentum
also, angular momentum (impulsive torque)

Collision resolution using impulse

new angular momentum according to
conditions of collision
algorithmic means available for resolving