Demolition Master Manual

On Properties, you can acces to the magic behind Demolition Master. You can fine tuning Demolition Master to your needs, but only acces here if you know Thinking Particles. All the parameters to work with DM are exposed below.

Deflectors are objects not affected by gravity and will never move in your scene ( ground, colliders,…).

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Instance shape Checking this your particles will have the original geometry

Hide Click on hide to hide original geometry from scene.

Important! Thinking Particles dynamic sistem don’t work with one sided face objects. So you can’t use a plane as a ground for example, instead you need a box.

In “Concrete big objects” you have first a prefragmentation of all the objects, and a second fragmentation to the defined impact zone. Its ideal for big objects (more than 1x1x0,1m) for example concrete walls, floors, entire building,… for smaller objects (less than 1 meter) TP can crash in this mode and its best to use “Concrete small objects” instead.

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Instance shape Checking this your particles will have the original geometry

Hide Click on hide to hide original geometry from scene.

In “Concrete small objects”  your objects will be prefragmentated once or not as defined, its ideal for geometry already fragmented by the user, or small geometry like bricks and tiles.

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Instance shape Checking this your particles will have the original geometry

Hide Click on hide to hide original geometry from scene.

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Instance shape Checking this your particles will have the original geometry

Hide Click on hide to hide original geometry from scene.

Wood objects will fragment on impact point with large fragment in horizontal or vertical direction as defined.

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Instance shape Checking this your particles will have the original geometry

Hide Click on hide to hide original geometry from scene.

Steel objects are geometry that will never be fragmented, use it for steel objects and for all this objects you dont want to break.

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Instance shape Checking this your particles will have the original geometry

Hide Click on hide to hide original geometry from scene.

Custom Group Objects lets you choose on with group your selected objects will go. Send your objects to level1 directly.

A limitation of TP, is that in other objects you can’t select track “object to particle” motion, since all geometry is sended to a group automatically. In this group you can track your objects motion.

A new group is created to work with this “Custom Group Objects”, “Deflect activator” group. If you send your objects to this group, DM will recognize geometry shape and will use to break things.

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Group  Select group for your objects

Track  Track geometry motion to your particle, most used is “object to particle”.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Instance shape Checking this your particles will have the original geometry

Hide Click on hide to hide original geometry from scene.

In DM 1.6 Attach objects are introduced. All objects here will look around for other DM objects and will be linked automatically to most near one. The principal use of this objects is to use proxy object (lowpoly versions) inside DM groups, and insert in “Attach objects” your hires versions. You will have faster simulations and viewport response.

Procedure:

Pick add your objects selecting from scene or open the highlist and add selections.

Track  Track geometry motion to your particle, I recomend on this group to use “particle to object”.

Change affect all Select this to affect all the objects on your list

Bullet is the principal form to destroy things in Demolition Master, use small or big bullets to create holes from a gun or from a bomb.

On  Activate ore desactivate your bullet

Node  Select the geometry where the bullet will born. (bullet gets the position and direction from node)

From surface  Bullets are created on random position over selected node surface. Bullets follow normal faces direction. With from surface unchecked bullets are emited on pivot point and following “y” direction.

Shape  Use 8 diferent presets shapes or custom shape for bullets. You can define bullet custom shape on custom bullet rollout. This shape is also used for Extra bulelts.

Size  Define the size of the bullet.

Size variation  Define percentage of bullet size variation.

Birth Type  Select “One shot” or “particle/s”.  ”One shot” will create one bullet. “particle/s” will create many particles defined in “rate”

Rate If “particle/s” in birth type is selected here you define how often a bullet will born.

Start Frame Frame when the bullet is born.

End Frame On this frame shooting object will stop emiting bullets.

Life Span  Frames that will live the bullet after bullets are created.

Direction var.  Define the variation of born bullets direction.

Mass  Bullet mass, it will increase depending of the size of your bullet so in fact is “density”. If your bullet impacts in a wall creating fragments, but dont destroy as you espected, you have two options, change the speed of the bullet or the mass.

