Deformation Damage Zone

A Deformation Damage Zone is a box that modifies visual deformation resistance at the hit location. Use separate boxes for regions such as the front, rear, sides, roof or core.

Setup

1. Add a Deformation Damage Zone component to the actor.
2. Place it underneath the Deformable Mesh Component that should own it.
3. Position, rotate and scale the box to cover the region.
4. Set Resistance Multiplier and Blend Width, then test with Advanced Damage debugging.

VehicleMesh
  DMC_Vehicle
    DamageZone_Front
    DamageZone_Roof
DoorMesh
  DMC_Door
    DamageZone_Door

Component ownership

The nearest parent DMC owns the zone. A box placed elsewhere on the same actor is not automatically assigned to it. Damage Zones do not use the group-based assignment of Protection Boxes or Hit Zones.

Settings

Setting	Default	Meaning
Zone Type	Custom	A descriptive Front, Rear, Side, Roof, Core or Custom label; it does not select a preset
Resistance Multiplier	1	Below 1 makes deformation easier; 1 is neutral; above 1 increases resistance. Range: 0.1 to 10
Blend Width	10 cm	Distance inside the box over which resistance blends from neutral at the boundary toward the configured value; measured in unscaled box centimeters

For example, try 0.5 for a softer region and 2 for a stronger region. These are tuning examples, not physical material presets. A Blend Width of 0 gives a hard boundary.

Evaluation rules

• Resistance is sampled once at the hit location, not separately for every vertex of a large impact.
• All processed LODs receive the same sampled hit resistance.
• Overlapping boxes blend by weight instead of multiplying their resistance values.
• Outside active boxes the factor is neutral 1. With no active boxes, zone evaluation is skipped.
• Deactivated boxes do not contribute. Boxes require no physics collision, overlap events or their own tick.

New hits use current transforms and settings. Native historical replay retains the resistance saved with the original hit. Forwarded hits evaluate the receiving component's own zones, not the source part's resistance.

Choosing the right box component

Component	Responsibility
Deformation Damage Zone	Changes visual deformation resistance
Protection Box	Protects a region from further deformation through the protection workflow
Hit Zone	Detects relevant impacts and accumulates strength for gameplay notifications

A high-resistance Damage Zone is not a substitute for a Protection Box. The configured resistance does not decrease per hit; section damage accumulates separately.