I'm working in UDK but any approach will be useful.
I have yet to find a game that has these as breakable assets. Burnout's are strategically placed out the way, GTA 4's are immovable like the trees.

http://www.medicinal-waste.co.uk/chillalex/pylonset.htm
(not shameless, just on-hand reference)
so we all know the type, the ones that go down streets hooked up to each other with wires.

I'm investigating making these destroyable (everything else in my scene is) but I'm a little stumped thanks to them all being hooked up to each other.

Immediate thing that comes to mind is PhysX cloth, which I immediately don't want to do due to expense.


This is where I'm at


So, just have two pylons connected (not true to life, but will work) and when one gets hit, it falls over and the wires split in the center, fall to the ground. Problem then is having the other pylon's wires fall at the same time (evven though it hasn't taken any damage etc)

ugh. Any ideas? thoughts? experiences?

That could get really expensive from a physics-test standpoint. Depends on what physics options there are in UDK I guess.

Perhaps you could make each set of wires into a cloth object, but the physics are inactive until the post breaks. Then when as soon as it comes to a rest (dangling from the other pole) you could deactivate the physics too.

Just Cause 2 has them as destroyable. When you crash into a pole the cables either side just disappear. Sorry, don't have anything else to add to that :P

Rig them with bones so they can sway. Set up the mesh to tear at whatever points you want. Make the cloth settings stiff so it doesn't collapse on itself. Uses PhysX, might be expensive. Or you can fake it with a rigged mesh and a pre-defined snap point. On break/destroy, play this animation/detach from this point. Might require the use of sockets.

The second idea is off the top of my head, have never tested it.