Another way is to write a routine which:
1. Using TYPES and a little math, create a mesh made up of about 20 surfaces comprising of one poly each (which we'll call chunks), which is the same size as the building in total.
2. Calculate UV coordiantes for the textures on the triangles so that when they're "assembled" they match the building.
3. Remove the building mesh and put this one in its place.
4. In with the chunk TYPE, have current information on its velocity and rotation.
(so far, this would take about 0.01 seconds CPU time, so don't worry about overhead)
5. Add an instance to the mainloop to check all "chunk" TYPEs which are above ground level.
6. For each chunk, calculate it's rotation and downward velocity (increasing each iteration to account for gravity) and set it in its new vertex positions.
7. When any chunk goes below ground level, just free the surface, then delete that chunk TYPE.
(about another 0.001 seconds per interation - your CPU can handle hundres of these calculations easily.) :)
This way, you can handle multiple buildings being crushed simulatenously, etc, and it looks very visually impressive.
However, this isn't a "simple" way. It'd take a whole evening to write that routine.
+BlackD
[edit]
This is actually pretty much what Toad suggested, but explaining what doing that involves. :)
Yes - you can create meshes as types.. eg, new\chunk = createmesh(). I did this recently in a program like this:
[/edit]
1. Using TYPES and a little math, create a mesh made up of about 20 surfaces comprising of one poly each (which we'll call chunks), which is the same size as the building in total.
2. Calculate UV coordiantes for the textures on the triangles so that when they're "assembled" they match the building.
3. Remove the building mesh and put this one in its place.
4. In with the chunk TYPE, have current information on its velocity and rotation.
(so far, this would take about 0.01 seconds CPU time, so don't worry about overhead)
5. Add an instance to the mainloop to check all "chunk" TYPEs which are above ground level.
6. For each chunk, calculate it's rotation and downward velocity (increasing each iteration to account for gravity) and set it in its new vertex positions.
7. When any chunk goes below ground level, just free the surface, then delete that chunk TYPE.
(about another 0.001 seconds per interation - your CPU can handle hundres of these calculations easily.) :)
This way, you can handle multiple buildings being crushed simulatenously, etc, and it looks very visually impressive.
However, this isn't a "simple" way. It'd take a whole evening to write that routine.
+BlackD
[edit]
This is actually pretty much what Toad suggested, but explaining what doing that involves. :)
Yes - you can create meshes as types.. eg, new\chunk = createmesh(). I did this recently in a program like this:
Type Map Field mesh End Type Type tex Field surface End Type tex1=LoadBrush("ter1.png") world.map = New map world\mesh = CreateMesh() For i = -3 To 0 For m = -3 To 0 chunk.tex = New tex chunk\surface = CreateSurface(world\mesh) AddVertex chunk\surface,i,m,0,0,1 AddVertex chunk\surface,i+1,m,0,1,1 AddVertex chunk\surface,i+1,m+1,0,1,0 AddVertex chunk\surface,i,m+1,0,0,0 AddTriangle chunk\surface,3,2,1 AddTriangle chunk\surface,0,3,1 PaintSurface chunk\surface,tex1 Next NextBut of course the maths for the polygons and UV coordinates in your case would be more complicated than that. :) That was part of the WAR3 Terrain Demo (http://www.geocities.com/kinneargames/war3.zip) - 256 meshes, 4096 surfaces, 8192 polygons, 16384 vertices ;).. all defined in TYPEs.
[/edit]