Destroy on impact - possible with Dynamics?
 

I built a very simple spaceship out of 4 polygons: 2 wings, a fuselage, and a tail-fin. Each of the parts were turned into active rigid bodies and given an initial X velocity of 20. I then applied a gravity field to the pieces. I then built a "ground" out of a sculpted NURBS plane and made this a passive rigid body.

The idea is that the spaceship will impact the ground and come apart "realistically".

The problems with this are:

(1) The gravity field acts on each of the parts individually, the spaceship starts to come apart during flight.

(2) I cannot control the spin of the spacecraft as a whole. Applying initial spin to the parts causes each part to spin independently of the others.

My question is: Can I build my spaceship out of individual active rigid bodies but group, parent, or in someway control them as a whole. Ideally I'd like to be able to attach the spaceship to a motion path and when it impacts the ground, have the dynamics take over and explode the pieces.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

I believe you should be able to do that. You'll probably want to key your gravity to only "start" after the impact, so the objects can be grouped and follow a curve to the ground where the dynamics will take over.

Pretty sure that should work, anyway.

Check out my 6-part VIP tutorial regarding this exact effect, and a few different ways to tackle this problem:)

http://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...html?tut_id=48

I am going to buy vids soon, man........ time consuming and hard to do it by trial and error. ;(