Shatter it! by thinkinetic

#1

it seems this season is going to be a kind of competition among several good shatter tools in Max, I wish some good works get out of this.

But this new ability to generate thousands of shards introduces a new challenge, ¿How to compute dynamics motion for all this stuff?

I would like to introduce Shatter it!, it is the precutting tool of pulldownit plugin , it is voronoi based, very fast and easy to use, but its mayor advantages comes when simulating, I mean, once you have precut your model in thousands of shards you need a way to compute the dynamics motion , the pulldownit solver is able to simulate thousands of fragments faster and reliable than any other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Ar6lFBvzE

http://www.vimeo.com/6666798

cheers

#2

your videos looks cool, what are you using for dynamics reactor, physX?

#3

any of them, pulldownit includes its own dynamics solver which is faster and reliable that those you mention, you can check it by your own trying the demo version.

#4

Have tried the demo/free version for 3ds max (2008). Pretty cool tool. Do like the fracture results and its ease of use.

But had problems with the bounding hull; if I picked the wrong one or added in stock models to the Basic Fractures or normal objects, PDI would freeze up my Max very often, and I then must Kill the Max process and reload Max about 20x. The bug is when I pick a model to add to sim, it may freeze the plugin and then Max will freeze and the file gets corrput and won’t load, and that also freezes Max. :smiley:

Plug-in has some potential if it did not lock Max.

#5

Hi Pexelroy,

I need a more clear description of your problem to try to fix it. You mean Max get freezed when adding or remove objects in the “manage pdi world window”? are you 32 or 64 bits?

A step by step procedure to reproduce the bug would be great.

#6

Thanks. Using max 2008 32-bit.

Bug is hard to recreate, but it is when I add objects , or select the bounding shape, or make a Basic Fracture.

EDIT. Having a problem with a simple domino sim, v1.0. max 2008 file. The dominos intersect after falling and rest on one another. Is there a way to make the sim accurate so objects do not interpenetrate?

#7

I have checked your scene, usually the best way to get rid of interpenetration issues is increasing substep, in your scene the pieces are very thin and the interpenetration still persist for a few of them, you can try to replace the bvolume for interpenetrating pieces by mesh, anyway we are going to try to improve this issue if possible.

A hint for your scene: by creating a fracture body for all pieces and the ground but the first one and set break threshold to 0.0 and clusterize 0.0, you get the same result but much faster, specially if your are planning to make a larger domino.

#8

You cant do impact based fracturing?

#9

pulldownit solver is able to fracture objects only if enough force is applied and where the stresses are higher, the rest of the body will remain as solid until the next impact.

have you seen the rod video in the first post?
is this what you are meaning for Impact based fracture?

#10

No sorry, I was asking if it has the ability to not use prefracture. For example rayfire has the ability to fracture based on impact. So depending on how it collides with objects will determine how it fractures.

#11

Yes, depending on how it collides with objects will determine how it fractures but you have to prefracture anyway, I mean,

Pulldownit is a new concept, your objects must be prefractured , using shatter it! this is done very fast, but when computing the objects will behave as solid becouse the solver is computing the stresses among the fragments and they will break apart only if enough force is applied.

I think this way of working is the best for performance and you still obtain the nice creation and propagation of cracks. Instead, dynamically fracture objects involves creating new geometry and update the fragments generated in the Max pipeline, these are very slow proccess in any 3D platform as you can check with the plugin you mention. Using pulldownit you get nice frature effects almost instant.

#12

Heh, I thought the new concept is to Dynamically demolish objects during simulation exactly when and where they should be demolished. :slight_smile:

#13

Well my friend, even physicists cannot determine in advance how an object breaks, if you throw 100 identical pots to the ground using the same force, you are going to obtain 100 differents results for sure.

With pulldownit you can control the start of the cracks and somehow the way of propagation, for example you can define regions of the object to remain as solid , but like in nature you cannot determine in advance which path is going to follow a generated crack.

Prefracturing the models is just a performance issue for pulldownit, for instance, you can set a fully prefracture model to be unbreakable and it works.

#14

Yeah fracturing based on impact would give beter/more realistic results.

Make the chunks at point of impact small (depending on material properties) and give depending on falloff atribute chunks get larger.
Like it happens in real life.

Any1 know a fracturing system that does this in max?

#15

“based on impact”, actually involved two conceps, one is the cracks start in the point of impact and them propagate along the object, this is which pdi is able to do. The other is to dynamically generate new geometry( fragments) in the region of impact, pdi dont do that, the main problem with this is the dynamic generation of new geometry which is a very slow process for Max.

With pulldownit you have to prefracture the object before computing, if you want more resolution of fragments in the region of impact just use shatter it! to refine this area, it is very easy.

We have updated the free distribution of the plugin with two more sample scenes where the fracture ability of pulldownit is more evident, you can download them already.

fallingtube - A simple scene showing a non convex object with a hole, falling to the ground.
The object has been prefractured using shatter it!

fallingrod - This is the original scene of the youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO0FFOCu9Ao

the rod react to the impact with the sucesive obstacles, the cracks start in the region of impact.

you can set different values for hardness and clusterize to obtain different fracture effects in both scenes.

#16

Hi cannot manage to make an “impact based” fracture with rayfire, My set is very simple, a ground, a box above and a ball falling form the top by gravity. I want the box to break by impact with the ball without having to prefracture it. Is your tool able to do this?

In case yes, as your demo doesnt include the shatter tool, a video showing how to do the effect in the viewport would be appreciated.

#17

Rayfire can, you set the fracture type to impact/bomb. Not sure why you arent asking that in the rayfire thread.

#18

I have post this issue in the rayfire thread just above,

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=183&t=820647

When I use the impact/bomb options rayfire prefractured the box anyway, this is not what Im looking for.

#19

I suppose you have already seen this video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjN2iEzlk6M

it is very similar to your set, with pulldownit you have to prefracture before computing, but this is not really an issue, the point is by using pdi you are going to get a fast, realistic computation of fracture, as you can see in the video if you need more resolution of fragments in some region, just refine it.

Create new geometry is a high cost process no matter if you do it before computing or during simulation, and probably you prefer to have the heavy process done before computing to get a much faster computation and be able to tweak dynamics parameters in an interactive way to adjust your final animation, dont you?

#20

does anybody know how much this thing costs? i didn’t see a price mentioned on their website so that is usually a bad sign!