Speed Bullet velocity.

Speed var. Bullet velocity variation. Special useful with “particle/s” Birth Type selected.

Spin  Time Spin rotation. “0″ is no spin, lower spin time will create faster spin rotation.

Spin var.  Spin variation.

Gravity Enable or disable bullets gravity. Gravity is controlled with general properties. This wiell enable gravity to extra bullets also.

Intersect  With Concrete big objects, wood objects and glass objects DM detect the impact point of the collision between the bullet and your object based on a distance calculated from multiply bullet size and intersect. By default Intersect is “1″, if your speed value is high, you will detect than your bullet impact your objects and after creates the frags. To prevent this increase the intersect value.

Do you need aditional explosions in diferents times? Here you can assign 5 diferent objects to shoot!

On  Activate ore desactivate your bullet

Node   Select the geometry where the bullet will born. (bullet gets the position and direction from node)

Size  Define the size of the bullet.

Start   Frame when the bullet born.

Speed  Bullet velocity.

Life Span  Frames that will live the bullet after that the bullet are deleted.

Mass  Bullet mass, it will increase depending of the size of your bullet so in fact is “density”. If your bullet impacts in a wall creating fragments, but dont destroy as you espected, you have two options, change the speed of the bullet or the mass.

Lots of options here, but the only imporant is Pick object Pick one or more objects. When you slect custom shape on bullet rollout, Demolition Master will use objects listed here.

This properties will effect all your objects.

Dyn solver  Change your dynamic quality solver, use “off” for create keyframes, use “draft” for dynamic previews in real time. “medium” and “high” for production, and “high face” for use mesh contact instead of voxel dynamic solution . Changing your preset is changing diferent parameters in SC solver, see values for every preset:

In Demolition Master 1.6 “Bullet physics” solver is added. This solver is much more faster than Shape Collision, but can be less accurate.

Ground Check on for an invisible ground on z=0, it’s valid for geometry and debries.

Gravity value  Gravity strength. Unhide object “gravity” and rotate it to change gravity direction.

Wind  Wind strength. Unhide object “wind” and rotate it to change wind direction.

Atractor Atractor strength.  Increase the value to have more atraction to the object. Unhide object “atractor” and move it to change particles motion.

Atrac time Time in frames that atractor is active since a fragment enters on level 0.

Kill frags  Check this if you want to will your objects in a certain z value defined below.

z kill  Z value where your objects will be deleted if “Kill frags” is checked.

Break bullet When checked bullets will break on impact point.

frags Number of fragmentations for bullets.

min vel Select the minimum velocity when bullet will break.

min size  Select the minimum bullet size to be breaked. All bellow this will not break.  Bullets not breaking are in green wireframe, and all breakeable are yellow.

Dist frags. Fragmentation concentrated on impact point. Lower values will produce a more detailed explosion on impact position, and higher values will produce a more general frags on all bullet object.

Active area On impact time, pieces affected, wireframe turns red.

This parameters only effect Concrete big objects.

On  Activate or desactivate breaking objects

Prebreak Size  Defined as % will define the size of fragmentation of all the object. High values produce bigger fragments (so less fragments) and lower value produce smaller fragments (pay attention since lowering so much will create a lot of fragments and can freeze max, you can press “esc” to cancel calculation proces)

Break size  A second break on the bullet impact point. Define as % in the same way as “Prebreak size”.

Impact1  Distance from impact point that selects “prebreak fragments”

Impact2 Distance from impact point where “break size” will actuate on impact time

Zone effect Defined as %  is the percentage of break framents that are activated.

Time to effect  Number of frames that will take to go from impact2 distance to impact1 distance taking in account the zone effect percentage. With “Time to effect” 50 value  you can do a explosion with a first impact producing a hole, and during the next 50 frames other fragments will be activated and falling down in a progresive way from the impact point.

