Re: [GD-General] Pong ball mechanics

[brian h. <bri...@py...>]

> straight line? My reasoning is this: the bat is flat and perpendicular
> to the field of play so anything striking it perpendicularly should
> reflect perpendicularly ad infinitum. 

Holy crap, I never realized that pong was broken, but I think you're 
right.  Heh.  "Everything I learned about physics was taught to me 
indirectly by Nolan Bushnell".

To answer your question, pong's paddle physics basically bounce the 
ball back at an angle proportional to the distance from the center of 
the paddle.  What you set as the max angle is up to you, of course, and 
I'm not sure if there is an agreed upon standard, but you want to set 
it steep enough that it's not going to take forever to bounce back 
across the screen.

So basically:

int x = ball.x - paddle_center.x;

angle = f( x );

where f() is some function that maps a signed distance from the center 
of the paddle (presumably on the same plane/line as the paddle) to an 
angle.

-Hook