Geometry Nodes in Blender 3.0 - Status Update

Hey Dimitri,

I understand your position, but it’s a procedural system to make custom modifiers, it will be pre-requisite that there is some amount of knowledge involved. There are already a ton of tutorials and courses to get people started, and they are at a level that anyone can follow.

But it’s totally ok for many users not to use the Geometry nodes themselves, they can use assets that other people made.

It’s like making apps for your smartphone. Yes the apps need to be easy, but what about the environment where you make the apps? If that is dumbed down too much, then you will only get dumb apps.

I’m not saying to go overboard and make it super-convoluted so only people with PHD in math and computer science use it… It needs to come with a certain ease of use so people can really be creative with it, and it can be inclusive.
I think currently it’s close to having a good balance. Anyone can play with the nodes and get something out of it, while still allowing more elaborate setups to happen.

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Maybe its useful?

It is a fractal, created from a cube. Chaining the same GN modifier is used as recursion steps for the fractal.

The GN Nodes are simple

The Blender file …
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1syYbhUM91v8PiHTJ-lB8pCieDdItZr6S/view?usp=sharing

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I thought a torus knot generator might be useful in the example files. I’m not ready to provide the file yet, I still have some polishing and cleanup to do. What do you think?

One of my limitations is the lack of loops. If loops existed, I would be able to split every non-perfect knot into two or more links. Without them, every non-perfect knot becomes a circle.

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Maybe it will be better to provide a file with parametric surface meshes in general? The you could add a couple more interesting shapes. This kinda shows how much better fields workflow is than attributes. Imagine “noding” the equations using attribute nodes :cold_sweat:

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I can imagine that, but we must be reminded of the fact that some people are of the technical type that would prefer to create ‘equations’ and present the resulting modifier with easy to use options (ie. in the case of a studio team or simply sharing with the community).

It does not have to be either/or in terms of whether we want to provide tools for creative thinkers or tools for analytical thinkers/TD’s. The ability to define custom attributes in the tree itself (ie. not in the modifier UI) can be added without compromising the artist friendliness of fields.

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Sounds like a great idea! I’ll see what I can do.
Although, this might belong in a curve generator file instead, since it just generates a curve that is thickened afterwards.

@Ace_Dragon, are we seriously talking about named attributes again? Please, post this on the dedicated topic, not here. Though I agree with you, I’m not going to get pulled into that argument again.

That’s true. I wonder if there are any surface equations for Torus knots.

Which version of Blender you are using? I would expect the Index Node noodle to be a dash there.

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That looks like the fields prototype if I’m not mistaken.

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GN does not output UV for render?

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Ah, that screenshot was from a while ago when not everything was implemented in master, so I was using the prototype. It won’t take long to remake it though. I was just wondering if there was any interest. I think this kind of generator might come of use in artwork.

Also, about the dashed lines:
I agree with the use of dashes and understand their purpose; however, if they were a higher frequency, the readability and continuity would be improved. I have a hard time focusing on them and following them to where they connect. Thanks.

I don’t know if that’s necessary. Having a starting curve that you can do whatever you want with is more useful. It might be nice for example purposes, but I would go with simple primitives for those.

I agree with you, and I’m not, by any means, suggesting to make GN dumber. Instead, I think it’s important to make it so robust that people can rely on shared node groups to not be a technical artist in order to use GN. This way, shipping GN with a few bundled node groups would be a good idea in my opinion, but @HooglyBoogly already talked about this no being a target for 3.0, which is sad, but understandable.

I think this is the exact same principle as shaders. Yes, they’re procedural, but the vast majority of artists rely on Painting apps because they want to be artists, paint quickly, and not being technical artists for complex shading. Either way, it’s just an expectation from my end. I’m certainly not someone who will make anything good with GN unless the node groups/addons people help me out, even though I’m an advanced user with years of experience.

This is how I see it.

Thanks for the input.

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Hi,

I have a very simple protein render node-group, starting from the points generated by the PDB import plugin. Not sure why there are red lines, but it works.

https://pasteall.org/media/e/5/e59cc3a3e8e08e4e52c3860951330775.blend

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Do we have a geometry nodes donut yet?


image

I converted it from attributes to fields, the experience was quite good.
In terms of missing nodes, I’m missing the Extrude, so the crust has thickness, the Subdivision Surface and the Attribute Transfer. I could do without the last one, but I used it in the old system.

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I actually have been making a donut scene for demo file submission since months ago ever since the prototype branch. I wanted to announce it once I get rid of all legacy nodes but since you went ahead I might as well announce mine


Still waiting for subdivision surface and mesh to curve. And then maybe I will do some clean up and annotation and post it. Now it’s not ready so I am not posting the file yet.

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There can’t be enough donuts. Yours is very nice composition in general. I’d definitely want to play with the scene and see what kind of proceduralism is happening.

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Yes it might be more useful to have just a curve. I wonder why it is called a “torus” knot if the equations don’t even generatre a torus??
It might feel a bit empty to just have one object and node setup in the demo. You can always provide both curves and surfaces :star_struck:.

@dfelinto regarding the “Geometry Nodes” status - what is the state of the system displaying attributes in the eevee render? Since version 2.93, it is impossible to create complex materials using node geometry in eevee.

See Rendering meeting notes from September, 29:

“Brecht proposes Kévin works on Eevee generic attribute rendering for geometry nodes, since this is closely related to his work on Alembic generic attribute support and familiarity with this area due to the OpenSubdiv work. This might make it into 3.0 still.”

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About the removal of texture data socket

It might hurt retro-compatibility, converting old set up will be more tricky, or might be impossible to obtain exact result (there was a lot of options).

Last time I checked there were projects to revive the texture editor, is the texture editor officially dead perhaps ?

edit*
it’s also a feature regression compared to before, now users are not able to input their own textures in a geometry node modifier, having the equivalent to the displace modifier is not possible currently. :slight_smile:

Below, was possible before, and not now since the texture data socket is no longer available:

Cheers

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