Animating Part 5

The Final Sequence

For the final sequence I wanted to make the Death Star Explode.

I looked up multiple tutorials for this and found two different methods.

The first was was using a MeshBomb

And the second was using a Parray.

The MeshBomb uses a Force and pushes fragments of the mesh outwards. The Idea is that you can adjust the settings to create a nice effect using this feature but no matter what I changed in the features all the fragments did were spin in one position and the model didnt really 'explode' at all it just broke into small pieces and then started spinning. I followed the tutorial perfectly but yet couldn't figure out why it wasn't working.

Instead of spending all my time trying to figure out the problem I went on the hunt for another method of doing this. I found a tutorial on using something called a Parray. This was found under the Particle systems and it essentially did exactly what the MeshBomb should have been doing but with a much simpler method.

After connecting the Parray to the object I wanted to destroy I was able to change simple settings about the object such as the size of the fragments, speed and when the explosion starts and stops.

The one problem that this effect had on the model was that it essentially clones the model and destroyed that, as you can see below that after the object had shattered it is still clearly visible underneath. To solve this I used the same method as I did for the lasers, I made the Death Star only visible until the point where it starts to explode then it becomes invisible as if he really has exploded.

I chose to move the camera back out into space to get a full view of the Death Star being destroyed. This again shows how large the Death Star is and how bit the explosion was in comparison.

As the Death Star starts to explode the viewer is still unsure as to if the X Wing has survived or not and as the Death Star starts to explode it builds suspense until the point that a small X Wing becomes visible at the bottom of the Death Star and it comes flying towards the camera at full speed trying to escape the explosion.