3D Compositing with Action > Action: The Particle System > Exploding Objects and Surfaces >
Exploding Objects

The properties used to explode an object cannot be animated. When something explodes, it happens at a single point in time. This means that all the settings in the Particle Generator menu are used at once, at the beginning of the explosion.

To explode a 3D object:

1. Import a 3D object or create 3D text.
2. In the schematic, select the 3D object.
3. Add a particle generator. See Generators.
4. From the Particle Generator menu, select Explode from the Stream Type box.

   (a) Stream Type box(b) Interactive Type box(c) Render Type box

5. From the Render Type box, select Polygon as the particle type.

   To view the explosion as you make changes to your particle stream, change the Interactive Type box to Polygon as well. See Setting Particle Rendering Properties.

6. In the Number field, set the number of polygons to be removed from the 3D object with each pass. For example, if you specify 10 as the number of polygons per frame, then at each frame, 10 polygons are removed from the 3D object.
7. Set the other properties in the PartGen menu. See Customizing the Particle Stream.
8. Hide the 3D object or 3D text.

   The following figure shows the schematic and the result of exploding a 3D object of an apple. The number of polygons is set to 200. The result shows frame 20.