--- title: How to Refine Houdini Destruction According to Former... description: Former Pixar FX Technical Director Jae Jun Yi describes a Multi-Layered RBD Simulation workflow for Houdini, presented as a SIGGRAPH 2026 poster, that lets... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-refine-houdini-destruction-according-to-former-pixar-fx-artist-1fnmrjlsg twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How to Refine Houdini Destruction According to Former Pixar FX Artist | daily.dev og:description: Former Pixar FX Technical Director Jae Jun Yi describes a Multi-Layered RBD Simulation workflow for Houdini, presented as a SIGGRAPH 2026 poster, that lets... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-refine-houdini-destruction-according-to-former-pixar-fx-artist-1fnmrjlsg og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/1fNMrjLSg.png og:image:alt: How to Refine Houdini Destruction According to Former Pixar FX Artist og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How to Refine Houdini Destruction According to Former Pixar FX Artist **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 14 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Former Pixar FX Technical Director Jae Jun Yi describes a Multi-Layered RBD Simulation workflow for Houdini, presented as a SIGGRAPH 2026 poster, that lets artists add fractures and secondary detail to destruction simulations without rerunning already-approved base motion. The approach starts with a simple base RBD sim, then selects pieces (manually or via procedural conditions like size, velocity, impact) to fracture further while inheriting parent motion until a trigger frame activates a new simulation layer. Yi discusses how identifiers, transform attributes, and constraint handling preserve continuity between layers, the art-direction controls this enables, its limitations for highly interconnected or fully interactive destruction, and his preference for extending Houdini's standard RBD toolset rather than building a specialized custom system. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How can I add more fracture detail to a Houdini RBD destruction sim without breaking already-approved motion? Use a multi-layered RBD approach: start with a simple base simulation for overall motion, then select target pieces manually or by conditions like size, velocity, or impact, fracture them further, and have the new pieces inherit the parent's transform and motion attributes until a trigger frame activates a new active simulation for just those pieces. _Artists refining Houdini destruction pipelines can find workflow deep dives like this on daily.dev._ ### How do you keep newly fractured RBD pieces from popping or intersecting when a new simulation layer activates in Houdini? Overlapping geometry between existing pieces and newly created fragments can cause the collision solver to react strongly, making pieces pop, vibrate, or move unexpectedly. A practical fix is to slightly reduce the collision size of pieces in the new layered simulation, creating small gaps between fragments to soften the collision response at activation. _Teams troubleshooting RBD activation glitches can track technical VFX writeups like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Breakdown: How Houdini Is Reshaping Commercial Animation](https://daily.dev/posts/breakdown-how-houdini-is-reshaping-commercial-animation-ducikr5gd) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Procedural Tentacle FX Created with Houdini](https://daily.dev/posts/procedural-tentacle-fx-created-with-houdini-0gqctf01d) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building a Procedural Destruction Pipeline with Houdini & UE5](https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-procedural-destruction-pipeline-with-houdini-ue5-ialohuxsw) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Massive 3D Building Destruction In CGI](https://daily.dev/posts/massive-3d-building-destruction-in-cgi-cgsdo0ljo) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-refine-houdini-destruction-according-to-former-pixar-fx-artist-1fnmrjlsg) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How to Refine Houdini Destruction According to Former Pixar FX Artist","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-refine-houdini-destruction-according-to-former-pixar-fx-artist-1fnmrjlsg","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-refine-houdini-destruction-according-to-former-pixar-fx-artist-1fnmrjlsg"},"datePublished":"2026-09-28T22:50:19.535Z","dateModified":"2026-09-28T22:50:41.711Z","description":"Former Pixar FX Technical Director Jae Jun Yi describes a Multi-Layered RBD Simulation workflow for Houdini, presented as a SIGGRAPH 2026 poster, that lets...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/6c4a1a59296dab13be92c4d63418dce2?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/6c4a1a59296dab13be92c4d63418dce2?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"80 LEVEL","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"80 LEVEL","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/78eebcd76c154e6bbfd565fed7dc4093","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-refine-houdini-destruction-according-to-former-pixar-fx-artist-1fnmrjlsg","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"","timeRequired":"PT14M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80 LEVEL","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How to Refine Houdini Destruction According to Former Pixar FX Artist"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-refine-houdini-destruction-according-to-former-pixar-fx-artist-1fnmrjlsg#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How can I add more fracture detail to a Houdini RBD destruction sim without breaking already-approved motion?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Use a multi-layered RBD approach: start with a simple base simulation for overall motion, then select target pieces manually or by conditions like size, velocity, or impact, fracture them further, and have the new pieces inherit the parent's transform and motion attributes until a trigger frame activates a new active simulation for just those pieces. Artists refining Houdini destruction pipelines can find workflow deep dives like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How do you keep newly fractured RBD pieces from popping or intersecting when a new simulation layer activates in Houdini?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Overlapping geometry between existing pieces and newly created fragments can cause the collision solver to react strongly, making pieces pop, vibrate, or move unexpectedly. A practical fix is to slightly reduce the collision size of pieces in the new layered simulation, creating small gaps between fragments to soften the collision response at activation. Teams troubleshooting RBD activation glitches can track technical VFX writeups like this via daily.dev."}}]} ```