Basics of Unreal Engine 5 Chaos || Tutorial

This video will show the basics of Unreal Chaos. Unreal Chaos is a new physics and destruction system, that you can use to have real-time destruction at a large scale and more optimized then other systems.
(UE 5 recommended to use here)
In the video a basic cube is used as example for destruction. The workflow and the setup for this can be fully done in Unreal Engine. The first task to do is fracture the mesh, this is needed for the simulation and these are the breakable pieces. We are still working with real-time simulations so it is recommended to not go very high in the amount of pieces.
Once the mesh is fractured you can do some basic simulation but nothing special. A good idea to do here is to go in the geometry collection file and tweak the settings for better collision or optimize it.
An important part of Chaos is creating fields. These field give information of instructions to the destroyable meshes in the scene. You can create fields for impacts to fields for anchoring pieces or stop simulating pieces.
Timestamp
00:00 Intro
00:16 Overview process
01:01 First impressions
01:53 Enable plugins
02:05 Create mesh
02:12 Fracture the mesh
02:57 Geo collection Properties
05:20 Creating Fieldsystems
07:35 Adding Force field
09:46 Anchor fields
13:30 Outro

[@tom.looman]

Chaos! Good to see some videos about this, its shrouded in mystery.

[@harumpher3712]

Very helpful for my project, would love to see more from you

[@markpaulbello7602]

Excellent video. Clearly explained all the basics to get started on soft soft. Thanks

[@oLucasX]

Again, thanks for the super good video! keep the good work!

[@brandonjacksoon]

Really nice tutorial! Liked and subscribed ;)

[@UNKNOWN-kg7nx]

amazing, pls keep the good tuterials coming my friend.

[@MarkOfArgyll]

Thanks for this, very well explained. :)

[@timsonss]

I wanted to get into chaos, just needed the right tutorial and here we are

[@galaxyselection4531]

Your lessons help me a lot in mastering Houdini. I have a suggestion: you can record a lesson - how to make buildings for games, increase the floors of a building that a character can enter, how to equip these buildings with assets, texture, etc. And how to use it in UE4/UE5. Thank you in advance!

[@CivicYt]

This is so important for new games. A lot of us are tired of realistic FPS games without great destruction.

[@robertdavies5139]

thanks! very useful for a project i'm working on.

[@UrbanExplosionsGuy]

thanks for this Simon! :)

[@msinclaircorp4571]

Excellent!!!! thanks for the tutorial, you are the Best!!! thankssss

[@Darkmatter_]

I love it. Thanks you-!

[@Mortenlu.kungfu]

Great video. Thanx 🙂

[@HenrikGamborg]

Thank you very much for this video. I am attempting to sleep an object until i trigger its chaos simulation by removing/disabling the sleep field uppon entering a trigger. For the life of me, i could not figure out why my sleep fields were not functioning. But this video showed me one simple thing i was missing. I did not know to add the BP into the field array on the mesh enacting the chaos animation. Thank you for this video, my first step has finally been taken in my journey to scripted chaos events in my level.

[@yanovsky62360]

thank you for the very simplistic explanation of how tNice tutorialngs work. tNice tutorials is the best explanation I have co across on you tube.

[@artvfx1117]

Thanks so much!

[@SukantoDhali]

YOU ARE A GOD... NO QUESTION ABOUT IT

[@olaufr]

Thanks for this video, that's super interesting to see how to implement this system in Blueprint. Do you think it could be possible to get from the original object state directly to the final destroyed state without animation? I think this may have to do with Geometry Collection Caching.

[@btarg1]

I would love to see tutorials for how to spawn in the fields on collision with a projectile or hitscan weapon!

[@user-to2ik8dq9j]

perfect😀

[@muhammadalvie4780]

Thank you

[@domort9]

Cool video, thanks ! Is there a way like in UE4 to import broken parts from an outside process like Houdini ? I can't see the option anymore in UE5, but maybe geo collections can be generated and filled by scripts and build this ourself ?

[@webbeveep2243]

Which would you use, Chaos or Houdini for mesh sim destruction? Both? Great video. :)

[@namensloserkanal7560]

I am your 900th like!

[@WarningStrangerDanger]

Would it be possible to do this, but make it soft instead of hard? Like a wall of hard snow/clay? I'd love to know if we could use this for more splattery-gorey horror stuff as well.

[@danielpacker8227]

Great video - but I have a quick question - You're using a Field Magnitude of 500 in your field System Actor, but I'm finding that I need ridiculously high values (like 5000000) to have any effect. Where can I look to troubleshoot this?

