"cutting" an object in half

(I’m fairly new to Unity3d but have made a few simple games.)

I’m trying to come up with a way to “cut” an object in half.

The idea is that the player controls a saw, that she uses to cut wooden poles in half.

I’d like the bottom half of the pole to stay stuck in the ground, and the top half to get acted on by physics and fall off the bottom portion, and then tip over. The top half needs to perform it’s own movement.

Ideally, this cut could happen anywhere within a certain range, but I’m ok if it’s gotta be cut “in the middle”.

The best idea I have so far is to:
Create a container object that holds:

  • Bottom of the pole
  • Top of pole – A mesh with a rigid body that is initially set to not be affected by gravity
  • A collider in the middle that turns on gravity for the top of the pole.

The second best idea is to have one solid object that is quickly replaced by 2 object in the same place, when the pole is “cut”. This may be a better option, but I don’t know if graphics updates will be fast enough.

I haven’t done any coding on this yet.

Any suggestions for a noob?

The second best idea is to have one solid object that is quickly replaced by 2 object in the same place, when the pole is “cut”. This may be a better option, but I don’t know if graphics updates will be fast enough.

Yep, this is what I would. A bit complicated though.

  1. To cut a sprite, texture. You need a mesh(shape in array Vector2)
    Unity - Scripting API: Sprite.OverrideGeometry
    Unity - Scripting API: Sprite.Create
  2. You need to show sprite have been cut. By a sort of Mask to show that a sprite have been cut in 2 while reality you have 2 sprite but each a mash cover for it. Or you could change mesh of sprite you are cutting and turn it into 2 sprites. Nothing new but doable

Another google github project have done this: Turn sprite → mesh. Have a look