crashing a car

[suffix]

there is this plug in on highend3d called "crashing a BMW" and that should do the trick. Just enter in what type of car model it is, and the rest is done........ har har (sorry i couldn't help myself!):) ;)

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

If this needs to be done photorealistically it'll be a nightmare. Which is why in the movies they just crash the car. ;)

If you can get away with tighter cuts, do that. Ie, don't show the entire car crushing, just maybe show the hood, then maybe a window shattering or something.

[seb4d]

Hi,
I'm not a professionnal at all, but I know that in starwars I they crashed the pods with soft bodies simulations.
You could apply soft body dynamics on all the parts of your car and try to simulate collisions with the floor and walls.

I think it's a lot of work but it's possible.
And if you don't manage to simulate it, you can try manual crashing and deformation.

bye

[DotPainter]

Hi, I am no Maya expert, however, I have done this in other, lesser apps and I have the following to offer, FWIW:

1: Break the model of the car into pieces, ie: hood, windshield, door etc.

2: Set the physics properties for each piece of the car. For example, set the glass up so that it shatters (my other program had a deformer for this but I am sure maya does to). Other parts will crumple and bend, like body panels. Also smaller parts will break off and fly away.

3. Set up a collision object for the car to crash into and set each piece up to collide using Maya's rigid body dynamics system.

4. Attach the model of the car to a movement slider and animate the car as it approaches the collision object and collides and tweak the secondary and tertiary animations as appropriate.

5. Use mel scripts to trigger the secondary animations of crumple and tear as the main object hits the collision object.

6. The car itself, ie the main frame of the car can also be animated, as it bends or is twisted upon collision.

7. Add a special effects layer or group containing particles and smoke for fire and flame effects.

8. Work in layers starting from the basic car body collision as the base layer and the secondary effects like the reaction of each part of the car as secondary and tertiary layers that can be added on top of the first.


Tips to remember: Rigid body systems do not produce the crumple and tear effects from what I have seen. I am not sure about Maya. Therefore you will have to set these up separately as appropriate for each piece and time the deformations/animations with the main impact in order to produce something realistic. This can probably be done with mel and the rigid body solver.

These are general ideas, so you will have to translate as appropriate for the maya environment.

Also here is an excellent resource that may help:


Melbot wars (http://www.melbotwars.com)

Hope this helps.....:wavey:

[Tolerate]

if you were gonna manually do it, you could deform the different parts of the car and then use blend shapes at the point of impact

[smileyoo]

hooooooooooooooooooo~~~~~~~~
just model every part of the car ,softbody some of them,
instance particles and make you mad in simulating or
let your audiences in a puzzle about the simulation.............

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

I don't see how softbodies will help.

[klinker]

for starwars worked really professional animators to make it realistic podrace. with blendshapes, i think, u only can deform the car, but not really destroy. i think its a really huge project to make it photorealistic in maya. perhaps u can deform it and than create a huge fireball, like a nuclear bomb. its really amazing.

:eek:

- a joke! ;)

[StylizedReality]

thanks for all your help, but we shot the footage for the car yesterday and it's from an angle where you can't actually see the impact on the hood, however, I need the car to absorb some of the impact so that it crashes realistically, but I'm not sure how to do that. I need to make it look like it crashed and everything, maybe add a few little bits and pieces flying, but without crumpling the hood or anything.

[Kabab]

Someone from a|w showed me an animation done for a car company simulating a crash into a wall at XX km/h with very detailed shots, it was amazing the bonnet all twisitng and deforming and squashing the same with the chassis etc.

I was told it was done mainly using soft bodies.

[coccosoids]

hey i'm sorry, i think i'm a bit off-topic, but my question may be of interest to the thread owner. if i had footage of a car (moving or non-moving camera) from the side and i wanted to make the side mirror fall and brake how would it be done? - the actual removel of the mirror on the car & replacement with cg is no option.

[FloydBishop]

Here are some videos I found...

http://www.accidentreconstruction.com/movies/bmwhps.mov

http://www.accidentreconstruction.com/movies/crash.mov

http://www.accidentreconstruction.com/movies/lincov.mov

http://www.accidentreconstruction.com/movies/bumper.mov

I'm pretty sure this one's staged, but it's not for the faint of heart:

http://www.accidentreconstruction.com/movies/LookFirst.mpeg

As you can see, every crash is different. If your crash is for artistic purposes, all the better for you! Take full advantage of motion blur and quick cuts. Blend shapes are the way to go for the bulk of the destruction, and then mix in equal parts of particles and fluids (if running 4.5) to get the burst of steam from the radiator, spray of glass from the windshield, and other assorted fluids flying everywhere. Good luck and post your results (if you can).

[StylizedReality]

ok, I know it's been a while, but I wanted to show those who are still interested the scene I've been working on, it's just a frame from the animation, but I thought you'd like to see the car, for the actual animation I just used rigid bodies, without deformation because of the angle of the camera and car.
http://pilotltkettch.20megsfree.com/images/newcar.jpg
http://pilotltkettch.20megsfree.com/images/carcrash.jpg
and this one is the aftermath of the crash, which was done in photoshop, grafting the hood of a real crashed car onto the existing one

[The3DMan]

nice photoshop work

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.