PhysX Destructible: UDK Rigid Body Collision Destruction Tutorial And Destruction Video

• February 20, 2010
• Written by Mark
• 3 Comments
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YouTube user DigitalDemolition has made and uploaded an impressive video showing off PhysX Rigid Body Destruction made with the Unreal Develop Kit. We have been seeing many video’s like this made with the Unreal Development Kit fracture meshes and PhysX destructibles however this time it uses a vehicle that when hits the wall with a certain amount of force causes the PhysX based destruction. YouTube user Wallomedia10 has also made a really nice in-depth tutorial video showing how you can do this yourself with the Unreal Development kit. We embedded both videos below along with the PhysX Destructible Reference from the Unreal Developer Network in case you are not familiar with what exactly PhysX destructibles in the UDK are.

Be sure to check out the previous posts we have covered on the UDK FractureMeshes and PhysX Destructibles:

Unreal Development Kit PhysX Based Fracture Test Shows Completely Destructible Environment
New Unreal Development Kit Videos Show PhysX Based Destruction
Tutorial: Build Your Own PhysX Destructible’s With The Unreal Development Kit
New UDK PhysX Wall Test Shows Entire Sections Falling Over

From the Unreal Developer Network PhysX Destructible Reference:

When to use a PhysXDestructible instead of a FracturedStaticMesh

The FracturedStaticMeshActor is an efficient way to generate small levels of destruction within a UE3 level. However, if you wish to scale up the amount destruction, the FracturedStaticMeshActor will soon reach some limitations. For one thing, every piece (or conglomorate) that gets ejected is represented by an AActor. If hundreds of pieces are ejected, the AActor overhead can be quite large.

The PhysXDestructibleActor is designed to operate within the regime of hundreds, or even thousands, of rigid body pieces. It handles this in two ways. First, it represents its pieces as bones in SkeletalMeshes. This greatly reduces the AActor overhead. Secondly, it fractures hierarchically. So large pieces that are unfractured remain represented as one rigid body, and one SkeletalMesh bone.

In addition, PhysXDestructibles have some extra features that enhance the effect of destruction. You may assign a “crumble particle system,” which is intended to be a PhysXParticleSystem (see PhysXParticleSystemReference). This will represent the finest level of fracturing. That is, when the smallest pieces are destroyed, their volume will be replaced by a set of PhysX fluid particles. If you use a mesh data type, this can give a convincing crumbling effect. You may also assign a crumble sound, as well as a more traditional particle effect (for smoke or dust, e.g.).

PhysXDestructibleActors can be static or dynamic. If they are static, there are two ways to assign some parts of the Actor to be “support.” When a contiguous path (via chunk pieces) is lost between a chunk and a support chunk, then the chunk will come loose. This feature is available through the FracturedStaticMeshActor, but the PhysXDestructibleActor has an additional feature that allows them to create a support structure between touching actors. That is, islands of touching PhysXDestructibleActors will form one support structure. You may use this, for example, to create a tall column out of several PhysXDestructibleActors. If you shoot through the middle of the column, the actors on top will automatically come loose.

Finally, the PhysXDestructibleActor supports impact damage. By supplying an impact-to-damage scale, fracturing will occur when the PhysXDestructibleActor is hit (or hits) hard enough.

Phys-x Rigid Body Destruction:

Physx Destructible – How to enable Rigid Body Collision Destruction:

Tags: Destructible Building, Destructible Environment, Fracture Meshes, Nvidia, PC, PhysX, PhysX Destructibles, PhysX Rigid Body, Rigid Body Collision, Rigid Body Collision Destruction, UDK