My big project this week was a building implosion.

The goal was to

• Make a realistic final render

• Do it as easily as possible

My final render turned out pretty well. It’s a low-quality render though (I didn’t want to wait forever) and it has a major glitch halfway through.

Other than that it’s great.

As for doing it easily—it wasn’t. The final technique was easy enough, but it took a lot of tests to work that out. I learned a ton of new things in this project.

Animating the movement of the building was a big one.

(If you want to destroy your own building, here’s the tutorial ↓)

Today’s Technique

When something massive and heavy (like a building) starts falling, it doesn’t look the same as something smaller.

Since it’s huge, it looks almost like it’s falling in slow motion.

It starts moving so slowly, you can barely tell it’s moving…then it speeds up, faster and faster…then it’s gone.

In my original tests, I tried actually fracturing the building object and simulating the collapse with physics, but that became too difficult. It gave me the realistic motion for free, but was too hard to work with and didn’t look real enough.

Animating it by hand was far simpler.

The key is to have it start slow, really slow, and then speed up faster and faster. Don’t ever let it get too fast, though. Let it have that huge, slow-motion feel.

Extra Tip

Make sure you have a clear idea of what it is you want to create. If you don't you’ll have to try to fix major things halfway through, and that’s not fun.

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