Wood, Metal, Rubber, Plastic, Glass, Flesh!

I guess this must have been asked many times before.........

But just what do these different (and more) object types do?

I thought (for example) that making a prim sphere, making it physical and making it rubber would make it bouncy, but it still dropped to the ground like a rock.

Can anyone explain all of this?

Thanks

It does make it bouncy.

Well, bouncier...

A bit. But I don't notice huge differences in behaviour, personally. Try it, though, and you'll see slight changes between each, as well as a difference in the sound made on collision.

Friction, weight and sound.

That's about it.

Thanks for the replies so far.

I was in a class last night and decided to try the different types on a 1m prim sphere (ball) which I made physical.

Dragging it up 3m and dropping it. Even rubber just went BANG like a stone (I was kinda thinking it might bounce) but perhaps needed a larger drop.

As for Flesh, well, I don't know!

To be honest, they seem mostly like wasted options.

Unless I'm missing something.

Drag that ball up to about 100m or so .... and watch it bounce ... hehehe

They really aught to do away with the material presets. They're a remnant from long outdated thinking about how building in SL should be structured. They serve little if any useful purpose in modern day SL.

In their stead, we should have a Physics tab in the editor, with an array of configurable settings for each object. Properties like bounciness, springiness, density, etc., should all have sliders, just like Flex already has.

That's a damn fine idea. I'd like to see something like this.

Is there a JIRA we could vote on?

Yeah, the post directly above yours

as a member of the Beta group i know about the various improvements and stuff they make to the viewer. from what i understand Havok 4 the main physics engine to SL has been out of whack for the full year its been in place since the update from havok 2. there is apparently a havok 6 version out but its not even being tested or considered ue to the nature of havok4 not being fully functional yet and LL does not want to waste time on a project that will eventually fail. the idea of a physics based control box sound ok but lets consider its uses.....and mis-uses.

granted being able to control a physical prim in a more detailed way would be nice but consider what that would mean to re-calculate a prims status every time its physical. Havok4 just can't handle it. heck we are still facing issues with the bounding boxes now wrapping to prims right and let us not forget the dreaded seam issue. that ones a nasty one. mainly put there are just to many problems with havok that adding more feature just won't help in.

Almia, I understand your concern, but I don't see it as a problem. I don't claim to be an expert on physics engines, but it seems plain that the existing presets already adjust all the variables in question. Wood is less bouncy than rubber, rubber is less bouncy than flesh, etc. I can't see how changing the settings controls from presets to sliders could make any difference to how well or unwell Havok integrates with SL. It's not a question of adding any new features or of changing anything Havok is already doing (or not doing). It's just a way to give users better control over existing functions, nothing more.

a glass ball on a glass base slides better than a rubber ball on a rubber base

Plus a Materials tab that greatly expands the top part of the Texture tab with things like contrast and expanded shininess settings...