Important: Be carefull using Concrete Dinanic break. If you use more than one bullet impacting in the same zone using multiple objects or shoting bullets or using “particle/s” options,  try to not have any break zone non active in the scene (lightgreen wireframe) can cause max to freeze. Break zone expansion is very effective for only one impact, or two impacts in the same object but they don’t toch. If they are close, try to lower Impact2, increase Impact1, time to effect =0, and zone effect=100%, with this all your break fragments will go to level0.

Concrete break effect Concrete big objects ( Prebreak option no) and concrete small objects.

Prebreak  Check Prebreak to fragment your objects, (only effects concrete small objects).

Size  Frags size for “concrete small objects”

Dist. to bullet  Distance from “concrete small objects” to bullet to break “concrete small objects”.  If this value is “0″ all “concrete small objects” will break even if they are very far from a bullet or bullet is off.

rad to lev1   Distance from “concrete objects (small and big) to bullet that goes to  level 1.  What is level1? When your Concrete Big object enters inside DM passes from different states, you can see in what state they are watching the wireframe color. First they are white, in this state its not effected by gravity or other objects. If they enters on the “break zone” they come light green, this objects are not effectd by gravity. Only when they are activated (depending on Impact1, Impact2, zone effect, Time to effect) the fragments pass to level 0 (vivid green) In this state fargments are effected by gravity and by other objects, they have high static and dinamic friction (fragments try to stay together with other fragments) and you can define additional friction to it (ideal to mimic reinforced concrete for example). Finally this frags goes to level 1 when they reach “rad to lev1″, “vel to lev1″ or “size to lev1″ and you can see it whit a dark green in your viewports. In this states fragments has low static and dinamic friction and no additional friction.

vel to lev1  When frags on level 0 reach specified velocity they goes to level1. The ideal is that when some frags are not connected to another they pass to lev1, if not you will see a strange behaviour. So “vel to lev1″ is a very good value to play with.

size to lev1  All the frags smaller than this value will pass to level1.

vel to active  Velocity to active only effects “concrete small objects” it has no effect over “concrete big objects”. Is the velocity where objects with no gravity applied pass to level 0 (with gravity).

Friction lev0  Additional friction for objects in level 0 (vivid green). High values produces reinforced concrete look.

Fric. no active Only effects “concrete small objects”. The friction for the objects with no gravity, with high values the objects are not effected by impacts.

With 2nd break your concrete small and big objects will break again. You can break concrete when your frags are faster than a defined velocity or when your frags impacts other objects.

Fragments from level 1 (dark green) converts to yellow when they are at certain distance from any deflector.

Size  Size of fragments

Speed  Red fragments velocity on impact. With lower values the secondary fragment stay more intact and with higher values you have more explosive result.

Spr. Size   With higher values the red fragments extends more trough all the object.

Spr. Time  Frames duration of  fracture extension.

Min. vel. All fragments from level1  impacting in smaller velocity than “min. vel.” will not fragment.

Min. size  All fragments from level1  impacting with smaller size than “Min size” will not fragment.

Break by vel.    Check thisto break your concrete object when some particle are bigger than “min size” and also are more fast than “Min. vel.”

%breakable   Define the % of particles that will break.

Activate%      Define the % of volume that will be fractured from the exterior to the center.  With a low value only the exterior of every particle will be unlinked, with a 100% all frags will be deatached.

break by time   Define a breaking over time. If this value is “100″  when particles pass “min vel” all will frag, if this value is 10, particles will go randomly to break over time. With smaller value particles will take more time to go to break.

time to break  Define the number of frames that breaking will be delayed .

Break by imp.  Check this if you want that concrete breaks when frags impact with other object.

Impact zone  When a concrete object impact with deflector the distance that will be effected (wireframe turns red)

On  Activate break for wood objects

wood direction  Horizontal or vertical for the direction of breaks.

stretch Define stretch factor for wood.

Size Prebreak Prebreak for wood objects.

Size break   Second break on impact point.

Imp. Zone 1  Distance from impact point. All prebreak objects will be break again.

