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What Is Time Scale, Really?


jamesearnest244

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Hi,

I'm confused about what the Time Scale parameter on different solvers actually does. The documentation is kind of vague - "scales the timestamp used by the solver". But it doesn't just slow down the sim, it actually changes the behavior in ways that I haven't been able to consistently understand. So I'm wondering what I'm actually telling the sim to do by changing this parameter.

Thanks!

Edited by jamesearnest244
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  • 2 weeks later...

Time scale does in fact just change the length of time step the solver uses to compute each frame. So a time scale of 0.5 should run half the speed of a simulation at time scale 1.0.

The problem is (and off the top of my head I think different solvers behave differently) you often need to adjust your forces by the same scale to get the same result (only slower). I know Bullet works this way. If you drop your timescale to 0.5 you also need to cut your gravity and any other forces being applied by 0.5 as well.

My recollection is (and I might be wrong on this) is that some of the newer solvers like the vellum solver take that into account. If you drop the timescale to 0.5 in vellum I seem to remember that you do in fact get the same sim only slower.

I'm not at my workstation to check, but someone can chime in if I'm wrong.

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