Hi guys,

I'm working on a destruction simulation. I'd like to fracture it inside Houdini and then import it inside UE4 and use it has a “destructible mesh” (so, not a cached simulation).

Do you know if it is currently possible?

Thx!

Hello!

We currently have no support for Unreal destructible mesh, but we did look into it. We have plans to add it post-release.

Hi!

Thank you for your answer, that's a great news, can't wait!

This has been logged as RFE #72339 .
https://github.com/sideeffects/HoudiniEngineForUnreal/issues/14 [github.com]

Has there been any movement on this? I just used Houdini to generate a fracture animation, but now I'm looking at, like, five separate assets per building I want to fracture which seems… Not super fun to manage.

Hello!

I am sorry to say, but we have not started this work yet. So baking separate meshes and then assembling them into a single destructible mesh is the only option at the moment. Having said that, we have a big interest from several clients and this RFE came up several times and it is quite likely we will start work on this feature soon.

ttvdsfx
Hello!

I am sorry to say, but we have not started this work yet. So baking separate meshes and then assembling them into a single destructible mesh is the only option at the moment. Having said that, we have a big interest from several clients and this RFE came up several times and it is quite likely we will start work on this feature soon.

Yesssssss. <3

Alternatively, there's also a way to do it without engine. If you install the Game Dev Toolset (https://github.com/sideeffects/GameDevelopmentToolset [github.com]), there's a tool called “Fracture Static Export”.

I attached a sample file below (you'll still need that toolset to process it yourself!).

1. If you export the FBX_RESULT node to fbx (see RENDER node for exact settings), Unreal will read it just fine. Just be sure to combine meshes!
2. Then right-click the asset and create a destructible mesh.
3. In that panel, there should be a button that says “Import FBX Chunks”.
4. Just click that and then select the fbx file again.

If you didn't set the Explode Amount to 0, then you should be able to see the chunks slightly offset for Preview Depth 1.

I haven't played with it beyond that, but that should be able to get you going with UE4's destruction system! If you want to create more layers, it'll probably involve masking and exporting multiple FBX files with different chunks.