The project I am working on at the moment kept me out of the studio for most of the time recently. While I was away though, I did not want the computers to stay idle, so I set up some calculation-intensive experiments to render during my absence. Here’s one of them.
I have come across a fantastic Cinema 4D plugin called Xbreaker created by pariah Studios. It allows you to shatter pretty much any geometry into tiny pieces with just a few clicks. Add some physics, shaders, a bit of post in After Effects – and you got yourself a nice little visual experiment.
The thing took forever-and-then-some to render, mainly due to my lack of knowledge in render optimization. Still, I think it was better than having the computers off.
Good Times with Xbreaker (click to play)
Music by Nine Inch Nails (Track 9 from the album Ghosts I).
Download Xbreaker (32 and 64 bit):
http://www.pariahstudios.co.uk/xbreaker/
very nice
This appears to be much like the Cebas VolumeBreaker for 3DSMAX.
This has now been incorporated into Thinking Particles 3 so you can also define when and how fragments break, based on such things as material ID, and also define mass. So you could say, smash a window, and the glass fragments into small light pieces, and the frame splinters into heavy wooden chunks.
Rob:
I can never get my head around Thinking Particles. Made several attempts, but I don’t think I will ever get them :(
Well, can’t master everything – I think I will stick to AE and venture into 3D occasionally :)
Hmm… some weeks ago i needed to decide Xplode or Xbreaker.
Xbreaker was very unstable and so i decided to use Xplode.
>> http://xplode.valkaari.com/video.html
Warti, thanks for the tip – I will have to give it a try. Xbreaker is free, that’s why I used it (did not have any stability issues), but it loox like xplode may have some more functions.
LOL just realized how I spelled “looks”.
totally awesome :)
How did you get text to break using this script? I watched the tutorial and can only get solid objects or lathed splines to work. Thanks and great video!
Peter:
Yea, when you apply Xbreaker onto extruded text, the results are quite erroneous. The trick is to first create your extrude, then convert it into editable object. This will typically result in 5 total polygon groups: The front and back face, the front and back bevel and the extrude itself.
You need to manually connect and delete them one by one, since trying to connect all five at once results in one big mess.
Once you get a single polygonal object (after repeating the connect command 4 times) – you will be able to break it easily.
From what I see C4D R12 has a built-in shattering system. Can’t wait to get my hands on that!
another Xbreaker
http://vimeo.com/14859206