Circle and circle collision (with physics), but when lots of circles pile up things go wrong

Question

I'm trying to make an as realistic as possible ball physics simulator. Currently, I worked out all the collisions between balls, and it works really well when there are few balls. But once you create around and over 400-500 balls, things start to get weird: The balls at the bottom get squished around, overlapping with one another. And once you add even more balls, things get even crazier, the balls start to almost teleport around at the bottom.

Some screenshots: With 100 balls: With over 600 balls:

Does anyone know what is happening and what is causing this? How can the code be improved to prevent it?

(For ease of testing, use scroll wheel to create lots of balls in quick succession)

Here is the code, it isn't too long:

import pygame
from pygame.locals import *
from random import *
from math import *

WIDTH = 1200
HEIGHT = 800
FPS = 144
VEC = pygame.math.Vector2

pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((WIDTH, HEIGHT), HWSURFACE | DOUBLEBUF)
pygame.display.set_caption("Bouncy balls with physics")
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

gravity = 3200
colors = range(50, 255, 10)
sizes = (15, 25)

absvec = lambda v: VEC(abs(v.x), abs(v.y))
inttup = lambda tup: tuple((int(tup[0]), int(tup[1])))

class Ball:
    instances = []
    regions = {}

    def __init__(self, pos):
        __class__.instances.append(self)
        self.pos = VEC(pos)
        self.region = inttup(self.pos // (sizes[1] * 2) + VEC(1, 1))
        if self.region in __class__.regions:
            __class__.regions[self.region].append(self)
        else:
            __class__.regions[self.region] = [self]
        self.vel = VEC(0, 0)
        self.radius = randint(*sizes)
        self.mass = self.radius ** 2 * pi
        self.color = (choice(colors), choice(colors), choice(colors))
        self.moving = True

    def update_position(self):
        self.vel.y += gravity * dt
        self.vel -= self.vel.normalize() * 160 * dt
        if -6 < self.vel.x < 6:
            self.vel.x = 0
        if -6 < self.vel.y < 6:
            self.vel.y = 0
        self.pos += self.vel * dt

        new_region = inttup(self.pos // (sizes[1] * 2) + VEC(1, 1))
        if self.region != new_region:
            if new_region in __class__.regions:
                __class__.regions[new_region].append(self)
            else:
                __class__.regions[new_region] = [self]
            __class__.regions[self.region].remove(self)
            self.region = new_region

    def update_pushout(self):
        self.collisions = []
        for x in range(self.region[0] - 1, self.region[0] + 2):
            for y in range(self.region[1] - 1, self.region[1] + 2):
                if (x, y) in __class__.regions:
                    for ball in __class__.regions[(x, y)]:
                        dist = self.pos.distance_to(ball.pos)
                        if dist < self.radius + ball.radius and ball != self:
                            self.collisions.append(ball)
                            overlap = -(dist - self.radius - ball.radius) * 0.5
                            self.pos += overlap * (self.pos - ball.pos).normalize()
                            ball.pos -= overlap * (self.pos - ball.pos).normalize()
    
    def update_collision(self):
        for ball in self.collisions:
            self.vel *= 0.85
            n = (ball.pos - self.pos).normalize()
            k = self.vel - ball.vel
            p = 2 * (n * k) / (self.mass + ball.mass)
            self.vel -= p * ball.mass * n
            ball.vel += p * self.mass * n

        if self.pos.x < self.radius:
            self.vel.x *= -0.8
            self.pos.x = self.radius
        elif self.pos.x > WIDTH - self.radius:
            self.vel.x *= -0.8
            self.pos.x = WIDTH - self.radius
        if self.pos.y < self.radius:
            self.vel.y *= -0.8
            self.pos.y = self.radius
        elif self.pos.y > HEIGHT - self.radius:
            if self.vel.y <= gravity * dt:
                self.vel.y = 0
            else:
                self.vel.y *= -0.8
            self.pos.y = HEIGHT - self.radius

    def draw(self, screen):
        pygame.draw.circle(screen, self.color, self.pos, self.radius)

    def kill(self):
        __class__.instances.remove(self)
        __class__.regions[self.region].remove(self)
        del self

running = True
while running:
    dt = clock.tick_busy_loop(FPS) / 1000
    screen.fill((30, 30, 30))
    pygame.display.set_caption(f"Bouncy balls with physics | FPS: {str(int(clock.get_fps()))} | Ball count: {len(Ball.instances)}")

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == QUIT:
            running = False
        if event.type == MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
            mpos = VEC(pygame.mouse.get_pos())
            if sum([len(balls) for balls in Ball.regions.values()]) <= 1000:
                Ball(mpos)
        if event.type == KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == K_c:
                for ball in Ball.instances.copy():
                    ball.kill()

    for ball in Ball.instances:
        ball.update_position()
        ball.update_pushout()
        ball.update_collision()
        ball.draw(screen)

    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
quit()

This is the code that gets performed when two balls collide:

self.vel *= 0.85
n = (ball.pos - self.pos).normalize()
k = self.vel - ball.vel
p = 2 * (n * k) / (self.mass + ball.mass)
self.vel -= p * ball.mass * n
ball.vel += p * self.mass * n

gotten from this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_collision

Thanks in advance!

Circle and circle collision (with physics), but when lots of circles pile up things go wrong

Answers (1)

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