I am working on self-balancing algorithms and have a dummy with a base (the ‘foot’), a body, a head and two arms (all just primitive capsules) that are linked by limited angular contraints.
Everything but the base has physics switched on.
I start the simulation, the body tilts and the arms start moving, by applying motors to the constraints, trying to get my dummy back upright.
When my dummy finds a position that is stable or a tiny repetitive overall motion happens (unfinished balance algorithm), then physics switch off.
I am pretty sure it is because the engine notices that the physics solution is repetive or even has zero change, and therefore puts everything sleep.
I also have setup gamepad input to intervene in the balancing algorithm and set the angular drive via gamepad if I want (move the arms). After physis freezes, manual input is also disabled, ie. the angular drive is disabled overall.
Is there a way in config files or similar to turn this off? Some kind of threshold? I would like constantly run physics.
(I noticed this behaviour before, when I stacked 1600 cubes to a wall, and built a little tank that can shoot canon balls into it, all fully physics enabled and without animation/scripting. When I started here, framerate drops because of the mass physics, but after a while of doing nothing, frame rate goes up again, because the engine seems to notice that the wall and its physics solution is stable. The moment I shoot a canon ball into the wall, stuff seems to awake and framerate goes down again.)