[@LonelyLambGG]

I had to use Linear Velocity over Linear Force, I'm not quite sure why, but it worked after that

[@tubicidio]

Hi, thanks for your video. How can I save the "transform" of all pieces after they split? I tried with "get relative" or "get world tranform" from the actor's geometry collection component but it doesn't work, any ideas?

[@zawpaingphyo8830]

You have no idea how grateful I am for tNice tutorials series

[@2intwineproductions]

Hello. How would you make a static cube break/fracture only when a third person character collides with it? and not using gravity on the cube?

[@KakosLykosZero]

Nice video, very informative! i have a couple questions about chaos: 1.Can you put multiple destruction effects on a single object? Like on a wall to be fractured if it's blasted and cut in a linear geometry if you cut it with a laser or something? 2.Can you put this on already built assets? like rocks or gargoyles or trees and stuff like that?

[@Dante02d12]

Apparently this doesn't work for Skeletal Meshes (characters, or any animated stuff). But any static mesh is fine. I just destroyed a Digimon with Chaos physics, it was pretty lol. I'll look for a way to destroy moving stuff, because without that, Chaos would only work for destructible environments. I mean it's already cool, but it would be more useful. EDIT : I forgot to tell you the most import thing, lol. UE allows you to make a static copy of a skeletal mesh. Double click on your character (or whatever it is), it will open the edit window. There's a button at the top of the screen that allows you to make a Static Mesh copy. You can even choose any pose from the animation of the character. For example, if you have a lion growling, you can make a static mesh out of the moment it growls. That means you can: - Animate your moving object however you want. - Switch it with its static mesh copy *at the exact frame it needs to be destroyed.* - destroy the static mesh. What you _won't_ be able to do is make a broken mesh still move. Now who knows, maybe there's a way to translate the broken static mesh into a skeletal mesh, _then_ it could move...

[@Boliang327]

i looked up the documentation of houdini engine and happily found some attributes for Chaos, which means that it's possible to have mesh fractured in houdini and create geometry collections in UE through houdini engine.However, there seems to be some issue with the uvs of meshs baked by houdini engine, it usually contains some unexpected uv distortion. i have no idea how to deal with this...

[@Flipside3D]

Thank you so much for the tutorial, very helpful for us who are trying to learn how this system works! I was playing around with this and was wondering if there was a way to incorporate chaos in sequencer for making cinematics?

[@rossgribben3001]

I too am trying to do this, my plan is to use the take recorder - hope this helps!

[@josebringas513]

same here, any idea?

[@rossgribben3001]

@@josebringas513 you need to create a ChaosCacheManager from the actor menu at the top, then once you have recorded the simulation you can create a ChaosCachePlayer from the blueprint class. You place the ChaosCachePlayer into sequencer and use the 'start time' track to keyframe... hope this helps!

[@josebringas513]

Thanks man, I'll follow the steps! Thank you

[@luigitasso1894]

Hello, do you know how to convert the fracture to mesh while keeping the explode amount? When i convert a fractured sphere to a mesh, it goes back to a sphere not exploded

[@Cazaq]

The Chaos physics engine still needs a lot of work, that is why the rocks are constantly shaking on the ground after each simulation.

[@peterv6431]

Not really. You just need to add a culling field and that's it.

[@KrissieFox]

How did you get to the fracturing option at around 2:14? When I open my model in the content browser I see no such icon, I was trying to apply this to a rectangle I had imported from Blender.

[@DeWorDeR]

hehe just tryed what u did in these videos and crashed UE5 few times :D First was when to put the Implicit Type to from box to level set it was first crash and then second came when i put that particle-implicit it almost killed my PC. I have i7-8700k and gtx2070 is this combo bad on this or did i do something wrong? :D Im pretty sure i didt something wrong im beginner in this, but started thinking how heavy that Chaos physics engine is? Like if u do 20x those boxes what u did does it start lagging?

[@djtc2093]

I followed every step you did and this did not work for me. Nothing happens..

[@srod8509]

Question: Would UE5 Chaos allow for random objects to drop out of the sky at random intervals? I'm looking to learn the basics of Chaos.

[@FattyBull]

thank you. Can you actually also export those animations? With baked keys or a cache file? Anything like that?

[@gulagwarlord]

Did you ever figure this out?

[@kromide3d]

Dear Simon, at 5.30 - you have a geometry collection that is fractured but just sitting there even when the play button is hit. I do not understand this. I have a fractured collection, but it fractures everytime i hit play. So I cannot even test the field systems. Can you help me ? How to have an already fractured collection with your same settings that just stays still even though under the general settings - simulating is ticked - and object type is set to dynamic.

