So I’ve been thinking about the fracture tools script. It’s a nice tool, but it’s got me thinking. I’ve got two suggestions on (hopefull) implementable tools that could replace its functionality while giving the artist greater control.
A Fracture modifer. The concept here is to have a modifier, like all the other modifiers, that produces shards in the same manner as the (currently broken) Fracture Tools script. The thing about this being a modifier instead of an addon on is, you could use weight painting to modify where the cracks are placed. Say you want to ahve something crash through a wall, or have holes knocked in a barrier. Using a fracture modifier would give the artist greater control and the option to modify their mesh while the fractures are still in place. Naturally, once the crack design has been finalized, there’d be a button in that modifier, similar to the “apply” button all the other modifiers have, that would split the fractured mesh into one object for each shard. For optimal performance, the shards would all be placed in one group with the name of the original object.
Physics Baking. Yes, I know you can just “record game engine” physics to curves, but it feels slapped-together and unwieldy. A better solution would be to have a separate choice in the “Physics Panel” for an object to have a “rigidbody” property or something similar. Press the play button on the timeline or hit alt-a, and you get your physics objects in the scene- no Game Engine required. An added benefitto this would be allowing animated meshes (i.e. a character or vehicle) to interact with the physics-based objects, letting a character hit a baseball in a realistic fashion. This functionality could be extended infinitely, allowing curves to be physics-ized for things like chains or ropes. Naturally, you could hit a “bake physics to curves” button, and, just like particle baking or fluid sim baking, the physics are baked. In this case, though, they would be baked to curves which you could then manually tweak. Hit “Free bake” and the object returns to its physics-only animation.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. Hopefully these ideas will get some devs thinking and maybe this’ll make it into to Blender 2.57.
Physics Baking. Yes, I know you can just “record game engine” physics to curves, but it feels slapped-together and unwieldy. A better solution would be to have a separate choice in the “Physics Panel” for an object to have a “rigidbody” property or something similar. Press the play button on the timeline or hit alt-a, and you get your physics objects in the scene- no Game Engine required. An added benefitto this would be allowing animated meshes (i.e. a character or vehicle) to interact with the physics-based objects, letting a character hit a baseball in a realistic fashion. This functionality could be extended infinitely, allowing curves to be physics-ized for things like chains or ropes. Naturally, you could hit a “bake physics to curves” button, and, just like particle baking or fluid sim baking, the physics are baked. In this case, though, they would be baked to curves which you could then manually tweak. Hit “Free bake” and the object returns to its physics-only animation.
The GSOC 2010 projects have not yet neccessarily been implemented into 2.57 yet, awaiting a stable version.
See his blog for more info http://aligorith.blogspot.com/search/label/Bullet
Basically, what you’ve suggested is already being worked on.
can’t wait until feature freeze is over (isn’t it NOW?! when 2.57 is “stable”) , we need to get in the stuf that was done in last years GSoC before this years GSoC starts.
Read the release page on Blender.org, there’s going to be a 2.58 release yet after another round of getting a couple of final development targets done and a ton of bugfixing due to all the new reports they’ll probably get from the inevitable increase in testing from users as a result of the 2.57 release.
2.58 is being slated as the final conclusion to the 2.5 project, which then the feature freeze will be lifted.
A fracture modifier like the suggested one I think could make our lives (as users) quite a bit easier when needing to do complex things such as, for example, a Window in slow motion with bullets going through it. (which has the potential to look awsome if done correctly)
And (off topic, except for the whole bug thing that Ace was talking about) Personally I have been RIDDLED with bugs already. (My personal “Favorite” Is almost definately the innability to select edges with the box select…)
