Simulation Test

I did a quick test in XSI to see if I could make a brick wall collapse:



Observations:

Zero Gravity looked cool but was unrealistic. The robot is not that strong. Bricks cannot spin in mid-air.
Having nothing to 'push against' in the first test, the wall exploded outwards and upwards as well as the intended direction, forwards.

Adding passive rigid body bricks to the sides of the wall give it increased stability and believability, and prevent the wall from shaking itself apart before the 'fist' has collided.

The wall tends to 'dip' at start of simulation - perhaps I should reduce amount of active rigid bodies? 'Mortar' in between bricks may fix this problem. Another potential reason may be the amount of subdivisions on the 'floor' is not great enough to hold up the wall, but this is unlikely.

Realistically there will only be certain sections of the wall which will be destructible - the rest will be rigid - possibly round holes for the fist to smash through. The hole needs to be big enough for us to see the robot from the other side.

Another problem will be preventing the entire centre of the wall from falling down - perhaps steel girders or struts could spererate wall partitions.

I will also have to render this scene without breaks, or pre-cache the simulation, to prevent any changes to the animation occurring.