XNA Collision Detection - Vector2.Reflect - Help Calculating the Normal of a Circle Sprite - C#

Question

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how to calculate the normal for a moving circle in a 2d space. I've gotten as far as that I'm suppose to calculate the Normal of the Velocity(Directional Speed) of the object, but that's where my college algebra mind over-heats, any I'm working with to 2d Circles that I have the centerpoint, radius, velocity, and position.

Ultimately I'm wanting to use the Vector2.Reflect Method to get a bit more realistic physics out of this exercise.

thanks ahead of time.

EDIT: Added some code trying out suggestion(with no avail), probably misunderstanding the suggestion. Here I'm using a basketball and a baseball, hence base and basket. I also have Position, and Velocity which is being added to position to create the movement.

if ((Vector2.Distance(baseMid, basketMid)) < baseRadius + basketRadius)
{
    Vector2 baseNorm = basketMid - baseMid;
    baseNorm.Normalize();
    Vector2 basketNorm = baseMid - basketMid;
    basketNorm.Normalize();
    baseVelocity = Vector2.Reflect(baseVelocity, baseNorm);
    basketVelocity = Vector2.Reflect(basketVelocity, basketNorm);
}

basePos.Y += baseVelocity.Y;
basePos.X += baseVelocity.X;
basketPos.Y += basketVelocity.Y;
basketPos.X += basketVelocity.X;
basketMid = new Vector2((basketballTex.Width / 2 + basketPos.X), (basketballTex.Height / 2 + basketPos.Y));
baseMid = new Vector2((baseballTex.Width / 2 + basePos.X), (baseballTex.Height / 2 + basePos.Y));

Answer 1

First the reflection. If I'm reading your code right, the second argument to Vector2.Reflect is a normal to a surface. A level floor has a normal of (0,1), and a ball with velocity (4,-3) hits it and flies away with velocity (4,3). Is that right? If that's not right then we'll have to change the body of the if statement. (Note that you can save some cycles by setting basketNorm = -baseNorm.)

Now the physics. As written, when the two balls collide, each bounces off as if it had hit a glass wall tangent to both spheres, and that's not realistic. Imagine playing pool: a fast red ball hits a stationary blue ball dead center. Does the red ball rebound and leave the blue ball where it was? No, the blue ball gets knocked away and the red ball loses most of its speed (all, in the perfect case). How about a cannonball and a golf ball, both moving at the same speed but in opposite directions, colliding head-on. Will they both bounce equally? No, the cannonball will continue, barely noticing the impact, but the golf ball will reverse direction and fly away faster than it came.

To understand these collisions you have to understand momentum (and if you want collisions that aren't perfectly elastic, like when beanbags collide, you also have to understand energy). A basic physics textbook will cover this in an early chapter. If you just want to be able to simulate these things, use the center-of-mass frame:

Vector2 CMVelocity = (basket.Mass*basket.Velocity + base.Mass*base.Velocity)/(basket.Mass + base.Mass);

baseVelocity -= CMVelocity;
baseVelocity = Vector2.Reflect(baseVelocity, baseNorm);
baseVelocity += CMVelocity;

basketVelocity -= CMVelocity;
basketVelocity = Vector2.Reflect(basketVelocity, basketNorm);
basketVelocity += CMVelocity;

Answer 2

The normal of a circle at a given point on its edge is going to be the direction from its center to that point. Assuming that you're working with collisions of circles here, then one easy "shorthand" way to work this out would be that at the time of collision (when the circles are touching), the following will hold true:

Let A be the center of one circle and B the center of the other. The normal for circle A will be normalize(B-A) and the normal for circle B will be normalize(A-B). This is true because the point where they touch will always be colinear with the centers of the two circles.