Hello all. I am a visual effects student and I am currently working on a group project where we are animating a car burnout with a blown tire at the end. We are pretty comfortable in Houdini as far as the sprite smoke simulations and sparks emitting from the rims goes but when it comes to the idea of the tire rubber itself tearing/ripping we are stumped. I am writing this to see if anyone has any suggestions on how we would begin to go about causing a tire to explode/shred. At first my buddy and I were considering doing some form of cloth simulation, then we tried a bit of attribute transferring color to create a seam across the tire but nothing has proven very effective.

Thanks to anyone that responds. If additional info is needed, or screenshots of the file so far let me know.

Really and truly I am not sure I would choose a simulation method for the tire part of this gag.
Sure its easy to say well the tire is rubber so we should do a cloth sim for it, but at the end of the day (and particular in production) you have to produce an image that works for your shot, usually on too short a time frame, so having said that, you might look at lattices and wire deformers and the like to sculpt you tires overall deformations,
but for the blownout part you might do something we have done for bullet hits
in the past which is to use replacement geometery and switch it on the frame you need the tire to blow out.

For the chunks and bits of tire that get blown out particles and instancing would be the way to go.

While there are many ways with the tools available in Houdini to do a simulation its not the only option or the only direction to attack a problem from.

Just throwing that out there for you to think about.

HTH

-Lyn-

Thank you for the reply. Doing it the route you suggested did in fact cross our minds. Im glad to see you agree with the idea that sometimes a simulation shouldn't be the end all do all. The main reasoning we were even considering the idea of a simulation is not because of pipeline issue but more of a fulfillment to the class which this project is for, which is a particle based houdini class. We have enough with debri, smoke sprites, and sparks at the moment that we should be fine doing a non simulation tire explosion. Thank you for the input, I have a bullet impact file laying around somewhere I will check it out and try to implement it.

Any other suggestions along this line are always helpful Thanks again!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with attacking the tire destruction with a geometry approach. Maybe a softbody POP thrown in to the mix to keep it within the rules.

You most likely need geometry to emit particles from anyway or that's your excuse. :wink:


From practical experience, the tire shredding part of a burn out isn't that exciting btw. Just a heaping stinking and very sharp and spikey (steel, kevlar and carbon-fibre) lump of rubber… That is if you are still able to breathe.
Either one half of the tire escapes the rim (boring) or the tread blobs off (almost as boring).
Sort of like this actually:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=lBtLbIMA1J0 [au.youtube.com]

I haven't tried this but if you want a more exciting burn out, give this a go:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=GXnDXh0K2rU&NR=1 [au.youtube.com]
or
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5CvgFevW8tM [au.youtube.com]

Ghost Rider eat your heart out!

You rickrollin' son of a….

69 Chevelle with a 350lt1 corvette engine, highrise manifold with dual 750 Dominators (3/4" copper for the fuel line…) and a topflite tranny with a high stall converter and a speed shifter plus a ford rear end (the chevy rear end blew up like a grenade…). Sub 11's on the quarter mile… You could actually see the gas gague move when you floored her (as well as break your friggin' neck!).

Thank god gas and tires were cheap in the late ‘70’s… I don't even want to think about what my carbon footprint was back then. :shock: