In one of my maps I have a ceiling made up of a bunch of prop_physics_override models, motion disabled, using the anim_wp/coreroom/catapult_panel_gib models. When the player steps on a faith plate which is aimed wrong, they all enable motion at once. It looks really spectacular.

The problem is, even though they're marked as debris, they all just sit there indefinitely and cause lag when the next panel breaks. Is there a way to make them smash/break/fade out after a bit of time, preferably not all at once, like they do in the original game?

I suppose you could use the kill output with a trigger of somesort. You could just name them each individually and have different delays for each piece of debris. Sorry if I didn't help, i'm sick right now and just got stung by a bee, so i'm feeling pretty rubbishy, but I hope I helped! I'll look into the situation in a few and see if there's another solution.

I don't think a lot of models are the best way to go here, usually models are more detailed and thus also more expensive to render...

I know it is possible to set this up, unfortunately I can't check the vmf out how I did it myself, but I;ll check it out asap.

'breaking' or killing the models would be the way to go here. If you actually used gibs, they will fade out in a specified time.

Could I use the "gib" entity? Or set this as the custom gib model on a func_physbox or the like?