Why does everyone give LÖVE's Physics engine a hard time?

[Davidobot]

Here are my 2 cents on the OP: I think most people give the physics engine a hard time because they, initially, used it incorrectly, thus they didn't get the result that they wanted, thus they gave it a bad reputation.

[Eamonn]

Just a question, you said "OP". I've seen a lot of people say that. Maybe it's a stupid question but what does that mean? It can't mean Operator, or OverPowered... so what does it mean??

[Plu]

Opening Poster; ie the guy who started the thread.

[Eamonn]

Oh DUH! I'm such a dummy Thanks Plu

[mickeyjm]

It can also mean original post as in: "I updated the OP to include more images"

[Eamonn]

Thanks

[Davidobot]

OP in video games means over powered, on forums, it means original post or original poster. This has been mentioned by people above me, but none the less, have my 2 cents.

[spectralcanine]

the fudginess that physics engines have, both in simulation and collision detection, tends to be really annoying for games like platformers. not to mention they really really would like to have small and stable dts thank you very much

often you only want collision detection and want to handle the physics and collision resolution yourself, so you have more control over the feel of the player controls; using only the collision detection part of love.physics tends to be difficult (unless that changed recently), and last time i tried that i still had to have at least some of the physics in use for it to even register collisions. fortunately hardoncollider exists for this purpose, though since it's written in lua it can be quite slow if you aren't careful

Code: Select all

fixture:setSensor(true)

Do you expect physics to magically work with large delta times, or ones that vary a lot each frame?

I never managed to get a decent "old-school" 2D platformer player character though. The moment you introduce slopes to your code is the moment you doom yourself.

[Plu]

That's because most old-school 2d platformers have very unrealistic slope physics, though. Primarily, they keep the character upright at all times. Which makes reasonable sense for a character, but no sense at all for a brick. And the physics engine, by default, simulates bricks.