It's not that PhysX or ODE aren't good enough, it's that they only solve part of the problem. We did do some empirical analysis to get the pneumatic models. "

It's not that PhysX or ODE aren't good enough, it's that they only solve part of the problem. We did do some empirical analysis to get the pneumatic models. "Brute force the problem by using large amounts of real-world data, is what I'm getting at." Absolutely, that is Trevor's viewpoint, and I agree. Turns out to be somewhat difficult in practice. It's hard to even know what all the parameters should be, much less do all the work necessary to tune them. And all the while, the robot itself is changing. Joints get loose; servos get replaced. It's a constant battle. There is a feeling among hard-core robotics folks that this level of simulation is either impossible or not worth the trouble. I tend to disagree. I think we got pretty far with the Anybots simulator; we did manage to evolve a neural network that balances on the simulator, and also balances the real robot. It's definitely a 'hard' problem to get a simulator good enough to be usefully predictive.