Imp.Zone2  Distance from impact point where “break size” will actuate on impact time

Zone effect  Defined as %  is the percentage of break framents that are activated.

Time to effect  Number of frames that will take to go from impact2 distance to impact1 distance taking in account the zone effect percentage. With “Time to effect” 50 value  you can do a explosion with a first impact producing a hole, and during the next 50 frames other fragments will be activated and falling down in a progresive way from the impact point.

vel to lev1  When frags on level 0 reach specified velocity they goes to level1. The ideal is that when some frags are not connected to another they pass to lev1, if not you will see a strange behaviour.

Fric lev0  Additiona friction for level 0 wood.

Dem. concrete  When “Dem. comcrete” is check all concrete objects creates fragments to wood objects, when off only bullets create frags on wood.

Dist. concrete  If “Dem. concrete” is on this is the distance from concrete frags to wood objects when wood objects will be subdivided.

On Active glass break

lam/no lam  lam=laminated glass. nolam= no laminated glass. Laminated glass is a  vinyl layer between 2 glasses, is the most used glass in cars, security glasses,….  No laminated glass is a “cheap glass” only one glass is used very inestable on impacts.

prox break Distance from impact when glasses will be fragmented.

lam size  Size of laminated glass frags.

lam. fric lev0 Friction for fragments on level0

vel to lev1  Velocity needed in leveo 0 frament to go to level1 where is no friction.

Num. frags Number of particles used to generate the fragmentation for non laminated glass.

Impact zone  For no laminated glass, fragmented distance frome impact point.

zone to lev1  Distance from impact will go to level 1. All the other frags don’t be dettached

Zone effect  No laminated glass zone from impact that goes to level1

Time to effect  Duration in frames that glass break expans.

Steel obects are the most simple objects in DM, they don prefragment, only  pas throught two conditions, Level0 and level1 and can deform or not.

Deform Choose between “no deform”, “deform low”, “deform mid”, or “deform high” for object deformation.

Mass  Steel objects density.

Fric lev0 Friction for all steel objects

Rad to lev1  All objects inside this radius from bullet object will go to level 1.

vel to lev1  All objects from level0 that have higher velocity than this will go to level 1 (without friction).

Introduced in DM 1.5 is the avility to create procedurally joints between diferent objects in DM.  Joints are position and rotation constraints from one object to another. DM creates joints between “concrete big objects”, “concrete small objects” (between them or between his frags if “prefrag” is checked), “steel objects”. All this objects also can create joints with all deflectors objects, fixing them on his original position.  This joints can be breaken under certain velocity or rotation. They are a good solution to simulate concrete reinforced, cloth, or metalic behaviours.

To check if a joint is created go on wireframe mode,  Exactly in the frame when joints are created you will see an object created on viewport that goes from particle center to the position where joint is created. This lines are red for Deflector joints, green for concrete joints and yellow for steel joints. This objects will not appear on your render, are only for visualization.

Type  Define what type of joint you will create they are 4 options:

-Spherical    Objects can rotate free from his joint position.  (Afected by “Friction/dam.” parameter)

-Fixed       Most simple one, this joints trys to keep the objects attached to his original position. (There are no parameters for this joint)

-Ball     Similar to Spherical but we can select a rotation limit  (Afected by “Friction/dam.” and “angle” parameters)

-Wobble  Creates a gum effect (afected by “wooble” and ”Friction/dam.” parameters)

Friction/dam.  Friction applyed to joint. (used for spherical, ball and wobble joints).

angle  Limit angle for “ball” joints. Two objects jointed with this metode cant rotate more than this parameter.

Wobble  Wooble effect for “wobble” joints.

Break Vel.  When a joint pass this velocity limit and “CS breakable” or “Defl breakable” is check will break.

Break Rot.   When a joint pass this rotation limit and “CS breakable” or “Defl breakable” is check will break.

%joints  % of particles that will create joints.  If 100% is selected,  All particles will look on “CS Radius” and will create joints. If you decrease this number to 70, 70% of the particles will create joints with others and 30% not.