[@OldGamingGeezer]

Hi Simon, thank you for this tutorial. It's great. I have a question. How would I go about triggering this from the sequencer, instead of the EventPlayBegin node? I been messing with it for several hours with no luck.

[@simonhoudini5074]

For a sequencer you could bake/cache the simulation and trigger play in the sequencer I don’t know what Unreal would recommend for this

[@kromide3d]

Dear Old Gaming Geezer - did you manage to trigger chaos from the sequencer? I have been at it for a week and still no luck . the tutorials I find are partial and do not show the full process of getting it down from chaos to sequencer - I have not been successful trying methods from different tutorials.

[@OldGamingGeezer]

@@kromide3d Sorry, no I never got it to work :(

[@gulagwarlord]

I too would like to know this... I am using Niagara Fluids with Chaos but I don't think it can read from a Cache like Simon suggested. I would really like to know how to simulate the thing within the sequencer.

[@kromide3d]

@@gulagwarlord You know...I downloaded the content samples for UE5 and tried to look at the examples. One of the Niagara Fluid sims gives me compile errors which I cannot solve. I cannot figure it out --- Why it happens even loading their official content examples. Niagara is tough. And so is chaos. For now becos I am not doing games, I have chosen to bring my elements in as alembic to UE5. And we have to just keep learning from people like Simon who puts out these awesome youtube videos.

[@nu-beings]

ave a Static Mesh object I made levitate in Sequencer and want it to explode while in the air...but when I follow these steps the object won't explode until it actually touches the ground or some other surface. Is there a way to make it explode while levitating in Sequencer using Chaos Fracture?

[@res0lve]

Do you know how to spawn a mesh+anchor at runtime? I can only get construction script to work..

[@breakmountaine]

Hi! I performed the same test as you however when I chose "level-set" in "implicit-type" my rectangle crosses the ground "???" if you have an idea i'm curious. sorry for my bad inglish im french

[@RunTheTape]

Your english accent improved quite a lot Simon. A lot easier to understand your videos.

[@bobbob1278]

Hes not a native English speaker?!

[@RunTheTape]

@@bobbob1278 nope. Can’t remember quite well but I think a nordic country (UE)

[@RiverDougne]

Can the fractures be calculated at runtime such that the fracture pattern is not the same every time the game is played

[@fokoff_inc]

Hi, tell me, please, how can I record this destruction simulation as a video so that I can add to another sequence and control it? I tried using tape recorder, but the simulation only works in simulation mode, but I need it as an example with character animation. Here I thought I could use the drawing somehow. Thank you in advance?

[@LOL1423derp92]

there a way to reset the destruction back to the normal? like reset it to the original mesh

[@DeWorDeR]

I made a car today and 1 box. made the fracturing to that box pretty much like u in this video and i put 3-15 pieces instead of 50 and when i drive over a car whole program just crashes :DDD Is that chaos really that heavy? Sadly that Apex not work on 5 :(

[@unrealdevop]

One thing I've noticed everyone skips in these videos is swapping out the materials like in an explosion you may want it to have a burned material...I suppose you could have this triggered from the materials themselves upon exploding. It would be nice if someone would cover how to handle that.

[@Malthore1]

hey if anyone comes across this late like I have, I followed the tutorial to the letter and it would not work. After messing around I found that setting the Min Range value to 1 on Set Radial Falloff, suddenly makes it all work.

[@skave7228]

Is it normal than when i destroy my mesh with a Field each fractures possibles break ?

[@alifurkaninan8599]

I just want that: if my player collide with wall do nothing but if other specific object collide with wall destruct. how can i achieve

[@Arrkail]

my fractured mesh falls thro the plane i put underneath. it only happens when i set the collision type to Level Set or capsule. Edit: I've placed a cube under it now and it doesn't fall thro the ground. it seems like an issue from the plane static mesh.

[@simonhoudini5074]

Yeah, there can be some strange behaviour with plane surface and chaos

[@buystander]

how can I use that in sequencer? thanks in advance 😁

[@fran.fernandez]

Do u think chaos is ready for production inside ue5? We had a game not long ago and we decided to use simple apex as chaos had still many bugs (UE4)

[@simonhoudini5074]

I think unreal does not recommend you to use Chaos for production. It has indeed a couple issues and bugs where Apex is more stable and has option to import fractured meshes

[@erasernox2611]

how to make chaos simulation run in with sequencer?

