Animating Exploding Objects

Abstract

The paper explores the physically-based modeling of a blast wave impact on surrounding objects. We propose a connected voxel representation of objects to model explosions that result in realistic solid debris, rather than flat polygons. The paper also presents improved fracture algorithms capable of accounting for the damage of multiple explosions. The important implementation issues and the results of the simulation are discussed. Key words: Explosions, blast waves, connected voxels, spring-mass particle model, rigid bodies, solid modeling, physically-based modeling 1 Introduction Despite the growing interest in explosions, especially in visual effects, recent publications on the topic can hardly be found. Ever since the pioneering work of Reeves [Reeves83], who proposed using particle systems to model explosions, the area of explosion animation seems to have been abandoned by researchers. Particles are very effective at modeling certain aftereffects of an explosion---fire and smo...