Concrete joint  Check this parameter and all your particles in “concrete big objects”, “concrete small objects” (prefragged or not) will create joints.

Steel joint    Check this parameter and all your particles in “steel objects”, will create joints.

CS Radius   Define the distance that every concrete or steel object will look to create joints. Start with low values and increase little by little, if one particle creates joints with a lot of particles system can become unestable.

CS Breakable  Check this if you want your  joints created by ”concrete big objects”, “concrete small objects” to be breaken for the values defined on “Break Vel.” and “Break Rot.”.

Deflect joint  Check so all your concrete and steel objects will look for “Deflectors” objects and will create joints to them.

Deflect radius  Distance that every object will look to create joints with deflectors.

Defl breakable  With this checked deflectors joints can break  when they pass the valued defined on  ”Break Vel.” and “Break Rot.”.

When you use “Bullet physics” as your solver, procedural joints will work as well. Only spherical and fixed works (selecting ball or wobble will create spherical joints also).  So “Friction/dam”, “angle”, “wobble”, and “breake rot.” parameters are not used.

You can choose 3 objects from your scene  to work as “activator”  When a frament or object inside DM is near an activator they will pass to an active rule (a rule with no friction and with gravity).

Activators will also break “concrete big objects” and “wood objects”.

Activators create a lot of particles that will be used to calculate the distance from a fragment.

Show activ. Check on to see your activators influence.

Dist activation  Distance from particles activators to objects.

Propagation Activators particles veloctiy, increase it to see a propagation cracking.

Life  Duration of activators particles.

Use mesh Check on to use an object scene as activator.

Activator   Add yourscene object to emit particles

Dist  Maximum particle distance created.

Dir. var  zero=line of particle,  180= sphere,  intermediate values produce cone objects.

Act. by bullet  When checked, bullets will create particles than can activate objects arround them.

Dist. bullet   Particles distance emited from bullet impact point.

Dir.Var.bullet  Particles direction variation. Particles direction is on Z axis.

Delay   Frames when particles emited will be activated to break concrete or wood.

In debris you have your debris activator control. This debris are created from the fractured faces of your objects. DM has diferent debris for concrete, glass and wood. Also you can specify what type of debris you want for steel. If you add objects on “Concrete small objects” or “Steel objects” and you want to emit debris from some of his faces, you need material ID5 in this faces.

Mult gravity  Gravity multiplier for all the debries except Conc. Trail.

Deflector  Add your object where all the debris will collide.

Conc.Big  Don’t confuse Conc.Big for debris for “concrete big objects” and Conc. small for debris for “concrete small objects”. Conc. Big  are big debris for “Concrete big objects” and also “Concrete small objects” on impact time.

Conc.Small With this checked you will add secondary debris from your “Conc.big” debris, smaller than the others, add details on your destruction.

Conc.Trail  Concrete objects will emit debris as they move away, it has his own gravity.

Conc. Splash  When concrete objects impact on deflectors they will emit debris.

Conc.FumeFx  Check this for see the particles you will use in FumeFx to emit smoke.

Wood big  Big debris for wood objects.

Wood Small  Small debris emited from big debris for wood.

Glass big  Glass debris created on impact.

Glass Trail  Glass objects emit debris as they travel away.

Steel big  Steel debris.

Kill particles  Check it to delete particles when they pass “z position”

z position  Value for z position when your particles will die if “kill particles” is checked.

Adjust Concrete big debris properties.

min size  Fragmentes size below this value don’t emit debris.

min vel.  Fragments velocity below this value don’t emit debris.

shot  Number of debris emited by fragment.

Speed mult.  If 1, debris speed is the same as the fragments, increasing it will increase your debris speed, decreaing from 1 will slow down your debris.

Speed var.  Debris speed variation percentage.

size base  General size of your debris

factor  Multiplier factor that will efect your debris to break the size.

ratio  Debris percentage where your debris will be multiplied by “factor Multiplier”

Adjust Concrete small debris properties.

