Fast dynamic fracture of brittle objects

Fracture is an important feature for computer games to enhance interactivity and realism. Due to its high computational expense, most computer games do not provide accurate fracturing features. Those that do typically pre-calculate cracks ahead of time in order to process the break instantaneously, but then only a small number of possible outcomes are available, regardless of how the object is hit. The ideal fracture model for computer games should be fast (things should break instantaneously when there is a collision) and respond to user actions somewhat realistically (if a ball hits the corner of a brick wall, the corner should break off, but not the center of the wall). Most existing fracture modeling techniques were designed for non-real-time computer animations (e.g. [O’Brien and Hodgins August 1999; Smith et al. 2001]) and are both too expensive and too realistic than necessary for computer games. Our model adds a novel multi-stage dynamic refinement scheme to Smith et al. [2001] to reduce the computational cost while retaining the realism of fracture.