Exporting a Deformable Object

A deformable object is one that deforms when shot. Deformable objects consist of a render mesh, physics proxy and a reference object used to define the shape the object will take on when has been deformed. Damage will then deform the object from it's original state defined in the render mesh and physics proxy to the final state defined by the reference object. The first step is to create your mesh and save it into a project folder as described in the above tutorials. Then you need to apply a material and texture to your object. I will be making a cube for this tutorial. The material on your mesh should be named something such as objName__1__display__physNone. It is important that this mesh is set to physNone.

The next step is to subdivide your mesh. It is necessary for the mesh to be higher resolution than normal in order for it to be able to bend when it is hit. Depending on your mesh this stage may or may not be necessary. As you can see in the above picture, a cube has only six faces. This makes it impossible for the cube to deform properly as the faces cannot intend when hit. I selected my entire mesh in edit mode and pressed subdivide (in the tool menu on the left hand side accessed by pushing T) three times to increase the resolution.

Be careful not to increase the face count too high or it will cause lag. Next duplicate your object and parent it to the original object. Name this object the name of your first object (in my case Cube) plus the suffix proxy. Then remove the material from this new object and give it a new material called something like objName__2__proxy_physProxyNoDraw. Again, it is important you have the correct physics type for this material.

Duplicate your original object again and name this one skeleton_Cube (replace Cube with the name of your original object). This object will define the shape of your deformable object when it has been damaged. Remove the material from this object as well and give it material like this: objName__3__nodraw__physDefault. Enter sculpt mode with this object selected and use the sculpt brushes to distort the object into a damaged shape.

You can also do this distortion in edit mode if you wish. Parent your skeleton object to your original object and select all the objects. Add them to a cryExportNode and follow the export procedure detailed in the first tutorial. Once you have placed the object in the CryEngine it should react to damage by deforming.

Congratulations on exporting a deformable object to the CryEngine 3!

More information on deformable objects can be found here:

http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC3/Deformable+Objects

Note: I don't know if deformable objects are compatible with multiple part objects or not.