[Opensim-dev] Make ODE and Meshmerizer the default options?

[Justin Clark-Casey]

Thanks for the feedback, folks.  Here are some responses.

@dz - As Nebadon said, I don't believe rebuilds are required for ODE any more 
(notwithstanding the fact that a 64bit rebuild isn't yet possible on Windows).

@ai, Karen - I will endeavor to change the wiki documentation as regards ODE and 
Meshmerizer being the new defaults if we switch.

@Christophe - I see Dahlia resolved Mantis 4133 (Meshmerizer crash during 
startup) so this doesn't look like any form of blocker.  I will document the fix 
in the wiki.

If there are no other concerns I will probably make the switch early next week.


dz wrote:
> Justin,
> 
> The wiki still has sections indicating that some linux platforms may 
> require a rebuild of the ODE software.  This may be me mis-reading the 
> wiki, or it may be old info.
> Because we run on 64 bit linux (Ubuntu 9.04 server), we do Mono and ODE 
> builds from source anyway.  It would seem, however, that if some of the 
> linux platforms will not run ODE "out of the box", it may be a reason to 
> stick to the current default.  Im sorry I dont have any way to test and 
> see if the wiki information is outdated.
> 
> If ODE is made the default, please add some information to the wiki 
> documentation describing the configuration flags used to build it.  This 
> may provide the basis for discussions on the impact the build parameters 
> have on performance.  You may also want to note that using the ODE 
> engine uses a LOT more memory than the current defaults.
> 
> I really dont have a preference one way or the other, except to say that 
> having a 'default' configuration that works in the majority of 
> installations seems a better idea than one likely to trigger posts to 
> forums complaining about a "more complicated" setup.   Maybe the 
> transition to ODE later provides a "built in" delay for beginning 
> administrators to get thier feet wet, find out what they want to tweak, 
> and might insure they look at the wiki for directions :)
> 
> Doug Osborn
> 
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Justin Clark-Casey 
> <jjustincc at googlemail.com <mailto:jjustincc at googlemail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     In the OpenSim developer's meeting yesterday on OSGrid we had a
>     discussion about
>     making ODE the default physics engine and Meshmerizer the default
>     mesher.
> 
>     Currently, basicphysics is the default physics engine but the
>     general response
>     was that everybody quickly switches to ODE since objects can only be
>     phantom
>     under basicphysics.
> 
>     The disadvantage with switching to ODE is that 64 bit Windows users
>     would have
>     to run bin/OpenSim.32BitLaunch.exe since there is currently no
>     compilable 64 bit
>     Windows ODE (though there is a Linux one).
> 
>     Everybody at the meeting felt that the advantages of going with ODE
>     outweighed
>     this disadvantage.  Does anybody on the list have a good reason for not
>     switching defaults?
> 
>     As for meshing, ZeroMesher is currently the default.  However, this
>     implements
>     extremely basic meshing (non rotatable cubes).  In comparison,
>     Meshmerizer is
>     much more sophisticated.  There was strong feedback in the meeting
>     that many
>     people quickly switch to Meshmerizer and that it would be good to
>     make this the
>     default.  Anybody have good counter-arguments to this?  I think there is
>     potentially some performance impact but users sophsticated enough to
>     encounter
>     that can always switch back to ZeroMesher.
> 
>     --
>     justincc
>     Justin Clark-Casey
>     http://justincc.org
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> 
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-- 
justincc
Justin Clark-Casey
http://justincc.org