Battlezone Forums

Alpha and Omega.

I must have seen those ODF values a million times.

I'm not sure if I ever knew what they actually meant. I might have at some point.

What exactly do they do?

omegaSpin = 3.5 //spinning in place speed []
omegaTurn = 1.5 //turning while moving speed []
alphaSteer = 6.0 //how fast it responds to steering []

alphaDamp controls the nose up/down smoothness

alphaTrack controls the nose up/down rate. been awhile since i messed with these, so may have them wrong.

omegaFactor (and the other entries that end in "Factor") are multipliers of the settings for the AI to use.

// in degrees/sec
alphaSteer = 20.0
omegaSpin = 60.0
omegaTurn = 150.0

Anybody know what alpha and omega *themselves* mean in this context, though?

Since these words freely translated mean 'the beginning and the end' I can only guess it has something to do with that.
Saying that is really helpfull ...

Here's the technical explanation. Fair warning: you may need a working high school physics understanding to fully grasp what I'm saying below.

Each BZ2 GameObject has a 'Euler' structure that contains basic physics information -- position/orientation (4x4 matrix), mass, velocity & acceleration. If you've done basic physics, the formulas of motion will be familiar: Position = InitialPosition + (Velocity * time) + 1/2 * (Acceleration * Time * Time), or 'p = p0 + v*t + 1/2*a*t^2'. That's linear position, calculated from linear velocity & linear acceleration.

Euler 'alpha' and 'omega' are simply 'rotational velocity' and 'rotational acceleration', respectively.

-- GSH

Considering I have a physics A-level, I really should have figured that out. Guess the lack of the third character (rotational displacement - theta?) threw me.

Thank you!

One of BZ's mysteries solved.