You can include any dead shape you like in the object, but just like the live object, you need to create it the same way unless you find one you can use instead. Like Hitech said, you need to set the dead flag.
Understood. In AC3D, every object clearly has a live shape and dead shape baked into the wireframes, with live bitmaps and dead bitmaps. And the dead flags are in the object hierarchies. Totally understand it.
Here's what else I've learned today:
1. If you place an object (such as a town building) in your terrain from the terrain editor, and change the Object Type to "Bunk Fuel", and give it a down time, point value of 1, and hardness of 1, then when it gets destroyed in the game, the building goes to its dead shape and not only burns, but the rubble pile appears.
2. If you place the town building in the terrain and change the Object Type to "Void", leave the downtime, point value, and hardness all -1, nothing happens to it and you can't destroy it.
3. If you place the town building in your terrain from the terrain editor, and change the Object Type to "Void", and give it a down time, point value of 1, and hardness of 1, then when it gets destroyed in the game, the building goes to its dead shape and the rubble pile appears, and you get the "Structure destroyed" message.
4. If you place the town building in your terrain from the terrain editor, and change the Object Type to "Structure", and give it a down time, point value of 1, and hardness of 1, then when it gets destroyed in the game, the building goes to its dead shape and the rubble pile appears, and you get the "Non-strat Structure destroyed" message.
5. If you place a vehicle or plane in the terrain and change the Object Type to "Bunk Fuel", then when it gets destroyed, the plane blows up and disappears, and the spot where it was burns.
6. If you place the town building in your terrain from the terrain editor, and change the Object Type to "Group Master", and give it a down time, point value of 1, and hardness of 1, then when it gets destroyed in the game, the building goes to both its dead and live shapes, and no rubble pile appears.
So I think somehow the game itself knows when to add a rubble pile, and how big it should be. There don't appear to be any flags in the Terrain Editor that signal when a rubble pile should or should not appear.
Also, it should be pretty easy to create a tank or vehicle object, with live and dead shapes and bitmaps, place it in the terrain, and when it gets destroyed it will both burn and go to a dead bitmap. This will be very handy in SEA and AvA terrains, for things like rail yard strafing and armored column strafing and bombing.
