Delete destructible mesh debris

Hi,

I can’t figure out how to make the debris chunks of a destructible mesh disappear after a certain amount of time.
Is it some parameter I missed or is this not possible in the DM parameters?

Here’s a screenshot of what I have at the moment:

Thanks in advance,
Florian

Hi FlowDE,

This isn’t possible inside our Destructible Mesh system at the moment. This is a known issue that our developers are working on, along with the Support Chuck feature. As a workaround you could use the Nvidia PhysX plugin and set your destructible objects up using it. It has this functionality.

Thanks, TJ

Any update on this? As of 4.6 it still doesn’t seem to work removing debris.

@BlueByLiquid:

Hi Florian,

This works as intended, but you need to setup the debris properly for it to work.

While you’ve enabled you’ve set the debris lifetime there are still two other parameters that must be set for it to work.

  1. You will need to enable the “Flag” for Debris Timeout

  2. You will need to set the Debris depth to the depth you want it to affect. By default that is set to -1 which will not affect anything.

Some clarification on things as well. The values for Min and Max with these settings will make all the chunks disappear at the same time. This is because it’s taking an average between the min and max and using that.

If you want them to fade I’ve got a setup below that can help with that using the standard fracture tool in UE4.

These settings will get the basics:

24830-debrissettings.png

These settings will get you the fade (may need to be adjusted depending, but it works with the cube that has been fractured):

Give these a shot and if you have any questions with this topic I’ll be glad to help.

Hi Tim. I tried the fading debris settings you have provided about. I don’t seem to get any of the chunks to fade out they just pop out of existence. I would really like to get a reference to them so I can slowly remove them one by one randomly so the user won’t notice them. Even with these settings they just pop out of existence. You mention I might need to tweak something could you explain which settings are the ones causing the chunks to fade as I don’t see any of the above that would appear to be a fading amount or time. I did try the settings exactly as you have above.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said “Fade” per se. When I referred to “Fade” I was simply meaning that they would go away in clumps rather than every thing disappearing at once.

Image for reference:

24888-fadechunks.gif

Currently, there is no way to remove the chunks one-by-one without going into code and finding a way to do this that I’m aware of. This may or may not be added in the future.

In regards to tweaking I was referring to the damage cap. This would affect how quickly or slowly the chunks would disappear.

If you need to so a more controlled fade I would suggest a particle effect with a mesh module. You can have completely control over slow fade that way. If you do look at other games though you will notice that there are a combination of effects going on. They are using particles for smaller chunks that “pop” out of existence, smoke/dust clouds for debris, and the larger chunks will disappear after some time as well.

I know this isn’t probably what you wanted to hear, but using a combination of these effects can produce results that other games (tripple A even) are employing.

Tim

Thanks for the response. I just can’t seem to replicate this even with the exact same settings. Plus it seems to crash my game after a couple of brick break with these settings.

So that will answer one of my other questions. There isn’t a way to get a reference to the chunks at all?

My biggest issue right now is I don’t want chunks to effect my pawn (i want my pawn to clip right through them) but I still want them to interact with the environment.

Here’s a link to my Destruction test level. Please forgive that it’s a little clunky and somewhat disorganized. It’s just a level where I can quickly test impact and ray traced destruction in different capacities.

If you go toward the end or search the DM_Fade_Chunks you’ll find it.

That’s the one I grabbed the gif from above.

Use LMB for ray traced weapon and RMB for Ball Projectile.

The fade chunk example will only take damage from the ray traced. I never set it up to use impact damage from the ball projectile.

With regards to chunks there is no way to affect any chunks that I’ve been able to do from Blueprints. You can get the reference the chunk names with a line trace to detect. They will be labeled something like bone 1, bone 2, etc, if memory serves. (It’s been a while since I last did it.)

If you just want the chunks to not affect pawn you can try changing the collision state after it fractures via blueprints via the set collision object type. You would probably need to setup a custom collision channel via the project settings so taht when you switch the destructible can ignore the pawn.

From what I see this looks like a viable option. I’ve not tested it so I can’t say exactly for sure, but it looks like it would work. I can test this further if you try and have trouble with it or don’t know exactly how to set it up. It’ll be after Christmas before I can but I can help look into it. :slight_smile:

Let me know if anything comes up you have questions about.

Tim

EDIT:

Forgot the link to the test level Project: Dropbox - Error

Hey would like to check out the project do you still have it ? the download link dont work anymore… i guess till now there are still no new settings which i could use to easily remove the debrits after some time ?

I have watched countless tutorials on YT but nothing makes the debris go away. I’ve also followed this conversation but it was already the same setup. Can someone please tell me why the debris aren’t disappearing.