Shattering an Object in Cinema 4D with Destruction and Mograph 2

December 17, 2009

Today, I show you how to explode an object in Cinema 4D by first cutting up your object into pieces with a Plugin called Destruction. Then, we will use Mograph 2 MoDynamics to make the pieces fall on the ground.

Download the Destruction Plugin By Adam Swaab Here

Final Render
Destruction_C4D

Thanks to Jonah Tobias for helping me understand the Destruction Plugin.

Watch Part 2 of this tutorial.

61 Comments

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  1. Design Informer on December 17, 2009 said...

    Excellent tutorial. I will definitely put this to some destructive, I mean good use! :)

    Cred

    Very cool plugin and tutorial.

    Could you cover sticking textures to the fracture object in your next tutorial on this subject?

    Radle

    can you help me understand why my object keeps dissapering every time?

    GoOd

    HEY NICK! WHY THE OBJECTS DISSAPERING WHEN I CLICK OK? I CANT DO NOTHING!! I´M CRYING..

    zymos

    Here’s what I did to solve the dissapearing problem: (I’m on Win7 64 bit, C4D 11.5)

    DL the 64 bit version mentioned farther down in this thread, AND the older 32 bit version as well.
    Put BOTH in your plugins directory (I put them in a folder to keep things neat)

    Now it works…I think the plugin needs the TEX folder that came with the 32 bit version, since the 64 bit one only had the single .cdl64 file.

    Hopefully that will help some folks- I was getting pretty frustrated myself!

  2. rob redman on December 17, 2009 said...

    Another great tutorial Nick.
    Careful with the plugin everybody. Save your work a lot! As Nick said, it is very buggy at the moment.

    Rob

  3. Keith on December 17, 2009 said...

    Amazing tutorial Nick! It’s like you read my mind. I was just trying to use Dynamics in C4D for the first time on a side project and had no idea how to do this. Thanks again for all your hard work!

  4. wtf_cakes on December 17, 2009 said...

    I’ve tried destruction in the past and allllllways crashed C4D for me. I got it to work literally 3 times out of 20. I hope a stable version comes out soon because it really is awesome when it works.

  5. rod on December 17, 2009 said...

    This is just brilliant Nick, you’re really demystifying the complexities of Mograph with these easy to follow and fun tutorials. So many 3D tuts are dull like “today we’re going to model and render a kitchen table”. Who wants to do that? You’re showing us how to do the cool stuff and I just want to bust open C4D and get on it right away.

    Thanks so much for sharing.

  6. Shawn on December 17, 2009 said...

    Is this plugin mac only?

  7. Izzy on December 17, 2009 said...

    For those like me who needed a Windows 64bit version, Remo of remotion4d.net compiled it for us.
    You can find it in his post on page 3 of this Destruction thread on CGTalk:)

    http://bit.ly/6yznxf

    Izzy – ragecg.com

    Izzy

    Whoops, I meant page 2:)

    illd

    thanks bro!

    Potemkin

    Thanks!!! I’ve searched for it all day )

  8. PhilCWM on December 17, 2009 said...

    Nice Tutorial! Mograph2 is so awesome… used it for a bunch of glass shattering vfx.

  9. Chris Martin on December 17, 2009 said...

    Very cool Nick!
    I could have used this for my MoDynamics tutorial!

  10. Linus on December 17, 2009 said...

    *argh* It never works for me, the object just disappears when I press OK :/
    looks so fun to use.. :)

  11. on December 17, 2009 said...

    Awesome, I’ve been looking for a plugin and tutorial like this for years.
    Thanks a lot!

  12. Patrick de Bruin on December 17, 2009 said...

    Wow, this looks awesome. I’m still on 11.0, really need to get 11.5!

  13. Dima on December 17, 2009 said...

    Do not stop Nick! Your tutorials are very useful and interesting. I work only for one week in cinema 4D, it’s first 3D application in my life and it’s fantastic!

  14. illd on December 17, 2009 said...

    Hey Nick cool stuff! Finally somebody did it! Since weeks I am visiting this site http://www.codeworkers.de/garage-plugins.html
    they are developing a similar plugin and they showing some sweet testrenders. But it seems theirs is crashing too… Here is a little tip I found out: Sometimes by dividing the polygons a lot the shape doesn´t no longer look smooth. Just delete the phong tag and it will be ok

  15. Neal Carroll on December 18, 2009 said...

    You know MoDynamics isn’t very realistic for this type of work. I wish there was some kind of dynamic engine for C4D that was more realistic.

    Does anyone know?

    The Gorilla

    What don’t you like about MoDynamics, Neal? Sure, it has some limitations, but I think it looks pretty dang good. Maybe you can try SilverBullet?

