If you blow something up, say a car with a grenade launcher, and the explosion force is exerted at the hood, or trunk, or sides, etc, does it have the same 'center point of spin' in any of those cases? (If the force were enough to launch it into the air that is)

This really isn't a physics question.

<puppies>

If I understand what you're asking, then it'd just be a question of torque. So assuming that half the explosion energy is directed into the car parallel to the normal vector of the surface at which the explosion occurs, then depending on the orientation of that surface and the distance from the center of mass of the car, you'd get a different spin (this is assuming simple non-deforming surfaces and not taking into account the velocity of the projectile; it's probably negligible anyways).

Though I fail to see how a detonation on the hood of the car could make it fly up into the air... the force would be pretty much downwards.

[QUOTE=Hell Raiser]<puppies>[/QUOTE]

<kittens>!

Well if the grenade launcher tip is antiseptronic and you're specifically using an RPG-7, not any sort of LAW or an RPG-2, the doidlies on the back of the projectile will inflict large amounts of potential energy onto the vehicles' air safety precaution accident bags, inflating them at once, creating enourmous air pressure in the car, which would then propel the car by pushing air through the rocket-hole enough for 17 revolutions.

Reid, more info than I needed, lol.

Thanks kyle90, I've realized there's more to take into account than I previously thought. And I meant under the hood, trunk, etc. That's how it would go into the air.

Rob, I'll be sure to <pet some kittens>, just for you.

Oh okay, so you're shooting at the ground underneath the car. Well, what I said still applies, except it would be far easier to get the car into the air that way.

Howerver the car gets into the air, while it is there any spinning will be in some direction about its center of mass (ignoring factors like air resistance). There's a good probability that the center of gravity will move some during the course of the experiment as the car will probably be changing shape/loosing parts. Any pieces of the car that become seperated will also rotate about their respective centers of mass.

mmm, yes, more input.

Thanks.

Programming some physics I assume? Might want to check out the O'Reilly book on the subject.

Just some far-fetched cogging idea. :em321:

After having the info presented to me above, I think I could pull it off, by having the center of the model be it's center of gravity or whatever, depending on where most of things weight would be at. Then just using some SetThingRotVel() on it, and having the vector depend on where it's damaged to get it to rotate semi-realistically.

I'm actually trying to write a primitive newtonian physics engine into JA (team arena engine) right now :). Its horrible but slowly getting there. If anyone knows any good open source mods or games that already do this for q3 based games let me know.