Can I leverage Fracture/Chaos to make placeable static meshes?
I’d like to be able to place this.
o/ yes, easily 
after you are happy with fracture find option ToMesh in Utilities, then hit convert
You can select as many geometry collections as you want to convert
Play with some options for best results
Right, but that seems to do it before the simulation, which isn’t what I’m looking for. Also, that seems to remove the collision solution and mass of each piece. It also destroys all of the fracture relationships. Maybe I should rephrase the question. Can I prepare geometry using fracture, simulate in-game (break stuff) save the fracture simulation state (I know with regular meshes normally I can press K to do this), and then Export that simulation state and convert it to a mesh?
Hey @ZapperGamesAdam! Welcome to the Forums!
Can you specify what isn’t working with @UnrealVerseGuru’s solution? When you export the finished broken item, it’s remaining as it’s original form, just with the implied cracks, if I’m understanding correctly?
no, what I’d like is a pile of rubble that fracture gives me.
the fracture collection on the left is working as intended and the exported static meshes are not.
What’s pictured is the simulation while playing, although I’d like be able to “Freeze it” and have it as a single static mesh I can place in game.
o/
Afaik you can for sure simulate sth in game, store each piece transform via some script in non transient data container, e.g. xml and then retrieve this data in editor, fueling it back to meshes properties.
Not so sure about full game runtime SM creation pipeline out of Chaos datatypes, haven’t dig it yet.
As far as I can tell, @UnrealVerseGuru is correct. There isn’t currently a way to do this using the built in Fracture mode. It’s still pretty new, I can see that being a feature in the near future… but until then, outside sources will be the best bet.
Hey there @ZapperGamesAdam! Welcome to the community! So I think if we cache the destruction and set it’s start time at the end, it should retain this destroyed shape. However it won’t be an SM at that point. Would a cached version work for your purposes?
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Nah, We need/want Static meshes so that they can be placed by hand later - I think we’re just not going to use chaos and instead rely on an external DCC software.
Workflow for Chaos Mesh to Static Mesh conversion
Go to Fracture Mode → under Utilities click “ToMesh”. Export and Reimport with UCX Collision your mesh (Batch Script in Phyton or BP Utilites for one click solution). Set Batch as Simple Collision. In Mesh Actor Settings set → Enable Physic Simulation == true. → Place your Meshes in Viewport and Press Alt+S → wait for simulation is done → go to Tools → Conert to Static Meshes. Fine.
I use this for fast LevelDesign.
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hello there, im 5 months late but today i made a tutorial on this exact topic others have already provided different solutions, here is mine mine requires less steps than the last solutions been provided hope it comes handy
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At 2:43 in this video, you go from adjusting the time on the cache manager to fracture mode with all of the rubble selected. That is not what happens for me. I adjust the slider to the cache section I like, but when I click on fracture mode, none of the rubble pieces on the mesh are selected. So, then when I go to “to mesh” everything is greyed out because nothing is selected to convert. If I click on the rubble, the cache manager goes away and the destruction returns to its original state.
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Don’t work =( So, then when I go to “to mesh” everything is greyed out because nothing is selected to convert. If I click on the rubble, the cache manager goes away and the destruction returns to its original state.
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hope I’m not too late, but in comment section of my video found the solution for that, i did pin it but haven’t had the chance to make a video out of it, try to follow what the comment said hope it works out for you.