Dice simulation

[Alobi]

Hi all,

I'm researching desperately on the best way to implement a dice rolling simulation in my iPhone game (very similar to this game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyzPlbY-tYU). I've looked at countless iphones physics engines, but they all seem overkill for my needs. Would Chipmunk Physics be able to accomplish something like this? If so, could you point me towards a tutorial that covers this topic? I really appreciate it!

[slembcke]

Chipmunk is a 2D physics engine. To simulate dice, you'll need to use a 3D physics engine such. ODE and Bullet are open source, and I believe you can get an indie friendly version of Havok and PhysX.

[Alobi]

Thanks for the reply. To be honest, those 3D engines are over my head (or is this concept over my head)? What if I wanted to simulate a dice roll from a top down perspective - if the dice came shooting out from the side of the screen, that would theoretically only be using 2 dimensions right? I'm trying to think of the simplest approach to this problem. Thanks again for your input.

[josephg]

In 2 dimensions, you can't represent a cube. You can only have squares. There is no 'towards the camera' direction for the dice to roll.

[Alobi]

Thank you for the tips, I've since been researching Bullet Physics and it seems like it might fit my needs.