Box2D Forums

Hey people, I've just run into a surprising problem whereby using four revolute joints to attach five boxes together into an X shape (with one box in the center, and the hinge points in the corner boxes so that the X is rigid but the corner boxes can spin freely in place) causes enormous, bizarre instability. This X shape is very basic and simple and should not be exploding! What is this about? Is it a known problem? Is it a Box2D problem (as opposed to a JBox2D problem)? I'm doing things in a straightforward fashion, and everything else is working fine for me, so I don't think it's my mistake....

Definitely need more information. Can you post some code that we can test? A picture would probably help, too, to see where you're connecting each of the joints.

I think I described it well enough! But here is a picture of the shape, in one of the two Java programs (both mine) where I've seen this shape explode. I drew it a little bit inaccurately to make it clearer where the joints' hubs were. The purple shapes are static obstacles to keep the X from falling (there's gravity). The X explodes pretty fast, for many step-duration values. (That's the .023 down at the right.)

Incidentally, the 14 down at the right is a step-interaction count (the second argument to World.step()). Is 14 an unreasonably low number? I've found that if I crank that up to 40 or so, the explosion mostly goes away, and at 80 or so it seems to stop. But I had the impression that 10 was used in the JBox2D demos... regardless, comparably complex shapes made from distance joints are MUCH more stable than these exes I'm making.

In this thread, a dude links to a sandbox that's made in the D port apparently: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2756&p=13783&hilit=sandbox#p13783
(search page for "blaze")
I tried drawing my X in that sandbox and it exploded even more easily than it did in my own sandbox. I cut off one leg, and it still exploded. I cut off two legs, and it didn't explode. (I saw all this behavior in my programs as well.)

Do you still want code? I'm telling you, it's as straightforward as it looks--the X explodes pretty reliably, whether it's roughly drawn or placed precisely in code. But I can whip up a small program that neatly demonstrates it if you need me to.

Surely I'm not the first person to draw an X....

Is this from the release version or from the svn?

SVN. I just now tried the release version (2.0.1), and saw the same problem.

Looking at the release version reminded me that I wasn't supposed to be using pixel units. And, in fact, at least one of my programs was using pixel units. Embarrassing!

So, still using 2.0.1, I worked in a view scaling and tried to reproduce the X-explosion with various scaling values. I'd started with blocks of width 5 in a square field of width 800; I tried scaling down these dimensions by factors of 10, 100, and 200, and 800. The explosions occurred at all scales.

(Incidentally: Your "IF YOU USE PIXEL UNITS YOU WILL BE SHOT.txt" does a pretty good job of warning against the use of pixel units! But I request a clarifying change in its wording. It says, "Your physics objects should always be roughly between .1 and 10 world-units, which using pixel scale is far too small." What does it mean for physics objects to "be" between .1 and 10 world-units? My 5-pixel-wide boxes in the pixel-unit world had a width in that range, but apparently that's wrong.)

I've reproduced this in Box2D. I guess you're off the hook now? Here's the thread: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3611