Cell fracture a plane in blender?

This seems like it should be super simple, but I can't seem to get it to work right.

How do I fracture a plane in Blender such that there's about 20 random sized fractures all contained within the square plane, and the square plane has no missing "fragments" -- and so that no fragments overlap?

I've tried messing with lots of settings in the cell fracture tool, and for some reason either extra polygons are sticking outside the square region, or I delete the "big plane" that is generated and see that there are a large number of regions that are missing lol.

Does anyone know how to simply fracture a plane in blender? Even if there were only 9 or 10 regions generated I would like it.

 

Velo, I have never used the cell fracture addon so what I'm about to write is just a suggestion - you are free to ignore it.

Most of the demos I have seen of cell fracture involve objects that have three dimensions - the plane does not. (Create a plane hit the N Key and look at the dimensions - one is zero)

My understanding of the Cell Fracture addon is that it performs a number of Boolean operations on the object to be shattered. From my experience Boolean operations on a plane produce odd results.

Try this, add a plane then add a sphere and then add a Boolean modifier. Leave the Boolean modifer at "intersect" and then apply it. Rather than get a disk you end up with a hemisphere that lies below the plane (at least in Blender 2.61).

Now try this, add a plane and add a Solidify modifer with a tiny thickneess, apply it. Now add a sphere and then add a Boolean modifier as before. Apply that modifier - you will get a thin cylinder as a result.

My guess is the cell fracture does not like that zero dimension.of the plane.

Here is a tutorial on Shattering Glass in Blender . You will notice that the author starts with a plane and gives it thickness by extruding it before applying the Cell Fracture addon.

Hope my suggestions and thoughts help.

cheers, gryff

 

A few years too late but this still comes up at the top of Google results.. I discovered that the artifacts you describe while using Cell Fracture add-on normally occur but you can bypass the problem by ensuring the plane is zero-depth on the Y axis (plane normal is Y axis) before applying the Cell Fracture (you can temporarily apply a rotation to accomplish the requirement).

 

Hello friend,
I was having the same issue, then I decided to play with the Noise option.
I made it 0.6 and it worked fine for me on a plane with 0 Z dimension.

I don't think you still need it after all these years, but I wanted to let you know just in case.