UDK APEX destructible project WIP

RU1NOUS

Hi Guys,
Here is a project I have been working on over the last few weeks. I have been trying to create a fully destructible environment within UDK. I am after some help and some feedback on the piece, all the meshes have been setup for destruction within the Nvidia PhysX lab software.
I am having some problems with floating meshes when sections of the environment is destroyed. I am after any suggestions on how I could set this up so that the meshes are dependent on each other within the environment. For example if the bottom of a pillar is destroyed the pieces that should be supported collapse. I have tried using the “use extended structures” flag within UDK but this crashes the editor. I have started an error reporting thread on the UDK forums located here: (sorry if this breaks any rules, I’m not sure if I’m ok to link external threads)

http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=772520

I am after feedback on the scene and also on the quality of the destruction and any suggestions on how I can improve it.
The scene is currently lit using Dynamic lighting only, I have used a Dominant directional light movable and a Dynamic Skylight to try and fake the impression of bounced light. Any suggestions on how to improve this would also be great.
Here are some screenshots of the scene.



Here is the WIP video of the destruction within UDK.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4MCqM6Jq_0[/ame]
At this point all Critique will be really helpful.
Cheers for taking a look.

feanix

I played with the APEX tools just the other day and I have to say I'm . The entire system, as far as destructibles go seems to be a scaled up version of the fracture tool. In face, the fracture tool seems a bit more useful and much easier. Maybe I'm missing something.

I guess I was hoping for something a bit more like this
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE4k9Vmcp5g[/ame]

It's also just fracturing but theres some physics afterwards. Things hang together a bit more. The dont just explode into a million tiny pieces.

Rick_D

did they ever really use that breakability in the games?

feanix

Hmm, well I was playing around with the APEX lab for a couple of hours and I didn't seen anything about having that level of control.

glottis8

Ditto to what is already said. Most of your objects just explode like confetti into debris. When you should preserve some big parts that retain the shape so that you can see them go down, while you still have some of that debris exploding everywhere.

http://youtu.be/gkQKCHzFW1Q

http://youtu.be/pWi7nG_45BU

Mike Yevin

i think you guys are expecting too much from a FREE engine, and from what i understand apex is capable of a lot. what i really like about apex is the other features it offers, such as physics based clothing on rigged characters.

just give the tech some time, people will figure it out sooner or later

feanix

Free is a difficult concept here. The argument is not that we REQUIRE better software, but that as far as we could tell it just wasn't much better than the fracture tool built into the UDK and therefore wasn't very much more useful. Of course, it seems I may well be wrong (and I'm happy to be, in this case!).

RU1NOUS

Thanks for taking a look guys, I agree the destruction doesnt have the weight to it that would be expected from heavy sandstone and is look very much like confetti. I had a look at DMM but there is no way to my knowledge to get my hands on it sadly.
I was hoping that you guys could give some critique on the following please as it will really help me push this over the next few weeks.

1/ Quality of the lighting solution and any suggestions to improve it.

2/. The Quality of the scenes composition and meshes and any suggestion for improvement.

3/ Quality of the materials and textures and any suggestion on ways to improve them.

4/. Any more Crits on the quality of the destruction in the scene and sugestion for improvement.

Any other thoughs will be valued as well


Thanks again for taking the time to look.

feanix

Sorry man, we did kinda hijack your thread.

1) Lighting seems decent enough. Basically it's just good ol' dynamic shadows and light environments, right? Lightmaps really aren't an issue so I don't see much room for improvment.

2) Your scene could possibly use some colour. Try some ancient, faded paint. Theres plent of evidence to suggest that these columns were painted in the past. I'm not saying have a rainbow unicorn party, just a hint of colour. The heiroglyphs dont show up very well, I ony just saw them at HD resolution. More AO is required for those to read well. It's hard to see the exact layout from the video but it looks a bit random. Maybe try looking at more references?

3) The material for the broken surfaces of stone needs to be a lot noisier. If you already have a broken normal map, multiply it by two or three times. Reference.

4) Ideally, nice to make the stone less bouncy (some peices seems to bounce quite high up into the air) and also to reduce the threshold at which things break apart and make the rock stick together more. There's a moment at 0:21 where this is particularly bad. It's just a guess but possibly increasing the weight and strength of the stone A LOT might fix many of your problems. The stone is too brittle (resembles ice, physically speaking).

5) I'm curious, do you have an NVidia card?

Hope this helps!

RU1NOUS

Thanks for the feedback feanix, yeah im using an Nvidia card man.

Ive had a look at some of the feedback so far and have also detailed the scene. In the latest updates ive added some PhysX based cloth into the mix as well.

Here is the latest update on the project.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5jSPPmY_VE[/ame]

Again any feedback would be great at this point.

feanix

That's definitely an improvment! The stone looks much tougher and the cloth is a nice touch. Is that rebar inside the stone, though?

fragfest2012

Hey guys, I think I know how to fix the confetti thing. Basically, you have to change things in the APEX Lab first, in the playground. On the right of the screen, there are a few variables to change like damage threshold, damage cap, accumulate damage and so forth. The top one is gravity, make that a lot larger until the pieces you break in the playground fall realistically, also you may want to set a higher damage threshold and you might want to turn off accumulate damage, that is up to you. Also, in the assets sub menu in the main window, make sure form extended structures and world overlap are both on. You will also want to increase the material strength in UDK as well as add force to damage and damage to radius.

Hope this helps,