Shattering Glass

[blacksmith3d]

Greetings troops!

I was wondering if anyone has any idea on how to make glass shatter. Here's the situation. It's a glass roof that gets cracked and then starts to shatter outwards from the centre as our hero tries to outrun the cracking, and falling glass.

(Kind of like the scene in Backdraft on the rooftop, Or of Molder in the arctic at the end of the X-files movie)

The thought of attempting this piece by piece makes me want to kill myself. I was thinking about particles but I still don't know where to begin. It doesn't have to look photo real because it's that type of film, however I would like the motion of it to look proper! If I had an R+D department I would be fine, but mine is on vacation......

I'm stumped!

[fredc]

There is an Explode Effect in Motion-Effecs/Explode. There is plenty of info on it in the first reference Guide starting on page 566 (I looked it up for you).
There is also the Motion-Effects/Kaboom feature. This one is pretty cool, but I think you will have to check all the older "New Feature Guides" that ship with each release, for information on it.

The reference Guides and New Features Guides all ship on the CD's if you don't have the hard copies.

You will probably be using different versoins of the glass object, such as an unbroken version and a shattered version and then swapping their displays on and off. This is a good time to learn how to save "Visibility" Keys, if you don't already use them. To use this simply select your object and save a visibility key for the frame it is suppose to be visible and then one for where it is to turn invisible. Then bring up your function curve for visibility and for the key were it is suppose to be on make it 1. When it is suppose to be off make it 0. For this kind of function curve there is only on and off or 1 and 0.

Hope this helps,
Urp