A limited licence of the The Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) plugin is included in Maya 2012.

To activate the Plugin: (Window > Setting and Preferences > Plugin-Manager) dmm_cinematic.dll check Loaded and Autoload. A new Shelf and Menuset is added to the Maya Interface.

To use DMM, Maya Objects must be converted into DMM-Objects.

1. Create UV-Mapping and Finalize the Object before you destroy it.
2. Select the Surface-Object that is going to be destroyed.
3. DMM Asset (Options) > Target Face Count 10-50 (This setting can be adjusted later on, for now it is a low value to keep the simulation running smoothly)

I will be destroying a wooden fence with a cannon. Why? because Cannons destroy stuff.

Set the Shelf to “DMM”

Create a DMM-Sphere – (DMM Objects cannot be animated directly – but they can be constrained to other Maya Objects when the DMM object is set to passive)

Select the Sphere, Open the DMM Asset Manager and activate “DMM Passive”

Create a locator (Create > Locator)

Switch to the “Animation Menu” and first select the locator (as the parent) and then the DMM-Sphere Constrain > Parent

Create a curve for a motion path animation:

Set the Range Slider to 80. Select the Locator and the Curve and Animate > Attach to Motion Path

Switch the Menu to the DMM-Menu

Playback the animation and try to figure out which part of the fence gets hit and select those parts

Go to DMM Asset > DMM Object starting with AutoCage (Options) – keep the Target Face Count at a low Value of 10.0 (Later on it can be adjusted for more shards)

In the DMM-Asset Manager Deactivate “Driven Tet Mesh” for every Object.

Playback the Animation. You can see that for the DMM objects automatically gravity is applied and the Objects are falling through the floor. To stop this happening parts of the objects need a Passive Region to disable the simulation on that part of the object.

Create a Passive Region (DMM-Asset > Add new DMM Region to DMM Object > Passive Region) – a DMM-Box is created and can be scaled and positioned to define a Region. This has to be repeated with every single object to fixate them and prevent them of falling/breaking prematurely.

When playing the Animation the fence still cannot hold it up on itself and the Material does not break like wood. This can be changed by applying a DMM-Material.

Select the parts of the fence that are going to be blasted into bits. DMM Material > Assign new DMM-Material> wood. To select the Node click on the Shelf for “Select Connected Material Node”.

By increasing the Youngs(Stiffness) by a factor of e.g 10 or 100 the fence stands up on its own.

Now the main Animation looks proper, so you can increase the Target Face Count (100.0 or higher). Open the DMM-Asset Manager (Shelf)

The shards are now falling through the floor, you can add a DMM-Cube, set it to “DMM Passive” scale it to be the floor and then add it to a new Layer and set it to Transparent.

Add some final touches like, Lighting, Camera Movement. And you get something like this:

Further Resources:

http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/cory/breaking_pillars_with_dmm_in_maya_2012