When to detect collisions in game loop
        Posted  
        
            by 
                Ciaran
            
        on Game Development
        
        See other posts from Game Development
        
            or by Ciaran
        
        
        
        Published on 2012-03-19T18:01:19Z
        Indexed on 
            2012/03/19
            18:15 UTC
        
        
        Read the original article
        Hit count: 529
        
My game loop uses a fixed time step to do "physics" updates, say every 20 ms. In here I move objects. I draw frames as frequently as possible. I work out a value between 0 and 1 to represent the proportion of the physics tick that is complete and interpolate between the previous and current physics state before drawing. It results in a smoother game assuming the frame rate is higher than the physics update rate.
I am currently doing the collision detection in the physics update routine. I was wondering should it instead take place in the interpolated draw routine where the positions match what the user sees? Collisions can result in explosions by the way.
© Game Development or respective owner