[Update] Perfect Parking Spot – Scene-Building and Simulating Destruction

A bit of a mini-update while I'm continuing to work through destruction simulation for this centrepiece shot:

I’ve finished off the bulk of the scene-building for this animation, including some interiors for destruction set-pieces specific to this shot.

For interiors, to start with I’ve made this rooftop canteen whose metal canopy is going to get ripped off by Rog’s passing toes (before he stomps down on the building with his heel as he flattens the centrepiece parking lot with the ball of his foot):

Along with that canteen interior I've also modelled interior levels for this multi-storey parking garage:

Neither Rog's foot nor the crater it produces ends up touching this structure, but I'm planning on having half of it (the half facing into the street) collapse anyway. In terms of remaining interiors, what's left to do is some lobby space and possibly some floors for this one building here:

It'll only be partially damaged in this shot, with some of the front façade collapsing due to Rog's footprint crater (and revealing some of the interiors):

Simulating Rigid Body Based Destruction

I’ve also made a start on simulating rigid body destruction stuff for this shot, beginning with that canteen's roof getting ripped off along with a bit of the wall of the next building over:

While the wall crumbling was rather easy, the roof of the canteen has been more challenging.

I'm using the RBDlabs addon for all of this which includes a 'metalsoft' module designed specifically for metal deformation and fracturing. That's been incredibly useful but also not without issues, mainly constant crashing and files becoming randomly unloadable after saving sometimes.

Luckily, I've been in the habit of saving and keeping multiple iterations of files around, but this does mean that I've often had to restart the process from any number of steps back because I've done something the simulation hasn't liked, saved it and made subsequent files unusable.

Setbacks aside I have been able to begin honing in on the result I'm looking for.

Though for the moment I've decided to switch gears and focus on doing simulations for the three previously mentioned buildings instead, along with the ground beneath them (i.e. the streets and the parking lot), then finishing the canopy up afterwards.

Generally my approach to destruction simulations is to break scenes up into groups of objects. For buildings that's usually a single building and any of it's immediate neighbours (if it has them). I then simulate each group separately, breaking them down into layers based on the 'weight' of their materials.

So for example, I start by simulating the fracturing of the walls and floors of a building, followed by baking the results and using them as colliders for the next layer down. That next layer would be things like windows or furniture, then the layer below that can be even smaller loose objects and so on.

This way I'm able to simulate lots of destruction for complex scenes without melting my PC (this is how I handled all that destruction in Orcish Breakfast).

What's up next:

So, I'm going to be continuing work on destruction simulation for this shot into next month. My aim is to get the rigid body simulations for all three buildings and the ground done and ready for use in smoke simulations.

Once I'm at that point, I'll post an update and switch back over to working on Sweaty Summertime Shrinking some more.