Developer Forum

2023-01-10 Geometry Nodes sub-module meeting

Geometry Nodes
#1

The meeting will be open for anyone interested in joining the video call (link below).

Meeting time: 15:00-16 CEST (Your local time: 2023-01-10T14:00:00Z

Links

Present

  • Bruno Chartier
  • Dalai Felinto
  • Falk David
  • Hans Goudey
  • Iliya Katueshenock
  • Jacques Lucque

Since the Last Meeting

  • Performance improvements
  • UV is now a generic attribute

General Discussion

  • Lukas Tonne joins the team in Amsterdam starting in March.
  • 3.5 Targets
    • Simulation Nodes won’t be ready in time for Blender 3.5.
    • The focus now switched to the other 3.5 targets such as curves and hair.
    • New task for the development of nodes for procedural hair.
  • Grease Pencil
    • Falk shares the current state of the design of Grease Pencil 3.0
    • It will split Annotation and Grease Pencil objects.
    • In the future it could use Geometry object to implement frames.

Patch Review & Decision Time

  • The new surface-like volume will follow other DCCs’ name: Volume SDF.
  • Geometry Notes / Curve to Mesh: Miter joints / constant thickness D16829
    • Patch has some build problems at the moment.
    • Avoid the term “Use” for checkboxes
    • “Miter Joins” is a bit convoluted term. Although they are welcome in the toolip and/or the user manual we could use a simpler term.
    • Suggestion 1: “Preserve Thickness”
    • Suggestion 2: “Constant Thickness”

Follow Up

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on Tuesday January 24, 15:00-16 CEST (Your local time: 2023-01-24T14:00:00Z), which is 2 weeks from this meeting. The provisional meeting agenda will be linked in the #geometry-nodes channel before the meeting.

9 Likes
16 January 2023
#2

Miter joints will be a godsend for arc-viz, carpentry… <3

Out of these two I would prefer “Constant Thickness” but given the similar functionality in the Solidify modifier, would “Even Thickness” be more familiar and consistent?

Custom node builders tend to name their Extrude Mesh versions “Solidify Even” as well. People use the word “(un)even” when talking about the current Curve to Mesh behaviour on StackExchange and on BA. Inset operator also has the “Offset Even” option…

4 Likes
#3

Well noted in regard to the solidify modifier. I think “Even Thickness” can work as well.

3 Likes
#4

In case I missed something,
There is a “Simulations” branch of Blender already available right now. As far as I am aware it only introduces Simulation In/out nodes, which, basically, store the previous frame’s data.

Why could not it land in master branch without any other nodes necessary for proper simulations?
I think, having those two new nodes will make a huge deal of a new feature in 3.5.

Could you please shed more light on decision making on postponing simulations for later versions of Blender?

Thank you!

1 Like
#5

Not one of the devs, but as I understand it it’s simply a matter of it not being stable yet.

1 Like
#6

The cache system couldn’t get ready on time. That and some unforeseen refactor work lead the team to post-pone it. This way we can focus on the other tasks for 3.5, as oppose to have nothing new there.

7 Likes
#7

Thanks for the reply!
Fingers crossed for simulations in Blender 3.5+

1 Like
#8

Thanks Dalai and team for your welcome during my first meeting!

Glad if I can be helpful with something, starting with curve-to-mesh!

@kuboa, thanks for the feedback and the BA links too that I had not seen! I will take a look to confirm the approach in D16829

Just for reference, here are the different terms used on the ~20 reports on stackexchange about the curve extrusion:

  • deformed
  • weird creases
  • uneven
  • inconsistent
  • shrunk corners
  • weird corners

Desired result terms:

  • nice corners
  • continuous width
  • sharp corners

Bottom line, even/uneven indeed came back a few times so “Even Thickness” sound good to me.

5 Likes