Blender Exploder Tool
Always use the latest version of Blender as with every update, some nodes get added or disappear from Blender. If the nodes used in Blender Exploder Tool do not exist in your version of Blender (because you use and older version of Blender for example) then the program crashes.
Blender Exploder Tool works best with 3D models that are made up of multiple meshes. Say you have a 3D model of a car that you want to explode, ideally the doors, steering wheel, bumpers, windows and wheels (etc.) are their own separate mesh.
If you have only one mesh, a single Suzanne monkey for example, features like positioning, scaling and rotating individual faces (polygons / quad / triangles ) still work - just make sure you checkbox the option "explode faces".
Point clouds are not (fully) supported yet, so your scans need to be converted to a mesh / multiple meshes first.
- Append the Blend file
- Import ALL the Collections
- Import a 3D model from your own model collection into Blender (make sure it’s made of multiple meshes)
- Put the 3D models in one of the 6 layers of the tool (or spread multiple meshes between Layers for more control)
- Start sliding or animating the sliders!
Is it not working? Try selecting all the meshes and go to the Viewport, press Object > Set Origin > Origin To Geometry and try again. Or take a look at the video on this page for more information.
New in v1.45! Asset browser version with thumbnail
Add the .blend download to your asset browser folder to drag and drop it right into your project! This method of importing does NOT import all the Collections (Layers). Rather have all Collections too? Then append the .blend and import all Collections instead.
When you press "split faces" or any other option that is labeled "CPU Heavy' in Blender Exploder Tool, it often "realizes instances" in Geometry Nodes, which means it transforms instances to actual geometry. This also means that any scaling or rotation on the meshes is applied. If your meshes were rotated and scaled a bit in the scene, realizing the instances means that tiling might occur.
To solve the tiling issue, make sure that you apply the scale and rotation before using functions as "split faces" or most options labeled "CPU heavy"
So select your meshes and press Ctrl + A and apply transforms (or at least, apply rotation and scale) before you split faces or use other CPU heavy options.
You can also position, scale and rotation objects / collections with Blender Exploder Tool itself, so there's not always the need to do this to your object of choice - do it in the Blender Exploder Tool settings instead.
In most use cases you can export your animations as an Alembic (.abc) with Blender's own built in export function. Please do consider the fact that some game engines that support Alembics might have trouble importing them when you use certain functions of Blender Exploder Tool. Some programs that import Alembics, require a static amount of vertices / polygons, so using functions in Blender Exploder Tool that modify the amount of vertices / polygons will probably lead to import errors. Functions like Split Faces or Delete Random Geo might cause this.
Deleting all Empties when exporting to Alembic can be a good practice too, because Empties can mess up the position of its children when exported as .abc. If you want the objects linked to the Empties to stay in the same place after deleting the parent Empty, please apply all the location, scale and rotation data to the Empty first, and then delete the Empty. Select Empty in the Viewport and press Ctrl + A to open the Apply menu.
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