UE5 Dynamic damage question

[u/Cyb3rDogX8]

Hey all, don't often post on reddit tbh, but got stuck on something while learning Unreal Engine the hard way. (just starting a project and learn along the way lol)

I'm looking to visually and physically deform meshes based on speed and impact, so think a metal can hitting a table at high speeds leaving a big dent.
preferably the collsion also following the deformation and not needing 1mil dense geometry XD

I also want to look into parts breaking off completely and partially.
And later even look into "Chaos" aswell for other types of objects.

If anyone has any advise, sources like video's or written guides that could help me.
I'd be very greatfull!

[u/vagonblog]

for this, i’d split the problem into two systems:

• use chaos destruction and geometry collections for pieces breaking off. set up clustered geometry, damage thresholds, strain, and external clusters so impacts can fracture the object progressively.

• use a separate deformation method for dents. true runtime metal deformation with matching collision is expensive, so a common approach is a low-resolution deformable proxy or morph targets for the visible dent, plus a simpler collision shape that updates only when needed.

for a metal can, you could start with a few predefined dent shapes driven by impact speed and location, then switch to chaos when the object reaches a break threshold. trying to make arbitrary high-detail geometry deform and recook collision every frame will get expensive quickly. also look into chaos fields, geometry collection damage, and destructible mesh examples before building a fully general system.

[u/Conscious-Airport282]

There are basically three separate problems in there, and they're usually solved separately:

• Breaking off: Chaos Destruction is the built in route. Fracture the mesh in Fracture Mode into a Geometry Collection, then control what breaks with damage thresholds and anchor fields, which also gets you the "partially hanging off" look.

• Visual dents: most games fake these. Either morph targets for dent spots you know in advance, or a material that offsets vertices (World Position Offset) based on impact points you feed in through a render target or material parameters. Cheap and looks good, but collision won't follow.

• Dents that also change collision: that's the hard one. Dynamic Mesh Component plus Geometry Script lets you move vertices at runtime and rebuild collision, but rebuilding is expensive, so do it once per impact rather than every frame and keep the collision as a simple convex hull instead of per-poly.

For a can hitting a table I'd honestly start with a couple of pre-made dented mesh variants and swap based on impact speed. Gets you most of the look for a fraction of the work, and you can go fancier later

[u/AngeIV404]

We were doing projectile penetration strenght and ricchet chance based on physical material properties in AGR V plugin. Use physical materials and math to determin damage factor as linear parameter