Create Realistic Cracks in 2 minutes

Create Realistic Cracks in 2 minutes

Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by Andrew Price in Modeling, Tutorials

A few months ago I was modeling the building for my earthquake animation, when I stumbled across any easy way to create realistic cracks without pesky scripts, or plug-ins. It’s simple, easy, and it uses a powerful tool built right into blender. Trust me, when you see it you’ll be kicking yourself!

It is perfect for rubble, ceramics or splitting any object in two.

Who owns a ceramic picture frame anyway?

I am a man of my word. This video will literally take less than two minutes to watch:

Did you catch all that? Hope it wasn’t too fast!

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48 Responses to “Create Realistic Cracks in 2 minutes”

  1. Allan

    02. Mar, 2010

    Thanks, that was really quick, but very useful :)

  2. Craigsnedeker

    02. Mar, 2010

    Wow that’s awesome!

  3. Dan

    02. Mar, 2010

    Wow that’s a superb little trick. I can see it’s going to make debris creation a more fun and a whole lot quicker!
    Thanks man. :D

  4. Mitch

    02. Mar, 2010

    Short, sweet, and powerful. Thanks!

  5. Dominik

    02. Mar, 2010

    Really nice, thank you Andrew

  6. Derek

    02. Mar, 2010

    Blender 2.5 is awesome! Thanks Andrew

  7. comeinandburn

    02. Mar, 2010

    I’m kicking myself as we speak!

    great tip!

  8. Joshua Reed

    02. Mar, 2010

    Thanks very much. I don’t mind your longer tutorials by the way. Keep up the good work.

  9. Phoinx

    02. Mar, 2010

    Good idea! Very cool!

  10. Solineoz

    02. Mar, 2010

    Really nice and useful tip here, and it’s quick :)
    Thanks Andrew !

  11. paul

    02. Mar, 2010

    This was great! quick, simple and smart! Thanks!
    Andrew – please think about camera mapping tutorial like in Your earthquake animation. It would be great to merge it with blender genearted clouds in the sky etc.

  12. Andrew Price

    02. Mar, 2010

    @comeinandburn
    It was a big a-ha moment for me when I discovered it too. Glad to hear I’m not the only one that overlooked this powerful tool ;)

  13. ciccio

    02. Mar, 2010

    simply awesome! Thanks Andrew

  14. Johan

    02. Mar, 2010

    Very usefull. Thanks..

  15. Tory

    02. Mar, 2010

    Thanks Andrew,
    I have spent a lot of time looking at “crack me” scripts which dont work in 2.5 yet. This is a great solution. I wonder if you have any tips for using this with the Physics to say, have it stay together until it falls or is hit?

  16. Vicviper

    02. Mar, 2010

    Wow! One of those small ideas that can solve big problems. A fantastic Tip . Thanks for sharing.

  17. Bob

    02. Mar, 2010

    Very nice tutorial. Another one of those now-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that tips. :)

  18. Nathan

    02. Mar, 2010

    I actually found that proportional falloff feature just yesterday, but I wouldn’t have thought to use that feature to make cracks. I’d only thought of using that feature for putting mountains onto a terrain. Awesome idea!

  19. kaaroshi

    02. Mar, 2010

    Thank you VERY MUCH!! ^^

  20. jacobvalenta

    02. Mar, 2010

    PERFECT for my animation
    thank you so much

  21. plrang

    02. Mar, 2010

    Veeery cool and not only 2.5, works well in 2.49

  22. MaxiNova

    02. Mar, 2010

    Nice tutorial! Or maybe you should call it a tip! =D

  23. Andrew

    02. Mar, 2010

    How do you get the great little pieces on the ground?

  24. Reyn

    02. Mar, 2010

    Haha! Thanks a lot, Andrew. The vert hiding works like magic! ^_^

    -Reyn

  25. Nimblepix

    03. Mar, 2010

    Nifty! And, easy. Thanks much for this elegant solution.

  26. Heho

    05. Mar, 2010

    Again a very usefull tutorial! Now I fully understand why it is convenient to hide vertices

  27. Eon

    05. Mar, 2010

    (ouch!!! = sfx kicking my own head)

    great (ouch) and (ouch) nice (ouch) and (ouch) dirty (ouch) little (ouch) trick ….

    fell unconscious ….

  28. thesakej

    09. Mar, 2010

    someone help me, am new at this BLENDER thing i can’t even make an object…..help ASAP.

  29. torksu

    11. Mar, 2010

    wow that was just incredible :O

    I never thought of using it this way! and i’m happy discovering the solidify modifier too =D

  30. dhia eldeen

    13. Mar, 2010

    thanks andrew …

  31. wanjama

    14. Mar, 2010

    nyc

  32. Rayhan

    15. Mar, 2010

    How did you create those fragments on the floor?

  33. Sixthlaw

    16. Mar, 2010

    Would also like to know about the fragments on the floor. Are they hand made then spread using the physics engine, or are they randomly generated.

  34. Lucas smell 64

    19. Mar, 2010

    please tell me about the fragments on the ground as well.

  35. Sixthlaw

    19. Mar, 2010

    I have looked at your blender file, and understand how you have grouped the “shraprnel” objects, but when I create a group and use the GROUP function in the particle settings, i cant seem to spread them appropriately.What would be awesome is a function, almost like the weight painting function, that woud spread the objecs and also the density of how many of they peices of shrapnel are in the one spot. Is there a function like this?

  36. teepee

    03. Apr, 2010

    How do you select one half of it? I’m kinda new at this…soory!

  37. Kewl Luser

    11. Apr, 2010

    sweeeet – this aplies to 2.49b and 2.48a also – niiice loving this one Andrew – keep em coming

  38. Mennoknight

    12. Apr, 2010

    This is very cool! I stumbled on this for making terrain a while ago, it’s good to see something else it’s good for.

  39. Sean

    19. Apr, 2010

    *dies from shock of the fact it is so easy*

  40. Almux

    21. Apr, 2010

    Great! Simple stuff as it’s shown here.. mostly take hours to even begin to find out!!!! ;)
    Thanks!

  41. Marc

    24. Apr, 2010

    at 00:58 when i select 1 half of the eeg how do i do this for i have no idea

  42. Antoine

    27. Apr, 2010

    Press b for box select…

    Oh and shift+a to add an object ;-)

    Very nice tutorial by the way,

  43. razieraziel

    27. Apr, 2010

    I like it :]

  44. JackieNP

    16. May, 2010

    Oh!. Very quick. Very useful. Very cool!

  45. MARKUS

    18. May, 2010

    great but after pressing “o” and then render selected
    i press “g” and “s” but nothing happen but i have still selected on point
    and i don`t no what´s wrong :D

  46. chaitanyak

    14. Jun, 2010

    can you please do this one with screenshots and text discriptions .. like your puddle tutorial ?.. for some of us newbies :P

  47. chaitanyak

    14. Jun, 2010

    i got the logic though, brilliantly simple :) just having a problem following some of the steps.. like when you scale the falloff

  48. AC

    04. Jul, 2010

    Is there any way to incoperate the tracks from the snow toutorial into this, so you can make a pre-drawn crack in a plane?

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