How to add instantaneous force onto drake ball - robotics

I'm working on a juggling robot iiwa, and am looking to add disturbances onto the ball every now and then to see how well the controller works. Is there an easy way to add a force/disturbance (e.g. wind) onto the ball?
If it's helpful I'm making the ball using a sdf file.

MultibodyPlant has an applied_spatial_force input port to facilitate exactly this type of application. There are a number of relevant posts:
Applying an external force to an object in pydrake
Applying Propeller and Wing forces to a MultiBodyPlant in Drake

Related

Is it Possible to Place an AR Object above an AR Object?

I want to Place an AR object(Chair) onto another AR Object(Platform).
Lets say chair is 3X3 and platform is 6x6 in horizontal plane. I want to ask if it is possible? If Yes, I want to ask if it is possible in which of the following 1. ARCore, 2. ARKit, 3. VIRO React.
I know AR detects real world planes and we can place objects onto it. Also I have seen Videos of APP where in ARCore objects interact with each other.
It is possible, but you do not stack ar object over another ar object. You have to manually create a new type and then you stack the new type over one another.
An example:
You spawn a class Platform and then you detect platform similar way you detect plane, you can use a raycast to do this. Then when you detected the platform, you then offset chair from platform and you spawn it on top of it.

How to add "Action Points" to Scenekit Game using Gameplaykit or something similar

This is a very common question, and I am not asking for technical details. What I am looking for is an approach or best practice guidance for the following situation:
Imagine a jump and run game entirely made with SceneKit. The game is played by controlling a character running to the right or left side, climbing up walls and jump over obstacles. (it is a 2½-D style game where the character always runs in one direction or it's opposite. Mainly on the x-Axis)
At certain "locations" (on the scene x-axis) I need to implement some specific actions, that should occur as soon as the main character walks, jumps or runs over that specific point.
What I have done so far, is adding simple invisible SCNPlanes with static physics bodies, with the bitmask configured to detect only the contact (no collision). In the physics handler (physics delegate) I can now fetch contact of the objects the character trespasses. Currently I have a large switch-statement to fetch the names of the "Action-Walls" as I call the planes through which the character walks. So, I can trigger whatever specific action that I want to happen at that location.
It is working this way, even quite good, but I wonder if there is a way to add some better "action points" using i.e. Gameplaykit, but I only find information about agents and behaviors or pathfinding.
What I am looking for is some static point, when trespassing it, an associated action happens.
I have no clue about the possibilities of Gameplaykit. Can anyone tell me an approach using Gameplaykit or whatever Apple has in its magic box of useful tools to make this better than using action walls of SCNPlanes and the physics handler?

Placing objects below the ground in AR Quick Look on iOS

I am working on a project that will display objects below the ground using AR Quick Look. However, the AR mode seems to bring everything above the ground based on the bounding box of the objects in the scene.
I have tried using the USDZ directly and composing a simple scene in Reality Composer with the object or with a simple cube with the exact same result. AR preview mode in Reality Composer is showing the object below the ground or below an image anchor correctly. However, if I export the scene as a .reality file and open it in using AR Quick Look, it brings the object above the ground as well.
Is there a way to achieve showing an object below the detected horizontal plane or image (horizontal) using AR Quick Look?
This is still an issue a year later. I have submitted feedback to Apple. I suggest you do too. I have suggested adding a checkbox to keep Y axis persistent. My assumption is this behaves this way to prevent the object from colliding with the ground, but I don't think it's necessary. It's just a limitation right now.

Rendering a big grid with SpriteKit

I'm a total newcomer to SpriteKit and game development in general, I've been toying with SpriteKit to make a strategy game set in space.
My backend architecture use a grid system to represent the Universe, I have empty cases and cases with systems/planets/etc...
My grid is backed by GameplayKit GKGridGraph, I use an algorithm that generate a node with random properties for each node of the grid and I subclassed it to add a custom entity to it, which all the properties of this specific universe case.
To render it, I simply use SKShapeNode and SKPriteNode with various colors, shapes and textures.
I enumerate all nodes (GKGridGraphNode) in my GKGridGraph instance, and for each of those nodes I get generate the corresponding SKNode (my SKNode generations is a component of each GKGridGraphNode entity attached object), and I set them a position, and add them as a child to my main node (let's call it mapNode) which is a simple SKNode. In the end it looks like a grid.
It works well for a 30/30 grid, I have 60 FPS while scrolling my grid (custom implementation, I modify my mapNode positon as the user move his fingers).
But as soon as I try a 50/50 or a 100/100 grid, I have literally too many nodes on the screen for the scrolling to works. I know I shouldn't add every of my node on the screen, so I thought about various strategies and I wanted some input on them:
Instead of scrolling my mapNode, I could render only the nodes I see on the screen, and then add/remove nodes as the user scroll left/right/up/down. So it's not really scrolling anymore, it simulate it. I can think of it, but not really how I should implement it in practice. Is it the right solution?
Maybe I could render all my node as one big node? Is there a way to do that? But then I'll loose functions such as nodeAtPosition, which I use extensively to get the entity (custom object) associated with my nodes.
Edit: Actually, my current code is open source, here is the scene in I'm rendering: https://github.com/Dimillian/LittleOrion/blob/master/Little%20Orion/Little%20Orion/scenes/UniverseScene.swift
Is there any other smart way of doing that?
SKTileMapNode was made just for this in Xcode 8
https://www.raywenderlich.com/137216/whats-new-spritekit-ios-10-look-tile-maps
Alternatively, you would only want to load the nodes that are in and near your current view. You would need an algorithm to do this, and would be a big headache compared to tilemaps.
I suspect the algo would involve checking which nodes are in the view's .frame' and then using 'addChild' on them--concurrently, add a reference to them to an array, which you would check against nextupdate()andremoveFromParent` if they were no longer visible ..
It would get hairy trying to optimize this though. The goal would be to load only a few nodes out on each end so that way you have some buffer in moving the camera (less updates).
You could create a math function to pre-determine which nodes are where in relation to the current frame coordinates--so you don't have to iterate through the nodes--but that would require even a lot more work and headache--and it's what people developing on consoles, etc, have to do with high-end games and limited power.
I recommend skimming through a Direct3d/DirectX/OpenGL game development book, just to get an idea of what goes into everything... They aren't hard to find: walk into a bookstore and look for the thickest / heaviest book--that will be the DirectX game development book.
You will see how what we can do with 30 lines in SK requires thousands of lines and vector calculus in C++ and low-level AV frameworks. It will give you an appreciation, understanding, and perspective of game dev, which will help you in your SK journeys :)

powerup in race game

I've got a problem: i need to add a powerup to a racegame, using collision detection.
so i drawed the powerup, but the problem is: It has to be drawn after every 5 rounds and it needs to be placed ramdomly on the track.
Someone with any good advice?
Thanks.
Thats a bit vague. So here is my best shot at an answer.
You would want to use the c# Random class, here are the docs
For a simple game, using rectangular collision should be all you need (I assume thats what you are using) - If you want to randomly generate the power-up position, you will want to create a new Vector2 (the powerups position) with the random generator.
You can use the Next function, to pass in a low, and high variable - which you would need to configure the the bounds you wish the powerup to appear.
My advice as a game designer on the other hand, tells me that randomly located power-ups aren't always the go. It makes it harder to control the games flow and balance, and can very easily result in a flawed final product.
So my advice is a hard coded set of possible weapon spawn points - using a random generator to pick one to place.

Resources