Preview

Ground shatter

1. Creating Path Based Shatter

Step 1

Open Maya.

Step 2

Create a cube polygon mesh in the perspective view port.

Step 3

Create another cube mesh but slight bigger than the first one and then place it beneath the first cube mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Go to Create > Bezier Curve Tool and draw a curve as shown in the following image. 

Step 5

With the upper cube selected, click on the ShatterIt feature icon.

Step 6

In the ShatterIt feature window, set the values of Num Shards to 120 and Shatter Style to Path Based. Click on Select Path and then select the Bezier curve. Finally, click on Shatter It! Button.

Step 7

Select all indicated chunks one by one as shown in the following image.

Step 8

With the chunks selected, click on Create a new layer and assign selected objects icon. This creates a new layer1 with all the selected chunks. 

Step 9

Double click on the layer1. It opens Edit Layer window. Rename the layer as Static. 

Step 10

Turn off the visibility of the Static layer to hide the layer objects.

Step 11

With the rest broken chunks selected, click on Create a new layer and assign selected objects icon. This creates a new layer1 with all the selected chunks.

Step 12

Double click on the layer1. It opens Edit Layer window. Rename the layer as Dynamic.

Step 13

With the dynamic chunks selected, click on Create Pdi Body icon. In the Create Rigid Body window, set Type as Dynamic and turn on Mesh option. Close the window.

2. Applying Force Field

Step 1

Jump in the Dynamics mode.

Step 2

Go to Fields > Air. It creates air field in the view port.

Step 3

With the air field selected, open Attribute Editor. Go to Distance tab and turn off Use Max Distance option. 

Step 4

Go to Volume Control Attributes tab and set the Volume Shape to Sphere.

Step 5

Scale up the size of air field’s gizmo as shown in the following image.

Step 6

With the chunks selected, click on Set Pdi Dynamics Properties icon. In the Pdi Dynamics properties window, turn on affected by Force Fields option and then click on Include/ Exclude button.

Step 7

It further opens a sub-window. Select airField1 and click on Accept.

Step 8

Delete the cracker object as shown in the following image.

Step 9

Animate the Transform property of the air field gizmo along the Bezier path.

Step 10

Under Air Field Attributes, increase the value of Magnitude to 400.

Step 11

With the chunks selected, click on Set Pdi Dynamics Properties icon. In the Pdi Dynamics properties window, set the value of Mass to 20.

Step 12

Hit the Play button to simulate the scene. You can see the chunks start dispersing due to the air field.

Conclusion

In the next part of the tutorial, I'll demonstrate some more exciting and dynamic ways to destruct the elements.