I guess you could call this a tutorial of sorts, just one where the creator is also figuring things out as they go along.  I'm certainly open to suggestions as to where else this thread might be on this forum instead, but this was the best board that I could determine. That having been said, I had meant to make this thread earlier, but for reasons unknown, I ended up forgetting about this place.  I can't imagine how - this forum feels exceptionally cozy to me.  There's something about how spiffed up its visuals are, I think, with such a consistent scheme to everything.

In any case...

https://i.imgur.com/ex4xlHb.png
The Idea
Since one of the pillars of LBP is creating, I figured that getting back into LBP meant I should try out some kind of creative venture again. I wanted to try out something that might involve actual interaction with people, instead of just spending hours on a level to send out into the aether, so I figured I could put together something of a video series, on the optimistic assumption that videos in LBP2 still have an audience.

The idea's this: I remember once hearing somebody praise the details of LBP's physics years ago, saying it had some unexpected details. Bad physics can really make a game not worth playing (or worth playing for all the wrong reasons), so I wanted to make something of a tribute to the intricacy of LBP's physics by examining it up close to identify and appreciate its details.

This means taking something of an experimental approach, using the in-game logic to create instruments that can produce measurements to model the physical behaviour of objects. I don't clutter it much with math, since that'd make it less accessible, but I try to be transparent about when I'm using it to let people know what's going on. I wait until pertinent aspects of logic come up to explain, which will only mean getting into really complicated stuff if necessary (and many here surely know it has no upper bounds on how complicated it can get - this stuff can get into calculus, not that I intend to do that).

The Series So Far
How Tall is Sackboy? - Length
How Heavy is Sackboy? - Weight
How Fast is Sackboy? - Speed
How does Sackboy Fall? - Gravity
How Big is the World? - Various Lengths
Why do Some Objects Fall Faster? - Air Resistance
What Happens When You Push an object? - Pushes
What Does Antigravity Do? - Antigravity Air Resistance
What Happens When Objects Collide? - Momentum

I realize I'm probably catering to a pretty small crowd by this point with how small the LBP community has shrunk (as promising as future prospects are for Dreams), but I'd love to hear any thoughts anybody has on what could be worked on.  I'm currently working on some smaller episodes as well, just a few minutes long, to deal with miscellaneous things like density or how long one unit of the grid is in create mode.  I'm trying to play around with the format and see what works.

The promised shorter episode has finally arrived, focusing on something a bit more simple but no less interesting.

People have apparently been wondering about the precise sizes of the grid spacings for a while, and though I heard some interesting ideas, I'm quite sure now that I've figured out where it comes from. That being said, I still have no idea why the default range for sensors is 22.4 units, or whatever it happens to be. Not sure what's special about that distance.

Next time will be an alternate method of making a certain kind of measurement, for the sake of showing off some variety and getting back into expanding out toolbox for making observations.

...whoops, there was a bit of a problem with that last video. I thought things turned out fine, but my computer crashing while rendering apparently caused some bigger issues than I thought.

Here's the real one. Sorry about that.

Another entry in the series, this time investigating a certain way in which different materials vary from each other: link.

I'm going to have to think a bit about what I do next, actually. I have footage recorded, but it's not always obvious how to group different experiments together. Guess I'll get to working on that.

I remember doing physics experiments with this with some other guy several years ago. It's probably still on my moon on my PS3 lol

Alright, here's another bigger one: link. I do have to say that this one was pretty fun, though, since it explored some different tools for analyzing data.

I'm actually pretty much out of footage right now, so I guess I'll have to think up how I'm going to tackle the next few ideas I have and get them recorded before I get back to the usual production schedule. Even so, though, I don't think I'll be running out of concepts to explore any time soon - the questions might eventually get a bit more specific, but that'll just make them more practical, anyways.

I can't help but feel that this is long overdue, but I assure you I'm working on these quite frequently. Anything with graphs just takes me quite a long time, unfortunately. Regardless, the newest episode, focusing on what happens when you give something a shove: link.

Alright, somebody posed a question in response to the methods used in the last video, so here's the newest episode, where we take a closer look and test new aspects of what we did before: link.

Okay, I guess I chose the wrong time to do another longer one. A few busy weekends in a row made this take way longer than I would've liked, but rest assured that I always have this series on my to-do list. Trying to make sense of something I did months ago makes this process a lot harder, too, so I'll try to avoid having that happen again.

Until now, we've only ever looked at objects in isolation, and it's about time we start thinking about what happens when things get social and everyone's bumping into each other. Thus, our newest instalment focuses on collisions.

I have to admit that this is turning out a bit more realistic than I had expected. These videos are really making me appreciate some of the finer details of the engine, especially the surprise of air resistance (and by extension varying terminal velocities) being programmed into the game.