How to make a Collapsing Building?

[rjhelms84]

What's the best way to make a collapsing building? Any ideas? Do I need to make an animated nif file, and do some fancy scripting, or what?

 

Was also thinking about a collapsing road.

[Glenstorm]

I don't know if this would be resource heavy on the machine but you could make use of the Havok system to simulate a building crash.

 

Have two versions of the same structure. One should be whole and should be static. This is the building itself. The other should be divided into multiple large chunks (around the size of a vertibird or the Boomer bomber if you want to go large) and should be havokable. The havokable objects should vaguely resemble the actual building when put together. Place the static and the havokable objects in the same place (havokable objects fit roughly like a jigsaw puzzle, but don't have to be exactly so). You can also add random junk building parts found in the vegas files. Disable the building parts by default.

 

When you need to explode the building, disable the static, enable the havok and create a giant explosion in the middle of the havok objects. The force would throw the debris in all directions. If the havok mass is set really high, I doubt it will travel much laterally. The blast would simply rattle the havok objects and the building will collapse. Of course the junk parts I mentioned earlier has relatively low mass and will fly much farther.

 

Note that this might be taxing on the computer due to the insanely large havok objects. If you attempt this method, you can also disable the giant havok building parts after the collapse to save resources.

 

But of course an animation is more friendly towards low end computers as it does not require much in the way of computation.

[PaladinRider]

Another method would be to have your static building set where you want it to be; When it comes time to implode it, enable the explosions and a mess of rubble.

 

On the building run a script to adjust the Z position every second.

set BuildingZ to ( BuildingRef.GetPos Z - 10 )
BuildingRef.SetPos Z BuildingZ

 

 

Essentially you are forcing your building to descend into the ground, but the rubble and effects will mask it. Even enable more rubble as the building is descending.

[rjhelms84]

Glenstorm - When making a havok object, is the actual nif different than a regular static's nif? Does it need some extra data?

 

PaladinRider - Awesome, that kind of script gives me a lot of ideas for other stuff. Is that how Speedy's elevator works?

[Quetzlsacatanango]

I would just disable the standing building and enable a collapsed building, and cover the transition with an explosion or smoke or something. But I'm lazy like that.

[Glenstorm]

Yeah. In the NIF file,

 

bhkRigidBodyT

Mass -> Set to higher than 0.0

MotionSystem -> MO_SYS_DYNAMIC

Deactivator -> DEACTIVATOR_INVALID

Solver -> SOLVER_DEACTIVATION_INVALID

 

I think this should do it. I jotted this down when I saw it somewhere in case I need it later. Haven't tested it though.

 

I think PaladinRider's method would be a lot easier and less resource intensive though. You might want to try that if you just want to get this over with as quick as possible.

 

Cheers

Glenstorm

[PaladinRider]

Glenstorm - When making a havok object, is the actual nif different than a regular static's nif? Does it need some extra data?

 

PaladinRider - Awesome, that kind of script gives me a lot of ideas for other stuff. Is that how Speedy's elevator works?

 

Not sure how Speedy's elevator works, but I'd imagine so. I believe davidlallen does something similar with moving a mine cart or something along the lines of that.