  16. OrangeLizard on December 18, 2009 said...

    Nice Tutorial as usual Nick. I thought I would share my attempt at the above done the other day. I am attempting to add a frozen in time style spin around mid shatter which I have found a way to achieve manualy which is taking forever but I’m sure there must be a way to freeze the fracture whilst timeline playback continues! Anyway here is the video http://www.vimeo.com/8153508

    The Gorilla

    Cool. I like how there are two sets of physics on this one. I’m not sure about the freeze frame. I haven’t tried it yet. Let me know what you find out?

    Samm Hodges

    the freeze frame thing is really simple, actually. Just go under your mograph tab in project settings and keyframe the time scale to 0.

  17. Daniel Nelson on December 18, 2009 said...

    Really cool stuff, Nick!
    Looking forward to the next part! :)

  18. Hoextra on December 18, 2009 said...

    Nice tutorial! I like the C4D-tuts!
    Keep up the good work! I can’t wait for the next part! Is it before Christmas? So my Christmas ball can fall on my Christmas present under the Christmas tree :D

  19. Jeff on December 18, 2009 said...

    Cool stuff :) cant wait for part 2.

  20. GeeMan on December 18, 2009 said...

    Love your tutorials, Nick. Keep up the good work.
    However, with this one it’s a bit annoying for me as the viewer when you’re continually moving windows, the Viewport, etc. for no apparent reason. Just my 0.02c….

  21. Stef on December 18, 2009 said...

    Thank Nick, I was trying to make this on my own. But had some small bugs. This is really handful.

  22. Mark on December 18, 2009 said...

    Hi Nick, Great tutorial as always. Just one question. At the point you render yours before the destruction your cube look perfect but mine looks deformed with some of the fracture showing! Any ideas? Mark

    Gustaf

    Awesome Nick!
    To bad I have the same problem as Mark here. I’ve tried everything I could think of. Love your site and tutorials/Gustaf

    peter

    I found that right after you use the destruction plugin delete the phong tag… that worked for me…

  23. Curse on December 18, 2009 said...

    you should probably credit Adam Swaab for making such an amazing plugin.

  24. Onskin on December 18, 2009 said...

    Thanks Nick for this tut.
    I try an other thing, in fact I would like that the cube explode when it touch the floor, no before, rrrr, I don’t succeed !! (we don’t use the sphere)

    Scott

    I wish someone would’ve answered this, i’d like to achieve the same effect. I’m attempting to have a beer bottle fall and shatter when it hits the ground… but gravity doesn’t seem to be working until it shatters

  25. James Wicks on December 19, 2009 said...

    Nick,
    I have C4D 10.1 with mograph.
    Will destruction work for me, or is it only a C4D 11/mograph 2 thingy.

    Best,
    J

    Sock Gardener

    There is a version of Destruction for R10 here:
    http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=47&t=702769&page=1&pp=50
    Post# 46 from about a year ago.
    But of course no MoDynamics in R10 :(
    Silver Bullet works ok though :)

  26. Daniel Carlyon on December 20, 2009 said...

    This plugin rocks and the tutorial is fantastic and easy to follow. Downloaded it and tried it out and its fantastic. ty for the great find and great tutorial

  27. Hingane on December 20, 2009 said...

    Jiiihaa like John Wayne would have said!! thnx nick iv been waiting for this soooo loooong :D

  28. underpk on December 20, 2009 said...

    I made this one http://www.vimeo.com/8290653

    by Destruction Plugin after watching this tutorial.

    Nice work!

  29. FabianCRTV on December 20, 2009 said...

    When I press OK in the plugin, delete the cube, but the null object is empty, why is this happening ??

    laidlow

    same here… windows vista. R11.5… no go. just empty null object..

    any one got a clue?

    FabianCRTV

    I usea windows xp R.11.5

    FabianCRTV

    use*

    Helix

    Yeah, I’ve got exactly the same problem :/
    Anyone care to help?

  30. DarkRoomFX on December 29, 2009 said...

    Does Adam’s plug good for PC? or it’s Mac only

  31. mzzrrt on December 29, 2009 said...

    It looks cool but it worked 2 or 3 times, then it stopped workin and cinema4d keeps shutting all the time :/

    Is it possible to use this plugin on a text?

  32. Emmanuel on December 30, 2009 said...

    Hey I have a serious question. Will this work with Windows? If it can please tell me how. Maybe if there another alternative for Windows, I have looked everywhere and I can seem to find where to get this. :(

    The Gorilla

    I’m not sure if this works with windows actually. Did you try it? If not, I don’t know of a similar plugin that is Windows compatible.

