When I import the apb from Apex to UE4, I don’t see any docs for manipulating it with new destructible capabilities in UE4. All the movies are for UDK.
Are you referring to the documenation and tutorials on Nvidias site?
Nvidia has not updated their videos, but the same settings are still present in UE4 with a sleeker interface.
The same settings should still apply and the settings with the APB transfer to UE4. You will need to set your “Default Impact Damage Depth” appropriately as this is not set up in PhsyX Labs.
You will also need to set the Collision parameters for your destructible if you intend it to have different functionality like being destroyed by a projectile.
Yes, I am looking at the old videos. They are for UDK. When I drop the apb file into UE4 and chick it. It is loaded into the destructible creator. Is this the sleeker interface you are talking about? A lot more parameters than in UDK. Is it OK to use the new interface to manipulate the DM?
Yes, it’s the sleeker one. 
You will always need to setup your Destructible to finalize in UE4.
PhysX Labs will get you most of the way there with the parameters but you will need to set the impact depth layers to register damage and you will need to set up collision settings to generate events in UE4 that should affect the Destructible.
For instance, if you want to have your DM affected by your Projectile from a gun you’ll need to change the collision settings for your DM to have an overlap event for the projectile and the projectile will need to have a collision event for the destructible.
If you follow through this tutorial starting with Step 10 it can show you how to go about setting up an event like this.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/licmx8h1hlneo7k/Destructibles%20Tutorial.zip?dl=0
, a little progress. I would like have the DS just to destruct just pieces instead of the whole mesh being destroyed. Is this possible with UE4? In UDK it is “fix isolated chunks”. Don’t see it in UE4.
You will have to use PhysXLabs standalone app to use this feature with the support chunks. Your DM will have to use two depth layers. One for the support chunk and the next for the destruction.
If you want to chip away at your DM and not necessarily have chunks that never damage you can do this by setting the impact damage to 0 and the impact resistance to something low like .0001. You may have to play around with the settings here to get something better. To the best of my knowledge I think that’s how I set it up before. It’s been a little while since I’ve done that specifically. 
Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
, the 0 and .0001 in UE4 did nothing. What I am having a real problem is PhysX 3.3. All the movies are for an older version of PhysX and the meshes are loaded into UDK. Too many variables to controll. If you could find the time, a movie that would start with PhysX 3.3 and then load the mesh into UE4 would be great. Or a Word doc like to you did Dropbox - Error - Simplify your life.
Tutorials on my bucket list of things I would like to find time to do for sure! Just finding the time with all my other tasks is the problem. I managed to get the first one somewhat done but have not been able to get beyond that unfortunately.
I’m not sure if/when Nvidia will update their videos. Although, a lot of the settings are still relevant with UE4. These videos are still relevant with their use of PhysX Labs.
I will say there really aren’t a lot of tutorials out there for creating specific destruction effects though. The videos should give you an understanding of how to setup some destruction effects and how to control the variables (there are a lot but it’s required for specific effects). You’ll need to spend the time tweaking and fiddling with settings to see how things react to get the results you’re looking for. In this process you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t for your specific needs.
Just use the playmode in PhysX Labs to see how the destruction looks. Then when you import it into UE4 you will only have to tweak a couple of things like the depth layers and support layers.
I’m honestly not sure when I’ll get around to finishing my tutorial series, but it’s something I think about often. My goal is to have a small scene with different types of destruction effects to demonstrate the effects for users to have to go along with the written tutorial.
On a brighter note: a fix went in this week to allow support chunks to work in the engine now! I’ll be testing this soon, but it won’t be available with the release of 4.5 though. Probably in line for 4.6. This should help for those wanting to assign a piece of the fractured mesh in UE4 to not destroy. This also means you won’t need PhysX labs for simple destruction and assigning parts of it to not be destroyed.
thanks. I truly believe the “cutout fracture mode” does not work in UE4. It looks good in the playmode, but does nothing in UE4. Looking forward to 4.6.
Make sure you have support level set to 1 or the destructible will always fully break apart. Impact damage relates to collisions between the destructible and the scene geometry, so if you’re applying damage directly (like with a gun) this will not have any affect. You will want to pick a low spread value to make sure the damage is kept local. The radius of damage = spread * damage. All chunks in this radius will be applied a damage which gets less intense as you move away from the centre.
I’m hoping to get a tutorial up on this at some point to help with fine tuning. Let me know if that works
, I made a little progress. I can now break bounce of chunks in the middle of a block. But still no luck with individual chunks.
A movie would be great. 1) Use PhysX 3.3, 2) Then import into UE4.
Just load UDK(2014) it has PhysX/Apex build in. Why isn’t it in UE4(4.4.3)?
I noticed this and decided to ask question about the destructible mesh option. I was able to get this arrow I was working on to fly across and break, but it is only doing this in a way that it seam like the arrow is made of hardened clay. Is there a way to give this sort of a splinter effect as if wood is being broken?
Hi,
You can check out Nvidia’s Destruction Tutorials on their site here. There is one on this page that covers setting up a Wood effect.
That is exactly what I am looking for but definitely seems like it’s from a very old version of PhysX. but shouldn’t be too hard to manage. I didn’t see a way to specifically slice fracture points in though, this is the same program that is found in the create destructible mesh in the unreal engine 4 correct?