Hi Experts,

I am producing a game for android and ios. In order to reduce the graphics cost, I bought some vectors (monster faces) online and I am gonna use them as part of my game. My game involves blowing up a monster face when an object hits the face.

So my question is how to create that blowing (breaking into pieces) effect from the vectors I have? Do I need to use an separate tool? I appreciate all the suggestions.

Thanks in advance...

Case 1: You have Adobe After Effects

Simply:

1. Import your image in After Effects.
2. Use the Shatter effect and set any small duration which you want.
3. Export your animation to a video!
4. Convert the video to GIF with any tool ( like this one online! ).
5. You may even want to convert the GIF into a sprite sheet for sprite animation.

Case 2: You don't have Adobe After Effects

Either buy it, use trial for 30 days or use Blender (its free).

If you go for Blender then the process is a bit hard. (I don't have experience with it myself)

But I think you'll have to use the Explode Modifier.

If you go for Blender then the process is a bit hard. (I don't have experience with it myself) But I think you'll have to use the Explode Modifier.

I think that is the wisest course here. Specifically build the model and animation for it.

There are more options.

You could write the code to explode the mesh, build a bunch of sub-meshes dynamically, throw physics at them. This will be more effort but enable any new mesh to be exploded, if you are planning on doing this with many arbitrary meshes this could be useful and save time in the long run.

The AfterEffects is the movie version, render a movie instead of rendering polygons. If concerned about hardware limitations of an explosion this may work well.

The first problem is that it's a vector. Which makes life difficult.

My solution. Render the vector to a texture. Map the texture to a plane. Voronoi fractal. Blow up the plane.

Thanks for all the replies. I got some clarity. But I feel that I confused you guys with my question. So I am reframing my question as below.

As shown in example below (BOOM DOTS), my game also includes hitting a target object with a small object. When this happens the target object should be broken into pieces (same as the BOOM DOTS). So how do we achieve this? and Who's work is this? Graphic Designer's or Programmer's?

If it is graphic designer's how he does that and if it is programmer's how he does that?

Thanks for your valuable replies...

That example shows, essentially, a particle explosion coincident with the removal of the "bad-guy" image. This looks pretty decent because all of the images they're using are solid colors. If your monster faces are more than one color, I imagine you could get a similar effect by sampling a few of the more prominent colors used in each image and coloring your particles accordingly.

For the actual particle explosion, it should be fairly easy to find information on setting that up (look up 'particle system').

Thanks for all the replies. I got some clarity. But I feel that I confused you guys with my question. So I am reframing my question as below.

As shown in example below (BOOM DOTS), my game also includes hitting a target object with a small object. When this happens the target object should be broken into pieces (same as the BOOM DOTS). So how do we achieve this? and Who's work is this? Graphic Designer's or Programmer's?

If it is graphic designer's how he does that and if it is programmer's how he does that?

Thanks for your valuable replies...

As a programmer, you may use particles.

You may simply create particles (circles, squares, etc.) of various colors picked up from the monster vector with whatever size you want.

Just give these particles random velocities away from the monster face. You may also want to reduce the alpha and size of these particles (kill the particles) over time. (Same as what NoAdmiral said)

As a graphic designer (animator), you even have particles in After Effects.

Or you can mask the image into small sub images and produce a similar but more realistic effect.

If you are programmer, then you save yourself the cost of animation software but in turn have to code a particle system.

Hence, you may want to go the slightly easier route i.e. After Effects or Blender.

But creating your own particle system, will help you learn more which will obviously benefit you in your career as a game programmer.

One approach I saw, was to take the item texture, then create a second "fragment map" texture where you color all the "pieces" with a different color.

Then the game looks at the fragment map, detects each piece based on color, and slices the item based on that, and sends the pieces flying.

You could provide multiple such maps (possible ways to frament the item), to create variation.

This would give good control regarding how objects break up, without having to touch code.