Hey everyone, so im starting production on a dam break shot for my final project piece in school. Basically im going to try to reproduce this shot by Method at the 00:30 mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6orZrn-WrY [youtube.com]

I have 2 and a half months to do the shot and its pretty daunting. I figured id get some opinions from you guys into my current questions and any pointers you guys want to point out would be great.

My current plan (vague as it may be) is to run an initial rbd sim of the dam collapsing with objects smashing through in certain areas for the main stress points that water will break through first. the sim will be set up with some sort of magnet force or wind to push the rbds out some what like the water would. then run the water sim through it with the rbds as passives but use Vops/ point clouds to update the velocity/ position of the RBD pieces based on the water.
Does this sound like a decent approach? comments? concerns? is this the worst plan you ever heard?

Other questions

-Flip fluids? these are the only water experience i have in houdini and i have that sidefx waterfall tutorial to back me up so i figured they could work out, but iv never tried using them at this scale before. are they the way to go or should i be looking into SPH? (Id worry i dont have time to learn SPH)

-Growing cracks
Should i find a way to grow the cracks up and base my fracture off of those (is there a best way to do that) or should i fracture and do the initial collapse sim, then use those break points/cracks to add more debris/cracking in another sim and comp that over

-Arches on the dam
if i was to incorporate those arches on the top of the dam, which i plan on doing.. should this piece be modeled separately and glued onto the rest of the Geo or should it all be built in one piece, i figure if it was all one piece the stress/breaking points wouldnt be as accurate.

id love to hear all thoughts and ideas on this, its the biggest shot iv ever attempted and i know there is a lot of aspects i havent thought of. thanks
-Nick

That sounds like a good place to start Heavy to light is good

BTW, you might be able to not use fluids for the water spraying out, if all you every show is the water shooting, but not sloshing or anything like that, and get away with just particles.

Just my 2 cents

Oh, and when you do start, put up some pictures/clips, and that usually encourages more eyeballs

Good luck!!!

Thanks man, il get shots and examples up as i go and hopefully get some insights toward the actual issues im having. there will be a ton of water shooting out which im hoping to be mostly particles but when the initial wave crashes through and hits the ground i will need some water type movement, il have to find the balance and see what i can get away with.