Dynamics

I was advised to work on the fluids before I started to really model anything.  At the time I didn't understand why, I thought it would be best to figure out how big everything was so that when I add the dynamics I wouldn't have to fiddle with it too much.  But since I kinda already knew how to model and I wanted to learn dynamics more anyways I took the advice and started with the fluid dynamics first, just with a very simple tube.

Since I had some rough geometry from my animatic/previs I based my sim size to that

To create rigid body object and having it break is as simple as clicking some shelf tools!  It's amazingly fun and easy.

Try it out with the GO| Procedural Quick Start Guide

It's best to use the shelf tools when dealing with dops because the shelf tools will automatically lay down nodes that you need and might need later on.  Sometimes there's benefits in building your own dopnet and drawing in things yourself, like if you're trying to do something more custom.  But for the most part you want to use the shelf tools and then go backwards, just in case you forget a node or forget a setting.

For example, gravity, if you use the shelf tool for gravity it lays down a force node with a gravity setting of -9.80665, which is a real world setting.  If you were to just lay down a force node you would just get zero.  I find it's easier use the shelf tools for the recommended settings and nodes and then customize it that way.