2D Physics Engine

This project is a 2D physics engine designed to simulate the motion and interactions of objects in a 2D environment. It includes realistic physics behaviors such as collision detection, forces, friction, gravity, planetary simulations and more. The engine is designed to be lightweight, efficient, and easily extendable for various applications, from simple games to more complex simulations.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• A modern web browser (for web-based demos)
• Install Node.js

Installation

You can download the zip and extract the project, or you can use Git by doing the following:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/2d-physics-engine.git

Then, run the following command to host a local server on desired port:

npm run start:dev

Once you are done, check out the multiple presets that are already available, and edit them as you wish!

Creating a Preset

Presets are what are used to configure the simulations. You must put all your code in the initializer function, since this is the function that you will use the preset object to add shapes and entities into the environment.

You then create a new Preset instance with the name and the initializer in the argument object:

const initializer = (preset) => {
  const ball1 = new Ball();
  const circle1 = new Circle();
  const circle2 = new Circle();

  preset.addObjects("balls", ball1);
  preset.addObjects("circles", circle1, circle2);
}

const bouncingCircles = new Preset({
  name: "bouncing circles",
  initializer,
});

Once you are done, import the preset in the index.js and include it in the list of presets in the argument of model.loadPresets().

Physics Objects

The physics engine is quite robuste, and it ecompasses a variety of objects that you can play around with.

There are two main categories of objects

1. Shapes
2. Entities

Shapes

At the moment, there are two shapes:

Fractal

A non-interactive object that creates a simple tree fractal.

const fractal = new Fractal({
  pos: Vector,
  angle: number,
  branches: number,
  layers: number,
});

preset.addObjects("fractals", fractal);

Note: Adding many layers and many branches may cause significant performance issues!

Wall

A straight line that can either stop or bounce off other objects based on its elasticity value.

const wall = new Wall({
  start: Vector,
  end: Vector,
  fill: color,
  elasticity: number,
});

preset.addObjects("walls", wall);

Entities

Entities are more interactive and have more specific features that you can detail when you create one.

Ball

A basic ball that can collide and interact with other entites.

const ball = new Ball({
  name: string,
  radius: number,
  mass: number,
  fill: color,
  stroke: color,
  text: color,
  image: path,
  pos: Vector,
});

preset.addObjects("balls", ball);

Circle

Similar to a ball, but objects can be placed inside it.

const circle = new circle({
  name: string,
  radius: number,
  mass: number,
  fill: color,
  stroke: color,
  text: color,
  pos: Vector,
});

preset.addObjects("circles", circle);

Point

A point that can have interactions applied onto it. This does not collide with other entities.

const point = new Point({
  name: string,
  radius: number,
  mass: number,
  fill: color,
  stroke: color,
  text: color,
  pos: Vector,
});

preset.addObjects("points", point);