Preview

1. Custom Centered Shatter

Step 1

Open Maya.

Step 2

Go to Create > Polygon Primitives > Cube and create a cube in the perspective view port.

Step 3

With the cube selected, go to PullDownIt menu bar and click on the ShatterIt feature icon.

Step 4

In the ShatterIt feature window, set the values of Shatter Style to Local, Num Centers to 1 and then click on Shatter It! button. 

You'll see the cube gets shattered with one center as shown in the following image. 

Step 5

Undo the action. Once again follow the previous step, but with the value of Num Centers as 3. Click on Edit Centers button.

There are three axes on the cube which represent three different centers. You can easily shift their positions using Move tool. 

Step 6

Click on the Shatter It! button. You can see the cube gets shattered with three centers as shown in the following image.

2. Creating Radial Shatter

Step 1

In the ShatterIt feature window, set the values of Shatter Style to Radial, Num Rings to 1 and then click on Shatter It! button. 

Step 2

You will see the cube gets shattered in the radial form as shown in the following image.

Step 3

This time, set the values of Num Shards to 128, Num Rings to 3, Noise to 1 and then click on Shatter It! button. 

Step 4

Set the values of Num Shards to 13, Num Rings to 3, Noise to 1, Main Axis to M(medium) and then click on Shatter It! button. You'll see the shattered cube as shown in the following image.

Step 5

Set the values of Num Shards to 13, Num Rings to 3, Noise to 1, Main Axis to L(longest) and then click on Shatter It! button. You'll see the shattered cube as shown in the following image.

2. Creating Wood Splinters

Step 1

In the ShatterIt feature window, set the values of Num Shards to 13, Shatter Style to Wood splinters, Width to 0.1 and then click on Shatter It! button.

Step 2

You'll see the cube gets shattered in the wooden splinters form as shown in the following image.

Step 3

When you hit the Play button to see the simulation, a dialogue box appears asking for making the grid into ground. Click on Yes button. Now the grid acts as the ground.

Step 4

You'll see a ground plane in the view port as shown in the following image.

Step 5

Hit the Play button to see the simulation. The cube hits the ground and gets broken into wooden pieces.

3. Creating Path Based Shatter

Step 1

Go to Create > CV Curve Tool.

Step 2

Create a curve through the cube as shown in the following image.

Step 3

In the ShatterIt feature window, set the values of Num Shards to 250, Shatter Style to Path Based and Width to 0.1. 

Click on Select Path button and select the CV curve and then click on Shatter It! button. You'll see the shattered cube as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Create a sphere in the perspective view port. With the sphere selected, click on Create Pdi Body icon. In the Create Rigid Body window, select the Type as Dynamic and then click on Update Transform.

Step 5

Hit the Play button to see the simulation. The cube hits the sphere and gets broken into pieces.

4. Creating Cut Material

Step 1

Create a sphere in the view port. With the sphere selected, go to PullDownIt menu bar and click on the ShatterIt feature icon. In the ShatterIt feature window, set the values of Num Shards to 10, Shatter Style to Uniform and then click on Shatter It! button. 

You'll see the shattered sphere as shown in the following image.

Step 2

Move a broken chunk of the sphere. You can see the internal parts of the chunks are green. You can either edit the color or apply some texture/ material.

Step 3

Go to Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade. 

Step 4

In the Hypershade window, click on the green slot. It opens the green color attribute in the Attribute Editor.

Step 5

Edit the color and it will update the cut material in the view port.

Conclusion

In the next part of the series, I'll show you some more dynamic simulations and interactions of PDI bodies in Maya.