Destructible Mesh (Any Mesh) - Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial

[@env_warby]

In case somebody with a newer unreal engine version is looking at this and after replicating the setup one to one is wondering why that cube doesnt shatter when shot at: Instead of "add force" Try the "Apply Damage"-node you may have to untick the "context sensitive checkbox" in your dropdown menu to find it. Hook the Destructible component in as the target and the rest of the inputs can be done like in the video. This worked for me. (UE4.27.2)

[@stephenmontague6930]

Yeah, need to use the "Apply Damage" node that has "Target Destructible Component" on it (not the normal "Apply Damage" node for Pawns). This video has errors & glosses over points - most importantly - "Enable Impact Damage" should only be True if you want forces / impulses from collision to matter, and "Voronoi - Cell Count" controls the number of pieces the mesh breaks into. Disappointing to see so much bad info mixed with the good. It's causing trouble for a number of people here, including myself. It's not easy to make videos, so I appreciate the effort, but...

[@garymichalles8383]

@@stephenmontague6930 Is there any other video you would recommend?

[@stephenmontague6930]

​@@garymichalles8383 I tried to reply earlier, but YT ate the comment somehow. Google hits on this topic are a mixed bag of good & not so good. Your question reminded me that I had seen 1 good vid a long time ago, so I looked it up in my history... good to see it again, as it could be useful here as well. Best of luck~

[@stephenmontague6930]

Some super useful settings (most in the first link)... "World Support" Flag: allows an un-moveable static mesh nearby to keep your main destructible mesh in-place while chunks of it fly away. Chunk Parameters: you can select individual chunks in the preview and make them less destructible (or not destructible), say, to make the base stronger than the edges... Random Seed: don't like how the mesh breaks? Try other random seeds until you find a workable one, and if that doesn't work (maybe you want a wood splintering-shaped chunk) try using custom chunks with "Import FBX Chunks."

[@alitalhouni2843]

Great tutorial! Just one correction id like to point out. Explode amount toolbar is just for visualizing the pieces. It does not contribute to any physical attributes.

[@MorganFuse]

Yesterday I watched your video, and subscribed. But the point is, that you're one of the best teachers on KZbin. Thank you for your time, and passion on educating fellow game developers. Have the best 2021!

[@MattAspland]

Thank you so much man, I really appreciate that! Always happy to help and I hope you have a great 2021 too! All the best of luck :)

[@cybercat8819]

thx you this is a great tutorial even if i'm tired i understand what you did and why. The Unreal Engine 4 world need more people like you and less people that shows some stuff but not every step you need to do. so this is great and by the way i liked your video. Hope you have a great day bye bye

[@3RDEYELOVE]

Fact💯 that's the thing with unreal there's no teachers that that show step-by- step and you understand them in clear English

[@WaiMonkey]

Hello, Matt! Thank you so much for this video! This technique became a very useful know-how for me. As for the stress in the word Voronoi. I made a little research for you, for your viewers and for myself. In Russian and Ukrainian (Voronoi named after Георгий Вороной (ukr: Георгiй Вороний)) the stress is on the last syllable. In English: the FIRST syllable is commonly stressed in this word. Almost the same case as for Isaac Asimov or Zarya / Sova (Overwatch / VALORANT).

[@MattAspland]

Hey, no problem, glad I could help out! And thank you so much for that, until now I still wan't sure on it lol. But that does make sense, I can now say the word without questing my pronuncitation. Thanks for clearing that up for myself, yourself and everyone else! :)

[@imapota9312]

Will this work on a rigged mesh as well?

[@levonze]

I think yes

[@Bhrazz]

Love your videos. Straight to the point. Fast. Easy to get started.

[@mitchloveridgeofficial1017]

So friggin simple yet so effective! Great tutorial got it working in minutes legend

[@FRIDEI]

Easy and interesting thanks!

[@Isaadelle]

Nice, it will look great when you can d chaos destruction

[@MattAspland]

Thanks, and it sure will, I'll look into it

[@fosterboy1587]

Great video matt just wondering if you could make another one like this but make one where you walk into a trigger box and then it smashes things like glasses or plates thanks for this video great work

[@MattAspland]

Thanks for the idea mate, I can look into that! :)

[@fosterboy1587]

@@MattAspland thank you that would be great and as someone else said in the comments you are the best teacher for unreal I have learnt a lot from watching your videos thank you

[@MattAspland]

@@fosterboy1587 Thank you so much, that means a lot. Glad I could help out :)

[@LOL2YOU]

How do you make it where it doesn't break when walking into but it will when you shoot it?

