Skeletal Meshes in the Elemental Demo?

Development Character & Animation
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1

Hi guys

I’ve seen one other thread regarding this but the solution offered no explanation on how it was done

I’m creating a collapsing building and I’ve simulated it in 3DS Max as i’ve used a script unavailable for Maya and transferred the animation to bones. I’ve rigged all the pieces and the export and import fine into Unreal and work as expected. The only problem is, I’m having to individually rig each piece up to its own root bone and import them individually and build it up in unreal.

I had a look at the rocks that break in the elemental demo and the pieces that they are made of seem to combined together into one skeletal mesh. I’m just wondering how this is done? I’ve tried simply creating a root bone and adding the animated bones as children but that doesnt seem to work asd, of course, the child needs to stay attached to the parent.

Just wondering how it’s done, if I open one up and have a look, there seems to be a bone attached to each breakable piece of the mesh inside one static mesh… I’d like some help in figuring out how thats done.

(I need it to fall in a special way, that’s why I’ve animated it by hand)
Thanks, Danny

2

Hi there, thanks for the reply. Although its not actually a destructible mesh although it does look like one. It’s actually been simulated and rigged in an external program.
I’m actually using a few destructivble meshes in my project but for this certain bit, I need it to fall and crash in a certain cinematic way, so I’ve animated it. Works fine in Unreal but I’m wanting to know about how to combine the data into one skeletal mesh with 50 or so bones like the one in the demo instead of 50 skeletal meshes with one bone each.

(The one’s im talking about are the rocks falling from the ceiling in the temple in the demo)

3

I haven’t looked at the elements you mention but based on your description I am assuming that is actually a destructible mesh.

Destructibles Content Examples

Tesla’s Destructible Meshes - Two Part Tutorial