Thinkinetic has released Pulldownit 6 for Maya, introducing new destruction features and improvements in performance and usability. This version focuses on fast tweaking, repeatability, and refined fracture control for more polished destruction effects.
A key addition is the Edge Fracture Tool, which allows users to create chipping effects on the inner borders of selected fragments interactively. The tool is non-destructive, enabling users to reshatter fragments, play the simulation immediately, and undo or recover the original breakage as needed. Users can monitor the number of generated fragments to manage polygon budgets effectively, which is particularly useful for real-time effects.
The update also improves the replace cut material feature, allowing changes at any stage of the destruction process, even after baking simulation keys. Jaggy fragments are now supported, and a distinct base color is applied to newly created materials for easier identification of affected fragments.
Performance enhancements include a 30% speed increase in computing instanced shapes within dynamic simulations. Long cracks now produce more realistic results for stone-like materials. Fracture clusters have been refined with new parameters for better control over object breakage.
Several user interface enhancements have been introduced, such as the ability to set the current frame for fracture, rigid body, and cracker events by dragging the Maya time slider and clicking the relevant event button. Users can now adjust seed values for initial velocity and spin for both rigid and fracture bodies, offering greater variation in simulations.
Licensed users can access Pulldownit 6.0 from their accounts, and a demo version for Maya 2025 is available on the Thinkinetic website. To find out more, visit the Pulldownit version logs page on Thinkinetic’s website.
