Quickly fracture meshes with the Cell fracture add-on

in this guide you will learn how to quickly shatter meshes in a matter of seconds

enabling the add-on

• open blender
  
• navigate to the top left and select file and then user preferences
  
• click on the add-ons tab
  
• top left you'll see a search bar, look for : cell
  
• object: cell fracture should pop up, enable it
  
• bottom left of the screen click save user settings

using the cell-fracture addon

• place the object you want to fracture in the 3d-viewer
  
• press space while it's selected
  
• type: cell
  
• object: cell fracture selected mesh objects should pop up select it
  you will now have a menu with lots of options in it to keep it simple here are two key elements:
  
• Source limit: the amount of fractures
  
• recursion: how many times a big piece might break into smaller pieces (depends on source limit right next to it)

when done click ok it will now generate the fractures this might take a while if you have a lot

your object is now fractured

your object should now be fractured.

use proportional editing to save time and move many pieces together in a random fashion.

end result:

[Spore Cannon]

@Ron Make an armature and give it a bone for each shard (and maybe one for the collection as a whole in case you want it to be a whole object that can move before shattering), then animate the bones as you see fit.

[4KZ]

preference button has moved to under edit

[Ron]

How to animate it?