Box2D is an open source 2D physics engine for games. It's an open source 2D physics engine. For games. That's all that Box2D have to say about themselves so lets try to fill in the blanks a bit ourselves shall we?

Box2D is great! It's an open source 2D physics engine that you can build games, simulations and loads more with. It's fast, robust, scalable and written in C++! :)

Uh, you wot?

That's right kids: originally a C++ project some of the Internet's intrepid denizens have put in some long hours and ported it to AS3 just for you! Isn't that nice? Before you sing 'Hallelujah', crack open the champers and build a 'Donkey Kong' emulator with it though, a word in your shell-like: it's a straight port which means that - whisper it now 'lest we offend someone - Box2D AS3 looks like C++ and C++ sure does look like some bad-@ss low-level geekery. Oh no, whatever shall we do?

I'll tell you what: get Box2D superuser and all-round hard workin' FlashBrightonian Owen Bennett to explain it to us, that's what. Owen's had his hand in the Box2D for a while now and next Tuesday he's gonna show us how to get from the murky base classes of Box2D to something light, fluffy and usable with the focus, as Owen himself puts it, "squarely on how to integrate the engine into your own projects". It'll be proper hands-on: one hour of lectured theory will be followed up with one hour of workshopped practice, where we'll be having phab physicsy phun straight away!

Dr. Owen says: Get in trim for the sesh' by checking out some Box2D examples here and downloading the source code here.

PS: The raffle was concluded at last weeks Carnival O Fun which means A WHOLE NEW RAFFLE HAS NOW BEGUN! Get on the next get-shedloads-of-raffle-tickets bus by registering HERE & NOW for Owen's session.

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Added by flashbrighton on July 10, 2008 Report a problem