• dustyData@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Tradition, 3d videogames started doing it like that because of how computers worked 40 years ago, then devs got used to think about 3d space that way and it stuck. Essentially videogames think about visual depth. And yes, the physics engines for videogames usually account for that and use their own transformations of formulas because they are rarely simulating anything more complex than rigid body physics. Advanced simulations aren’t any harder for devs, all the transformations are abstracted away with libraries.

      In the end they are just reference frames and up is whatever you want it to be. As Wikipedia puts it eloquently: “Unlike most mathematical concepts, the meaning of a right-handed coordinate system cannot be expressed in terms of any mathematical axioms. Rather, the definition depends on chiral phenomena in the physical world, for example the culturally transmitted meaning of right and left hands, a majority human population with dominant right hand, or certain phenomena involving the weak force.”

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Not really. Youtuber Acerola has a great series on shader programming and dealing with negative numbers is a non-factor. The advantage of working with computers is that it abstracts that complexity away. You program with high level concepts, a dev rarely deals with direct calculations, unless they are actually writing the fundamental apis for it, like DX or Vulkan. Much less copy-paste formulas. It gets complicated fast, but the abstraction keeps it simple for the developer, like, the math is perhaps the easiest part of programming computer graphics.

          • Eldritch@piefed.world
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            4 hours ago

            Ace is a decent watch. Shit post quality video energy, that’s information dense. Always gonna second an Acerola suggestion.

            • dustyData@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              It’s okay. The equations have been done since a long time ago. Devs don’t have to think about it much. Essentially, computer simulations already have their own body of math that you probably were not taught in physics, because they aren’t relevant for real world physics study.