Robot With Destructible Limbs

Hi all.

The question I want to ask is not specifically related to the title, but that title gives a good idea of what I want to ask about. Let’s say I have an actor, such as a vehicle with a turret, or a robot with destructible limbs. So the idea is, I have this animated robot model, could be an enemy, could be the player, and when one of the sections of the robot takes a specified amount of damage, I want it to say, blow up, or replace the mesh with a damaged mesh, or so on. Am I right in thinking that the way to do this is for the robot to be made up of several animated meshes that are only pretending to be one solid object? So a robot might be for example, two leg meshes, a hips mesh, a torso mesh, to arm meshes and a head mesh? Wouldn’t this make animation very difficult, since I would be able to make only limited use of animation techniques such as inverse kinematics?

I guess basically what I’m asking is, what is the best technique to use in order to have this sort of actor whose various parts can act or be destroyed independently?

Modular pawn is what you want. Model each piece in each of its states then change the model out as needed.

What are the implications of this when it comes to animation?

Edit: Ah, nevermind, I see! A modular pawn can use a single skeleton for animation whilst still using separate meshes for its component pieces. Perfect! Thank you for your reply.