Is it for typical sprite explosions (sizes of 32x32 64x64 etc.)?
I thought about it once. Some weeks ago I made a particle system in which the particles were small rotating pieces in all colors, as if some thing exploded into pieces in quite a realistic way. I concluded that any attempt to break an image (the 'official' way) would be kinda like a waste of time. A thing you could do to have it a few % more realistic is grab a number of important colors from the image and apply those on the particles.
I thought about it once. Some weeks ago I made a particle system in which the particles were small rotating pieces in all colors, as if some thing exploded into pieces in quite a realistic way. I concluded that any attempt to break an image (the 'official' way) would be kinda like a waste of time. A thing you could do to have it a few % more realistic is grab a number of important colors from the image and apply those on the particles.