[@thedevuniverse]

You can try putting tags.

[@WowPlusWow]

@@thedevuniverse How would tags help with that tho?!?!

[@anasdev1553]

this will help me a ton thanks mate

[@MattAspland]

Great to hear man! :)

[@TheGreatAwesome]

I'm making a destructible building to be destroyed by hammers but if I walk on them or bump into them they immediately break, even if I set damage threshold and/or damage damage cap to 100,000,000. How does one prevent walls from collapsing by bumping into them, short of disabling impact damage?

[@MattAspland]

Hi, you would need to disable the collision for the player on this. You can change the collision settings to custom and "ignore pawn". However this completely disables the collision, so you can walk right through it. Or you could create a new object type for the player pawn class, and have a volume blocking only this class. And put the DM (Destructible Mesh) in a Blueprint Actor. Hope this helps, I'm sure there a better explanations of the object type blocking volumes online :)

[@robertwilson1589]

Try using the Chaos destruction plugin that came out in UE4 4.22 or somewhere around that point. It allows "health" on your models and better for destruction.

[@WillemoesJ]

Hey Matt thank you for the video this was exactly what I was looking for Do you know of a way to make a partial explosion like on a part of the mesh and not the entire one, like if you want someone to break out of a box or like a dinosaur breaking out of an egg.

[@archerjesiah6539]

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[@leroybishop8766]

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[@archerjesiah6539]

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[@archerjesiah6539]

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[@leroybishop8766]

@Archer Jesiah happy to help =)

[@daoversal_rogue]

Amazing video!! Is there an updated one for UE5? Been trying to get my character, in the third person blue print, to be able to run into meshes and destroy them on collision :)

[@omniripple]

pretty sure the explode slider is just to preview what it will look like if it ever breaks.....not adjusting how much it will explode.....i think.

[@MattAspland]

Oh maybe, makes sense both ways, I’ll have to do some more testing :D

[@anthonymcgrath]

Question on this.. does that exploded amount make any difference to how it works in the game or is it just a visualizer like the exploded view node in Houdini?

[@awkwardnoise6715]

its just to see the pieces, I don't think Matt realised this

[@Badwolf2743]

Epic tutorial, i was wondering if for a game like botw would it use some sort of destruction physics or is it particles and the object would disappear for example the pile of rocks you could find in the map that you could blow up using a remote bomb. Again nice tutorial and i love how you always simplify each and every tutorial making them more easy to understand.

[@RationalAxis]

The explode amount in the DM editor is just a preview btw, it doesn't affect anything at runtime.

[@ROWNIE_]

👏👏 great explanation, thank you!

[@doodlebe4n]

Great tutorial

[@goggo9]

Hi could you tell me how to make the explosion happen via sequencer? would that be via a null rather than a bullet/collision? Amazing tutorial btw, thanks

[@cantthinkofaname925]

Is there a way to create custom destructible pieces? for example cubes and or other shapes? thanks

[@LeszczynskiDavid]

But why would it break when you walk into it I just want it to break when the bullet hit

[@MattAspland]

I think to fix that you would need to up its damage threshold so it needs a larger impact to break it

[@Gooseguy1000-1]

Is there a way to make this work only under specific circumstances?

[@CreativeThrone1]

I upped the damage threshold but it still breaks when my player walks into it

[@MattAspland]

Oh okay, that should work, maybe it needs to be a lot higher. If not, it may be worth looking into dealing the damage manually instead of automatically so you know what breaks it and how much by. This thread should help with that. www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine/comments/3lu7ok/making_a_destructable_mesh_only_destructable_when/

[@CreativeThrone1]

@@MattAspland thank you

[@SynthToshi]

I'm trying to do this on a character but it wont work, I have done it in unreal 4.26 and 5. If anyone has any info please send it!! thanks DevFam.

[@GaryParkin]

I was looking at destructible furniture and crates. What does this method do to performance? Is this safe to use for breaking rocks and crates or would it be better to use particles and the smoke and mirror trick?

[@MattAspland]

This method shouldn't effect performance badly at all, especially since we can destroy the broken meshes after a while, so it is only temporary. If you had a lot all at once, or didn't destroy the meshes afterwards, then it may slightly effect performance yeah. Your other method with particles etc also sounds like a great idea, I think on surface level they will perform the same, but again if you add a lot at once or don't optimise the mesh to be removed etc, then this method can get a little laggy. Hope this clears anything up! All the best Gary!

