Is there a way to break the volume inside a mesh? If I have a cube, I would like it to maintain the same boundaries as a cube, but the inside would be “torn” like in the picture below.
What I’m trying to accomplish is a cube (or any other shape) filled with holes (or irregular pieces depending on the settings).
Using particles is one way to do it, but selecting and joining e.g. 200 particles for boolean subtracting is a lot of work. Unless there is a better way to choose objects from the object list than choosing them one by one while pressing CTRL down.
I have a feeling there is an add-on that will do this fairly easily, but I don’t know what it is. However:
Make the objects inside a collection. Have the collection selected when you apply the particle system (or however you want to make the voids). Select one of the collection objects and press SHIFT-G → Collection. Join with CTRL-J. Subtract from the larger object with boolean difference. Be careful with this, maybe practice with a fairly simple system and work your way up, because both the mesh join and the difference can be fairly intensive or hang/crash Blender.
If you get weird results, you can experiment with re-meshing or decimating the voids before subtracting them so you get cleaner geometry.
edit: another way to batch-select many objects is to click on the first in the outliner, then scroll down and SHIFT-click on the last one.