Circular collisions with PNGs

[odysseusofmanywiles]

Hey all, I'm fairly new to game development and was trying out a few ideas.
I'm trying to catch collisions between circular PNGs, but can't figure it out completely. I looked into using SVGs, and Tove looks like a decent library, but it isn't working for iOS.

What options do I have in correctly catching these collisions? The problem is that all vector PNGs still have some space outside of the actual image (which is the transparent part).

Is it possible to get Tove to work on iOS? Or are there simpler solutions?

This is the function I'm using to catch collisions (found it on this forum):

Code: Select all

function distance(x1, y1, x2, y2)
        d = math.sqrt((x2 - x1) ^ 2 + (y2 - y1) ^ 2)
        return d
    end

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if distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) - (radius1 + radius2) < 0 then
                return true
            end

Thanks!

[Ross]

I don't see what the drawing method of the objects—PNG, SVG, whatever—has to do with the collision? Your functions for checking collision between circles should work just fine. If the collision doesn't match the visuals, simply adjust the radius until it does.

[Felix_Maxwell]

you could see it if you draw the collision circles

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-- ( in love.draw() )
-- love.graphics.circle( mode, x, y, radius )
love.graphics.setColor(0, 0.3, 0.2, 0.3) -- transparent yellowish
love.graphics.circle('line', x, y, radius)
love.graphics.setColor(1, 1, 1, 1) -- set the color back to normal afterwards if needed

[odysseusofmanywiles]

Thanks for helping out! The problem was that I didn't understand how the collision function was working (that's what I get for copying a function). I was assuming that it was catching collisions where the x and y axis are the top left (for images) but I should've been passing the central coordinates. So when I figured that out it started catching collisions perfectly.
Thanks again!

[RNavega]

You don't need the square root if you only care about comparing the distances (equal, bigger-than or smaller-than) and don't need the actual distance value. You can compare with squared radii because of the following principle:

If X > Y, then X² > Y²

("If a number is bigger than another number, then its square will also be bigger than the square of the other".)

So you can have this:

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local myDistance = 10
local myDistanceSquared = myDistance^2

(...)

local deltaX = x2 - x1
local deltaY = y2 - y1
if (deltaX * deltaX + deltaY * deltaY) < myDistanceSquared then
    -- Distance between points (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) is less than 'myDistance'.
end

This is faster.