Twice a month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from throughout the history of Cgtuts+. Today we’re taking a look back at Jostein Finnekasa’s tutorial on creating a dynamic shattering text animation in Maya. This tutorial was originally published back in February of 2010, and was popular with our Maya users. So if you missed it the first time, why not check it out now.
The Maya shatter effect can be a useful technique to know, but if used incorrectly, it can also cause many headaches due to slow simulation and interpenetration issues. In this tutorial we will go over some different methods of dealing with the shatter effect to create a faster and more reliable workflow, which can be used in a variety of different scenarios.
Tutorial Details
Final Effect Preview
Video 1
Download
Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
Don’t miss more CG tutorials and guides, published daily – subscribe to Cgtuts+ by RSS.
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!
By Jostein Finnekasa
Join our newsletter!
Create a Tutorial, Get Paid!
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Cgtuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
Great tutorial
WOO GREAT WORK
More maya tutorials!
You’re great!
awesome man! doing it after school!
Great work, but makes me appreciate Cinema 4D so much more.
Awesome tutorial. I know this is off topic but how do you set the viewport background to a gradient?
alt+b
Thank you!!! Needed something like this
Julian, try Alt-B
Wow. Nice tut, but man am I glad I’m a Cinema 4D guy. LOL
Why do you post twice with the same information?
he is funny daaaa
No COMMENT
wow… pretty nice… I’ll try it now!
good tutorial…thnks
Amazing :D
hi gangadhar verry nice tutorial
Hi there!
i don´t know why but when i do shatter (i delete history first etc…) it gives me an error that make the caracter wheter enormous or super small. Do you know why could be this happening?
Thanks!
nice tut…n i need further help in this…i tried the same thing in an already animated charater. i want the charater to blast into pieces after his action. since we need 2 delete history of the object so i duplicated it n then deleted history ..but still it isn’t showing any result neither is showing any error..i can’t make out where i m going wrong. please help..
you are really excellent …..Great work..i am a beginer in maya ,pls help me !!!!pls………..
Please can you do a text version of this turorial? I live in BRAZIL and this video is difficult for me to follow…
tried this but shatter never works on the text…………………………………..i’ve deleted ALL history and it still doesn’t work! i’m using maya 2011………….or does this work only on 2010 and below?
I am having the same problems using 2011 =[
Just found that, when creating the text initially in 2011 take these options:
Reset
Type: Poly
Match render tess… On
Type: Triangles
Tess.. Method: Count
Count: 200 (was fine for me but just increase untill you get the right smoothness)
Then after deleting history the Surface Shatter works fine :)
Hope that helps
thank you nexus.=) i’m glad i read the comments section.
Nexus, your right. For 2011 I just made a poly text in the initial setup and then was able to select each letter and shatter them. The tutorial says to delete the extra letters in the outline, I deleted everything but the shards and have been able to add dynamics to the letters. My poly count on the text was around 350. Also I turned down the bounciness on each shard to make it look heavier.
Thanks Nexus!!! =D
Is there anyway we can have that nice bevel of sharp while still using the shatter effect?
dont work with bevel und solid shatter in maya 2011 :/
please help
@DennG: it works perfectly, but maya crashes everytime letters reach their background. any suggestions why?
good luck doing this in 2011
Good but r u teaching us how to do the shatter effect or r u pointing out problems with it?
Hi I tried to click the shatter effects but the it gave me an error message even i already deleted the history. Any ideas why? My surface shatter is fine but the solid & crack shatter show the error message.
really nice shatter effects, in 3ds max i always use rayfiretool or some voronoi script type like fracture
hi,
I am using maya2011 but im unable to shatter them, even after deleting, my shatter effect is not affecting n it says “// Error: An error occurred while running the Solid Shatter script. Results may be invalid. If necessary, undo to restore the previous situation.”
what do i do for this error…
help me out.
Tutorial is good, but I use Maya 2011, and I can’t do it in 2011… After the nurbs to polygons, and again Surface Shatter doesn’t work! What have I to do?
doesn’t work… why? error