[FATdan]

desperatly tryin to find a way to simulate a bullit smashing through a wine glass.
ive seen the video on the Descrete site that shows it working..
ive got a glass. ive got a bullit. and reactor is working nicley but i want to know how to break up the glass into small pieces without doing 1 by 1 before-hand. is there a way of seperating all the polygons in a mesh into individual entities?

[toonman]

Hi FATdan... this topic has came up before in different forums. As of now, reactor cannot create the pieces for you to use. The fracture collection only provides the means to group certain objects so you can use them inside a solid body simulation. However, I'm afraid you'll have to create your glass shards by hand. I've been thinking of an easier solution to this (since creating them by hand could be quite tedious). So far, I can think of two approaches.

1. Take your glass pane and tessallate it with as many iterations as needed to create a very dense mesh. Make sure to use triangles, and not quads. Once that is done, use Particle Array to generate particle chunks out of that mesh. Make sure the particles are not being rotated or translated. You only need the chunks. Play with the particle system's parameters to create as many pieces as you want, the size you want them. Now, snapshot the particle system, and create a mesh out of it. All you'll need to do then is select every element in the mesh and detach it into a separate object, and that's it (easily scriptable). You've got your glass shards.

2. I've also been thinking of creating a slicing tool that will slice repeatedly your mesh based on radial patterns. You'd end up with something much more realistic, since point-of-impact based shattering makes use of radial patterns. I'd need to first look into some fractal math and do some tests, but I'm pretty sure it's scriptable. Don't hold your breathe though... I'm not sure when I'd have the time to go into this, although I'm sure it's something I'd really like to look into.

I hope this helps a bit. Cheers!

[FATdan]

approximately the most help ever!!! thanks a lot!!
just one question..how do i take snap shots?
thanks for your generosity

[toonman]

Tools menu

[GM]

hmmm i have solution but i didn't try i will try when back home its very eazy
the ieda is u will creat u reactor efecte after the fram u brouk your glass you can use pomb to break w have 2 bomp type in max in space warp
just ty this
i think it will effective don't forget in reactor utilties begine creat after break
i hope it succes
if i have mistaks sorry for this i still beginer from egy and i hope to be good in max

[FATdan]

ok, has any1 seen the "Digital Dimension" video on the decreet site?
it shows this guy working on "Alias" the TV show. he talks about using particle systems and breaking glass proceduraly.mentions dynamics too..
it shows it right on the vid which makes if all the more frustrating!!! COS I STILL CANT DO IT!!
oo..sorry

(the vid is at http://www4.discreet.com/3dsmax/3dsmax.php?id=968 )
any thoughts?

[Edited on 26/11/2004 by Sunstar]