    Ray

    Works 100% fine in windows. Windows 7 64bit here and the plugin works flawlessly ( except for the noted crashing and such ;] )

    Emmanuel

    Is there any way I can get the link for the 64bit version for Windows?

  33. Kat on December 31, 2009 said...

    Hey I’m having trouble getting this to work on objects other than the standard shapes…. is there a certain way I need to group my objects in order for this plugin to work more than 3% of the time?

    I did get it to work on some type after about 2 hours of opening and crashing c4d. Check it out here..

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/big_kat/4212945220/

    The Gorilla

    It’s pretty buggy, Kat. There will be a new version out soon I hear. Sorry for all the trouble.

  34. sq on January 4, 2010 said...

    Hey Nick,

    Gr8 tutorial, however when I try with this tea pitcher, I dont get solids on all of my chunks,

    Take a look:http://vimeo.com/8546821

    Eric

    The Gorilla

    The video is set to private.

  35. sq on January 5, 2010 said...

    fixed :)

  36. Matt Ciaglia on January 5, 2010 said...

    http://www.brandonriza.com/3DVisualEffects/HTML/3DVisualEffects.htm

    This guy can make things shatter!!! I emailed him and he basically uses a terrain object to give his “breaks” that rough edge and fill the interior with rough boolean surfaces. He uses 3Ds max though and thinking particles but v3 not v2 that C4D has.

    Great PlugIn Adam!!!

  37. Joanna on January 5, 2010 said...

    Nick, your tutorials are perfect :-) I love them! I am beginner and it is really nice you present everything step by step :-)
    But I have a question. How to install the plugin? I have cinema 4d r10. Does it work in this version? I found some solutions in google but I cant manage. Could you tell me what should I do to use plugins?

    The Gorilla

    I don’t think it works with that version. Sorry, Joanna. 11 and above I think.

  38. Radle on January 6, 2010 said...

    is this just for r.11.5?

  39. Radle on January 6, 2010 said...

    anybody know where i can find a tutorial on this for v11?

  40. Coop on January 8, 2010 said...

    Great tutorials GreyscaleGorilla, working my way through them and they have been a great help.

    People who are having trouble with the cube disappearing its because i presume you are using the win 64bit version.

    Use the Win 32bit version instead and that will work fine.

    Follow the link Izzy posted above and its on Pg1 posted by Bandini himself.

  41. Sebastian on January 14, 2010 said...

    I already saw some tutorials made by you but this one right here made me to subscribe to your feed! ll try it instantly!
    Thanks for sharing :)

  42. Sebastian on January 15, 2010 said...

    Is it possible to get the whole backwards?
    I mean, what I want to have is like the effect from Terminator 2. All piece come together as 1.

    The Gorilla

    Sure, Just render the scene and reverse it in After Effects or an editing program.

  43. peter on January 19, 2010 said...

    Hey Nick

    Every time I devide a cube with the destruction plugin, the chunks remain visible… I have follow your tutorial step by step, but when I hit render, I se the chunks.. What am I doing wrong? Have anyone else had that problem?

    All the best

    Peter

  44. jacques janoyer on January 26, 2010 said...

    Hi,
    I’am new with C4D,
    Thank’s a lot for all
    regards
    jac

  45. James on January 28, 2010 said...

    Is there a way to cause the object to explode on R11? Since it’s only Mograph 1, there don’t seem to be rigid body tags. I’m new to the program so I’m probably being stupid but I can’t seem to find a way for the object to react.

    The Gorilla

    You need R11.5 and Mograph 2 to use the new MoDynamics and the Rigid Body Tag.

  46. Eric on February 1, 2010 said...

    I would really like to make the render in slow motion. Adjusting the project time scale slows down the time but amplify the dynamics. What’s up with that?

  47. Ray on February 5, 2010 said...

    Awesome tutorial man! Very easy to follow. I have always wanted to know how to explode things in 3D apps and it is fairly easy (thanks to your thorough guide) with Cin4D and that plugin.

  48. Lost Marble Media on February 9, 2010 said...

    Got to the part where you click OK…crashes everytime…

    I’ll have to wait for a stable version…

    Cool tut though!

  49. Tom on February 9, 2010 said...

    man this is great- actually lifesaving for the project i’m working on. thanks so much!!!

  50. Christopher S. Knell on February 9, 2010 said...

    Hi Nick,

    Is there a way to import an AI spline, extrude it and then convert it to a polygon object so this plugin will work on it?

    Christopher S. Knell

    Got it.
    1) Make editable
    2) Function>Optimize
    3) Apply plugin as instructed.
    Optional:
    4) Admit I’m a genius.