[@GaryParkin]

@@MattAspland Yes it does Matt. I was thinking about crates that you can loot then destroy to use the wood. I haven't seen that in any game yet. I'm planning the ultimate survival or adventure game. Currently particles are a black hole for me until I learn more about them. Blender ones are easy.

[@MattAspland]

@@GaryParkin Oh nice, that sounds like a great idea. Yeah I haven't heard about that, I'd love to see how the game turns out in the future, sounds amazing and right up my street. And yeah particles was one of the things I lacked knowledge in when first starting out too, the more you mess with them the better they become to you though, I found anyway. All the best

[@TattieBojangle]

Great tut is there anyway to batch do meshes.

[@jamaalsineke2405]

Hey Matt, is there anyway to import fractured meshs made in Blender and use in Unreal 5 since Apex is now deprecated? Idon't want to use chaos physics on my potatoe pc. I found this really useful old school way of faking destruction by hiding fractures on impact and spawning niagra particle at the impact point

[@comatoseenigma9200]

hello matt, any idea how we can set it up so the damage is only dealth with a specific projectile, I am trying to do a telekinesis like ability

[@dannsteven]

Is it possible to add audio to the destructive mesh?

[@gminor6135]

Youre awesome dude

[@MattAspland]

Thank you so much man! I really appreciate that :)

[@conciousnessofsteel6033]

Will this work for sequencer as well if trying to make a movie

[@TGADB]

Can we convert the destructed mesh / chunks into static mesh. Destruction meshes don't have lod so I'm wondering is it possible for real time converting broken chunks into static

[@erook2019]

How would i change the weight of the object? I want something to break, but i dont want it to fly into the distance, rather collapse under its weight

[@WatchmojoUS]

did you find out how to do it ?

[@erook2019]

@@WatchmojoUS Sadly not, objects do have this mass value in their detail box, but it doesn't seem to do anything, atleast for me.

[@WatchmojoUS]

@@erook2019 add a physics material to your destructible mesh and adjust it through that.

[@LennoxFyre]

Any idea on how to have a static mesh projectile destroy a destructible mesh?

[@MissGrinsekatze29]

you could probably place a trigger box before the destructible mesh and have the projectile be detected with a delay so it looks like the projectile caused the destruction. if the projectile moves it shouldn't be marked as static though.

[@BrianSmithgrumpygit]

Loving the tutorials. I was wondering if you have or can do a tutorial on how to blow up a wall by shooting a barrel or other object. Thanks

[@leonardogaming7064]

Is this will work on some imported fbx or obj models too

[@sviat_a_lite9882]

Hi, when I package a project with this plugin packaging fails. Please tell me what is wrong

[@jomppidev1845]

is there any way to change the mesh's properties at runtime

[@esadalicina8697]

Heii :) did you get the answer? because I have the same question :)

[@jomppidev1845]

@@esadalicina8697 no, i didnt at least yet

[@esadalicina8697]

@@jomppidev1845 okey thanks

[@Shortyplayz]

will this work on objects that are imported from 3ds max?

[@sviat_a_lite9882]

It works with every object

[@isitsafe535]

what should I download to get this? is it a plugin?

[@RandallsDiversion]

How can I use destructible mesh in sequencer?

[@jaxonbmx2699]

any clue why it doesnt work after packaged to android? works fine in editor and mobile on my PC, but when i package it to my phone the collisions are disable for the apex destructibles

[@shinyo69]

How can I create destructible meshes for many meshes at once?

[@문석환-h5p]

I want the player to break when they step on the ground. What should I set up? Anyone help!

[@Thomas-un5jo]

Nice tutorial

[@MattAspland]

Thanks Thomas :)

[@jaanisk606]

Create destructible mesh is not there in ue5 "(

[@zego_fr34ks67]

Same. Did you still yet not find how to make one?

[@jaanisk606]

@@zego_fr34ks67 So I checked the documentation and APEX destruction is deprecated and no longer supported by Unreal Engine 5 going forward. Its all going to Chaos system. Just have to wait until it gets to the production release stage, is stable and gets exposed to blueprints.

[@zego_fr34ks67]

@Jaanisk Alright, Thank you for the information 👍

[@DigitalLoom]

great tut but the only thing im tying to figure out now is how to add sound to object!!

