I am tring to make a simulation of a wood railing exploding as if it had been shot by a cannon. I am using the explode modifier and a particle system along with the smoke simulator. At first, when my rail exploded, it looked like exploding paper, all the pieces where very thin. So, I added a solidfy modifier. Now, it looks like a bunch of blocks exploding. I want to get the effect of wood exploding, with lots of little splinters and a few larger pieces. Any ideas how to fix this?
Use multiple particle systems an explode modifiers on the same object. One for few larges pieces and one with a high particle number for the smaller pieces. You can use weight painting to control where you will have large and where you will have small pieces if you need to do that
A very basic demo http://www.screencast.com/users/blenderwho/folders/Jing/media/b379c3dd-b043-44ab-bd46-e2f170fb669b
explode.blend
Thank You!!!