Explosion in Blender

[El Director]

So I'm working on my next feature and realized as I was writing that an apartment building blows up. Obviously this will be done digitally. I will be using Blender, as that is what I'm familiar with, and I've already created the basic fireball and such. I've also built a virtual building and tracked it to the real building in a proof of concept shot. My question is, how do I get the building to explode realistically? Like, I want to see pieces fly past the camera. Is there a particle system that will take care of animating debris, do do I have to keyframe the stuff that flies. Thanks!

 

[zareone]

Hi!

I found this Blender DOF tutorial, in which a ligthbulb explodes, and you can see that the geometry for the particles is a group. Take a look and maybe it helps you.

I'm almost sure you can use particle systems for your explosion, without needing to manually keyframe the exploded parts...

I'm a newcomer to Blender, so I can't give you any more info.

Greetings!

 

[El Director]

Thanks!
I actually found an explosion modifier for the particle system, I just need to learn how to control it now.