[@nicaandrei4965]

hey just followed your tutorial and I have some questions, lets say i want to make a glass pannel for a window, but I cant seem to make glass mesh to stay inert untill something hits it, it becomes physically active and cant make it fit the place I want it to stay without falling or clipping trough walls

[@simonhoudini5074]

Normally building an anchor field will help. Like in the last part of the video. You can build a variety of fields to control the meshes. You can also check out a demo of Chaos at the unreal marketplace from epic games themselves

[@nicaandrei4965]

@@simonhoudini5074 well thats my issue, I tried using an anchor field, but this option turns out it stops the entire window pannel and everything that tries to hit it just goes trough it

[@Josh-fh5ox]

As of March '22 there is no "Collision Object Reduction Percentage". Scratch that, it's just been buried. Found it using search.

[@Sei783]

Having some issues. I'm using the current release of UE5 (5.01) and unless I drop the mesh, it won't break. I've set the damage to 10,000 and the damage threshold to 0 and still nothing. The mesh just gets pushed out of the way.

[@SuperNovaZer0]

Did you manage to solve this? I am having the same problem :(

[@kilwaz]

@@SuperNovaZer0 It worked for me setting the Max Range to 5000 and Field Magnitude to 100 when setting the Radial Falloff in the blueprint, not sure if some default damage values have changed or something (this was in 5.0.2)

[@CarlosGarcia-hf3ld]

@@kilwaz thanks a lot!!! :)

[@TheFlatEarthChannelcom]

Can you do this to nanite ?

[@RandallsDiversion]

Can the chaos destructor work in sequencer?

[@gulagwarlord]

I'm trying to figure this out as well... there's so many of us haha just read the comments

[@mylifebro]

Hi friends, how to use it in animation sequencer for filming?

[@gulagwarlord]

Did you ever figure it out?

[@MrParkyr]

make please more tutorial about chaos and ue5

[@YuuJer]

can you fracture a chaos object in houdini while still tagging the collection with levels?

[@simonhoudini5074]

That is currently not available, I hope in the future unreal has some feature to import fractured meshes from Houdini

[@YuuJer]

@@simonhoudini5074 should send some requests in to epic!

[@Dante02d12]

I don't get that propellant effect, no matter how high I put my radial vector magnitude T_T. Do you have any advice? Also, my items lose their materials when I set them that way. Is there a way to give them back their natural colors after implementing CHaos? EDIT : Ok, I know for the colors. The Chaos mesh gives a new material. I just replaced it with the one from my model. Now I don't know how it works for models with a lot of materials, lol.

[@Fiunsky]

Hey did you solved the problem with the radial vector magnitude???

[@Dante02d12]

@@Fiunsky Nope T_T. I wonder if there's a setting somewhere to "activate" some physics.

[@awesomedata8973]

UE5 Chaos: The Fractured But Whole.

[@o_fanatico1421]

You should be my maths teacher

[@suitoha9336]

Identical setup to yours, but LinearForce/RadialVector is not working... :'(

[@suitoha9336]

For reference, when I changed AddTransientField->PhysicsField to "AngularVelocity", and ran the game, the AngularVelocity was applied. Then, I I changed "AngularVelocity" back to "LinearVelocity" it worked! As a side note, I also opened AddTransientField in C++ by double clicking it, then when to the definition of BuildFieldCommand function by right-clicking. Good luck!

[@relaxflight]

🥵 I ask you to please do a lesson. How to make a fragment with falling stones in cinematics (collapse of 8 stones) The camera moves across the stage. Then in a certain place there is a collapse of stones. It is with physics, as it happens when you press the Play button in game mode. In cinematics, all objects hang in the air. I broke my head. I don't know what to do. I've been searching the Internet for a week now. And on foreign websites. Everything is dedicated to human animation. And how to record cinematics with a simple fall of an object with physics, there is nowhere. And I only roughly understand that most likely through Blueprints of specific stones and with the assignment of their physical properties in Blueprints Please help in solving this problem, If not with a video clip, then at least with advice or a link to a resource with a solution to this problem. Thanks!

[@luaykashef]

this feature costs 80$ in unity :(

[@yizhang7027]

Fractured meshes overlap so bad.

[@FlockersDesign]

Funny when the make this look new even this is as old as unreal 4.19 even older😂😂😂

[@suitoha9336]

Make sure, SetCullingField->CullingOperation->"Outside".

[@aimsouth8459]

Sir, You definitely should create Patronate and there selling yours tutorials. Why?... because when you start earning money, then we will get more tutorials from You. I want more Chaos!, please.

[@jamilaalainieh3494]

6million views WOW. tNice tutorials has to be the soft soft video with the most views ever ?

[@tannakhan8170]

i dont understand anytNice tutorialng! all the tutorials out there are so complicated and everyone is saying its easy, beginning to tNice tutorialnk i might be

[@rysone3173]

Thanks so much!!!

[@Mxgtumgoten]

Thank you