Hi, I'm a newbie so please bear with me. I'm going through the “Quick Start” tutorial and I can't replicate the same results. I'm aware that the tutorial is from an earlier version of Houdini. But I should be able to get the same results, right?

My problem…

All of my columns start shattering from the beginning of the sim. The wrecking ball is not in contact with any of the columns until several frames later. Why is this happening? I've gone back and watched the tutorial several times to make sure I didn't miss anything. I've even simplified the columns to simple cylinders.

The only difference I run into is when I click on “RBD point object”. When I click this, Houdini tells me about “RBD packed objects”. I want to stay with the tutorial so I choose “RBD point object”. When I play my sim, all the columns start to shatter immediately.

Why is this happening? Please someone shed some light.

Thanks

PS. I just tried using “RBD packed object” and all the columns still shatter from the beginning of the sim instead of on impact with the wrecking ball.

The columns are shattering at the beginning of the sim because they are not in contact with the ground plane. The way the tutorial is written, there is a micro gap between the bottom of the columns and the ground plane. The shattering you are seeing at the beginning comes from the columns falling down onto the ground plane.

There are two fixes for this: You can either move the columns closer to the ground plane or tweak the lower bound on the force needed to cause shattering to happen. To do the second option, dive into the AutoDopNetwork node, select the fractureparms node, and then change the Min value for Min/Max Impact parameter under the Impact tab.

pomru
The columns are shattering at the beginning of the sim because they are not in contact with the ground plane. The way the tutorial is written, there is a micro gap between the bottom of the columns and the ground plane. The shattering you are seeing at the beginning comes from the columns falling down onto the ground plane.

There are two fixes for this: You can either move the columns closer to the ground plane or tweak the lower bound on the force needed to cause shattering to happen. To do the second option, dive into the AutoDopNetwork node, select the fractureparms node, and then change the Min value for Min/Max Impact parameter under the Impact tab.

Pomru, thanks for the reply. As to the columns not being in contact with the ground plane. My columns are definitely in contact. I thought of this and made sure they were on the ground. As to your second suggestion, I thought along those lines but didn't know where to find the controls. As a newbie, I find these networks very convoluted. I'll give it a try.

Thanks again

PS. Your second suggestion worked. Curious why this isn't mentioned in the tutorial. Thanks again.