[@joseelupien1835]

Open the x_DM object; in the right-hand pannel, scroll down to the Effect section. Click on the small arrow next to Effects; then, click on the arrow next to Fracture Effects; there you'll see 0 and 1 sub-menus. Open both by clicking the small arrow again. In there, you will see Particles and Sounds. Just click on the dropdowns to select a particle system/sound. You might have to import a suitable sound prior to doing this tho, as only the ones already in the project will be listed in there.

[@alejandromontenegroreyes724]

HI mat, one question out of this topic, i made new Blank project and set in project preferences the "input Left AXIS Y" and made the blue print so the character move forward and backwards but its inverted (push axis forward move the character backward) i do not know why, i compare with the 3rd person template and its the same, i use a XBOX one controller fist generation, what do you think that is the problem?

[@MattAspland]

I'm not sure why that would be happening, it might be because of the controller, I don't know. Does inverting what you have done fix the problem? If so it might just be how it has to work, but I haven't come across it before

[@alejandromontenegroreyes724]

@@MattAspland Yes put -1 fix the input option fix it

[@MattAspland]

Nice, glad you could solve it :)

[@alejandromontenegroreyes724]

NOw i have a camera problem here the config kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmOtiHSoq82arZo sorry for bother you so much

[@MattAspland]

Hi, sorry if I'm no help lol, but I can't see an issue which would cause this, with my third person cameras, I have use controller rotation yaw and pitch set to false. The only thing I see different is you don't have the camera attached to a camera boom, but I'm not sure if this is it, might be worth trying it just in case

[@springcar]

Hey you advanced UE coders. Tell us what you quess about 'creating holes and tunnels at games runtime' . Thats what i battled with professors whole week . Gamers have need and use for creating holes to meshes at runtime. :) LOL.. i Wish you creative spirit fire

[@kenalpha3]

Why has no one commented on how dark the DS window is? In UE4.27, I cant see the mesh well. There is a tiny light that can be moved with L + left click. But it is not enough.

[@DenisZaharenko]

I want to break it when i step on it. How can i do that?

[@darkflamestudios]

I installed the plugin, but when I tried to create a destructible mesh out of a cylinder i created with the modelling plugin, my unreal crashed. oops!

[@3RDEYELOVE]

Seems like a much simpler process than chaos

[@theoneand0nly874]

What about chaos destruction ?

[@MattAspland]

I haven't actually updated to that version yet, and this was for a more simple way of doing it to start of with. I can look into doing a video on it if you'd like though?

[@Poopaduke112]

@@MattAspland Yes

[@logandoejogando...7532]

4.25? our 4.26? could show you how to pick up and aim on 4.26 a thirdperson thanks shooter.

[@ak-gi3eu]

hey how to add blood ?

[@MattAspland]

Hey, you could add decals like in this video below :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4eVh3qkgtl9f80

[@ak-gi3eu]

@@MattAspland hey matt should i use decals diectly in ue4 or should i use them in substance painter while texturing ,which would would be better as optimized way

[@MattAspland]

@@ak-gi3eu Hey, it depends on your usage. If you want it to always be there then a texture would be better, but if you want it to appear then disappear, a decal would be better.

[@ak-gi3eu]

@@MattAspland hey matt ,,i m wondering that is 4k textures is equal to 4k gaming?becuz while playing in 1k does the quality renders the 4k texture? or is it 1k

[@MattAspland]

@@ak-gi3eu Hi, if you use 4K textures it will always try to load them. You can change the in-game graphics however playing in 1K with 4K graphics will be very bad for performance. More often then not, 2K is great! :)

[@realNoobDog]

Can you make a Tutorial where you can collect the Destroyed particles and sell Them at a Shop or somethink

[@ivanmalau4945]

You don't actually need to collect loose ones just make a model ans spawn it in a sack or sometging on model destroy

[@grchmusic]

works replicated?

[@msterofficial]

ty

[@MattAspland]

No problem! :)

[@beeboo4091]

these videos should have a download for the project so you dont have to do it but you can still use it

[@adisploits]

can i have the project please :(

[@abhimanuggalla2541]

it dose not get Destruct 1 by 1

[@CGChris-]

Anyone tried this on 4.27 and had it work? I've checked all the settings and blueprint multiple times, but whenever I fire at the cube it will not fracture.

[@NinjaThug]

3 people couldn't code this logic.

[@BROCKSGAMING]

This is updated now we have chaos with niagara for realistic destruction

[@RecklessJames]

WRONG! Its not there at all, with the latest version of the engine.