Speed  Speed multiplier from big debris

Speed var.  Debris small speed variation.

Shot  Number of debris shot from every concrete big debris.

Size  Concrete small debris properties.

Concrete Splash debris are debris generated when a concrete frag impacts with a deflector.

Min. size   Minimum concrete fragments size that will generate splash debris.

Min. velocity  Minimum concrete fragments velocity size that will generate splash debris.

Shot  Number of debris generated in splash.

Velocity Velocity multiplier for splash debris.

Size  Splash debris size.

Size variation  Debris size variation.

Shape vel  To create the splash DM creates a geometry on impact point. From this shape the debris are created. The size of this shape its based in fragment velocity and size. “Shape size vel”  is the influence of size frag over the shape.

Shape size   Is the influence of  velocity frag over the shape.

Concrete objects generate debris as they move.

Size  Particle size

Duration  Frames that frags  will generate trail debris.

part/s  Particle rate on impact time, when fragment pass the duration time, this rate decrease to zero.

Speed  Speed multiply from fragment object.

min vel Mininum velocity to generate glass debris

shot Debris to shot from every frag.

Speed Speed multiplier from frags.

size base  General size of your debris

factor  Multiplier factor that will efect your debris to break the size.

ratio  Debris percentage where your debris will be multiplied by “factor Multiplier”

Size  Size for glass trail debris.

Duration Frames that frags  will generate trail debris.

part/s  Particle rate on impact time, when fragment pass the duration time, this rate decrease to zero.

min. vel Minimum glass fragments size that will generate glass trail debris.

min. size  Minimum glass fragments size that will generate glass trail debris.

Speed  Speed multiplier for debris.

Gravity  Gravity for glass trail debris

Size Size for Wood debris

Size var.  Size variation

Shot  Number of debris for every wood frag

Min. vel  Wood fragment minimus velocitity to emit debris.

Min. size  Wood fragment minimus size to emit debris.

Speed Speed multiplier.

Shot  Number ow small debris for every big debri.

Size  Wood small debris size

Speed Speed multiplier

Speed var. Speed variation

Geometry Choose steel debris geometry (glass, concrete or wood)

min size  Minimum size for your steel frags to emit debris.

min vel.  Minimum velocity for your steel frags to emit debris.

Shot  Number of debris for every steel fragment.

Speed mult.  Speed multiplier

Sped Var.  Speed variation

size base  General debris size.

factor  Multiplier factor that will efect your debris to break the size.

ratio  Debries percentage where your debris will be multiplied by “factor Multiplier”

min size  Minimum size for your steel frags to emit debris.

min vel.  Minimum velocity for your steel frags to emit debris.

Shot  Number of debris for every steel fragment.

Speed mult.  Speed multiplier

Sped Var.  Speed variation

size base  General debris size.

factor  Multiplier factor that will efect your debris to break the size.

ratio  Debris percentage where your debris will be multiplied by “factor Multiplier”

Particles used in FumeFx as source  for generate smoke.  In Demolition Master scene Unhide FumeFx container and make sure covers all your scene, also unhide FFx Smoke. All basic parameters in FumeFx are ready,  you can adjust in FFx Smoke the born and dead radius of emiter particles, and click play on FumeFx container.

Smoke dur. After this number of frames frags will stop emiting smoke.

Life Span  FumeFx particles Life Span.

Part./s  FumeFx rate particles in the moment they born, number of particles will decrease gradually after “Smoke dur.”.

Speed  Fumefx particle aprticles

Min. size  Minimus size for concrete frags emitting fumefx particles.

Min. velocity  Minimus velocity for concrete frags emitting fumefx particles.

On export rollout you can export your particles to geomety with baked animation. You can then export it to other computer without Thinking particles or other software.

Select your animation range and export it. You can now hide Demolition Master. You will see multiple geometries for the same object. Demolition master export one object for every particle.Since diferent particles are created when they passes throught different rules you have diferent objects animated using visibility option.