    The Gorilla

    BAM!!!!

  51. Brian on February 11, 2010 said...

    I tried this tonight. I think it is safe to say that any model with some detail will crash C4D. Thats why a cube works so well. Thanks for the tut Nick.

    The Gorilla

    Yeah, he will have a new version of the plug out soon it looks like.

  52. jap on February 13, 2010 said...

    please help me.. i dont have rigid body on mographs tag..

    The Gorilla

    You probably need Cinema 4D 11.5 and Mograph 2.0

  53. Chris Murch on February 14, 2010 said...

    Thanks for another awesome C4D tutorial, here’s my version:

    http://tmdmedia.ca/blog/?p=148

  54. Oliver Koch on February 16, 2010 said...

    AWESOME Cinema 4D Plug-In (for creating debris & destruction): http://xplode.valkaari.com/en/xplode.php

    It seems to be more reliable than the well known destruction plugin by Adam Smith

  55. Dane on February 20, 2010 said...

    Yo Gorilla!

    Great information, thanks a bunch.

    I was wondering if you have come across this problem…

    I have a similar set up to your cube destruction only my cube is a sheet of glass and my ball is a bullet. The bullet shoots through the glass and continues on its path. The glass smashes.

    My problem comes when I try to cache the animation. When using the Mograph cache tags my bullet decided to bounce off the glass instead of going through?.. everything else works fine.

    Have you encountered this problem when caching?

    Thanks again.

    Dane

    Melbourne, Australia.

  56. Fern on February 22, 2010 said...

    Same thing as Rayfire Tool for 3ds max, just less expensive (since its free, lol) and with less attributes….
    but still cool…thanks for the find bro…

  57. Neil on February 25, 2010 said...

    Yo, Gorilla
    Great tutorials!
    One question about this destruction thingy:
    Say I want to have a logo falling out of the sky and destroying on impact. Whats the way to do this?
    Because, of course, if you set the object to destroy on impact, its uneffected by the gravity.
    The only way I found, was setting an initial velocity and basicly throwing the object onto the floor plane. Which is a bit of a hack because the Text does not really fall, it always looks like it gets thrown.
    Is the only way to keyframe the velocity?

    Neil

    Not even the trick with the velocity works.
    Objects seem to shatter as soon the are moved…

    The Gorilla

    Still trying to figure this one out. Some of the newer destruct plugins do a better job in making a cleaner break.

    Try out this new one. It may allow you to drop it better.
    http://pariahstudios.co.uk/Products.html

    Jason

    Neil, be sure and post your findings. I too am looking for a similar dynamic and having the same problem – once the fractured object is set to break on impact, gravity fails.

    (Unfortunately I’m at work and can’t test this out myself. I’ll definitely try out that Pariah plugin once I get home.)

    Gorilla, great site man. Thanks for the knowledge.

    Jason

    Tried Nitroman’s Xbreaker plugin, but the gravity problem still exists for me. I’m trying to have a small text object fall to a floor and bounce, and then a large text object fall on top of the smaller one and crush it.

    The fracture in my case needs to happen based on the force of the collision… or at least clever keyframing. Doing this stationary is easy. Once we add in gravity, things seem to get lost.

    Will let you know if I figure it out. If anyone else does, please share it with the group.

  58. Pablo on March 1, 2010 said...

    Hi nick, im from CHILE (the earthquake country by now) and i have this
    question about this tutorial.
    How can i shatter the sphere in this case, when it crash in to the cube, like it was made by steel and the sphere of rock or something that could broke.

    Great tutorial by the way, and great website

  59. Taradacktyl on March 3, 2010 said...

    I am using C4D 10 on a mac and can’t get the plugin to work at all.

    I downloaded version 10 on CGTalk, install it in the plugins folder but nothing shows up.

    Anyone have any experience with this and can point me in the right direction? I really want to explode something!

    Thanks,
    Tara

    abi

    I’m having the same problem. win7 64-bit and runing 11.5. I did a test with the olx pluggin folder and that shows , so why dont the disruction folder show?

    Help needed…

  60. Bilfrok on March 9, 2010 said...

    I´ve downloaded and install Destruction_013_R11_Win64bit but the cube disappears.
    Coop, you says win32bit version will fix the problem but in CGtalk forum there is not destruction win32bit plugin for download, only the mac32 bits. (I´ve already downloaded and tried)

    Can anybody help?
    Thnks soo much!

    I´m working in C4D r11.5 windowsxp64bits

  61. Gilson on March 9, 2010 said...

    I’m on Leopard and it keeps dissapearing too!
    plugin version 0.1.3.

    Help!

8 Trackbacks

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