It's actually much better to capture the attribute before instancing!!! It comes in handy when you wanna capture stuff like the tangent of the curve it's getting instanced on since that won't work here as the instances don't have a tangent. And ngl I low-key got super excited cuz I thought instances support attributes now 😭😭😂😂😂😂 Great video Bradley!!!
This is great - I was just following your previous tutorial earlier today with the Index Convergance preset. Now I can alter my workflow - thanks for the continued supply of GN mastery! Is there a new work-around yet for the brick wall tutorial you did, where you transferred UVs from one object to another?
Cool. That's a very welcome addition and thanks for explaining. Could you maybe do a tutorial on the mesh island node? Could you for example use it to offset the mesh islands separately? Basically what the scale elements node now does for scaling individual island but for position and rotation changes of mesh islands...?
it depends on the specific case you are working with. There are some additional nodes that are planned to cooperate with the mesh island node. For now, mesh island can be either replaced by other nodes or is not too useful without other functionality installed. Also, for now, position and rotational changes in such a case can be mostly done with "set position" and "vector rotate", etc.
Amazing tutorial as always! I'm curious what steps I would need to take in order to do this with the full RGB spectrum rather than just black and white. Thank you!
in the group output, hit N you will have a panel. You can decide the data type. If you are at "float", then you are using a grey socket output meaning black and white. If you are at "Color", then you are using a yellow socket output RGB. On the other hand, of course it also depends on the actual data type you are outputting. Most of these are shown in the tutorial. What do you not understand?
@@bradleyanimation120 Thanks for the insight! This worked perfectly. I am new to Blender but working on ambitious projects so my knowledge is spotty. Now I understand it completely.
@@bradleyanimation120 Great! ......... quick question: in your vid, you've got a grid of a hundred instances, and each instance gets a solid color. But imagine you had only 4 big squares (instances) instead. But you still want the color to change in the same way. So then the color needs to change across an instance. Is this an easy modification to this workflow, or am i opening a whole new can of worms?!
@@bradleyanimation120 ok! ....... i tried it but the color doesn't change across each instance ..... each instance has a solid color, regardless of how big it is, even if one side is very close to the proximity object. So what i mean is, imagine you just had one massive instance, with one end very close to the proximty object, and the other side very far away. Then you might expect the instance to have a gradient color change on it.
seems like a great tutorial, just wish i could hear clearly what you are talking about. With all settings for the volume control set to maximum, i still fail to understand LOL
yes there are some minor changes for coloring without realize instance. but honestly realize insyance isnt really bad unless it's an extreme performance-heavy case.
Hello Bradley, is animation nodes still in use or does geometry nodes replace most features?. Is there the equivalent of the animation nodes Interpolation curves in geo nodes?
GN does not replace all features AN has, but I no longer recommend people to learn AN unless you need a specific functionality which AN can accomplish for your emergent needs. "curve interpolation" node is equivalent to "float curve" / "RGB curve" node, although the design is quite different so the workflow is a little bit tricky. At least by functionality they are completely the same.
Yes, it's recognized by developers. It's just that they need to code GN and render engine separately. Unfortunately they didn't have time to finish it for 3.1.
I don't see how connecting to attribute out node magically shows up colors. what did i miss? in 3.7 this setup doesn't' seem to work. I can however store name attribute (C) between instance on points and realize instance nodes to make it work .. no need to output any attribute to the output group node.
Not sure about which part of tutorial you are talking about exactly. There's also no blender 3.7 ever in the world. Either it's 3.6, or 4.0, or other versions. Also here are some information possibly to your questions: 1. "Store Named Attribute" is not provided until 3.2. Therefore it does not exist at the time of making this tutorial. Outputting attribute to the group node was a mandatory step with no alternatives. 2. It's told since 4:30, at the time of 3.1, "Instance domain" was just created compared to 3.0, but "render engine" couldn't recognized this new attribute. This has been changed since around 3.4 or so. Nowadays for random color of instances, realize instances are not needed any more in all cases. For more information to solve your problem, it would be better to ask in the discord server with your "node tree", etc.
@@bradleyanimation120 thanks for the advice. i wasn't trying to solve any problem yet.. just following tutorials and trying to replicate.. and since you used a different version of blender than me, certain things changed an are no longer the same .. replicating your exact geometyr/shader node trees didn't seem to work for me (so i may have missed something, or blender version difference made it so it doesn't work for me). I am on blender rocket chat for specific questions I have about noding. What discord channel has blender nodes topic btw ?
So what's even the point of the instance domain if it can't be used for anything? Even instance id and index would be useful for randomization purposes. I swear, trying to figure out geometry nodes is going to land me in a mental institution. Maybe some day something will click for me, I'm just not seeing it very likely atm.
"Instance domain" has a lot of uses, such as what's being shown in the tutorial. If we don't have "Instance domain", it will cost lots of nodes to get different color of instances. For now we still have to realize instance, but as said it's only because render engine needs to be coded at other time. It doesn't invalidate the usefulness of Instance domain. If you are looking for randomization of instances. It's a completely different issue which many people are thinking it wrongly. Instance domain should not be expected to solve this issue regardless.
@@bradleyanimation120 I mean instance domain to me suggests the ability to export attributes identified with a certain instance or at least the index/id/index. For me it's kind of a game breaker having to realize instances, as the whole point of reducing stress goes away. The problem I have is constructed meshes not staying as a single island, so geometry/random per island is out of the question. Converting curve to mesh, extruding it up, extruding to thickness - geometry/random goes away. May be missing something essential, but I find geo nodes hard to grasp.
@@gottagowork 1. Instance index/id is not anywhere relevant to realize instance. These are two totally separate issues. I am afraid you've understand them wrongly. The usage of Instance domain is stated in the previous comment as well as in this tutorial. In fact "Instance domain" is a sort of game breaker if I were to say. 2. If you need to export mesh, you always need to realize instance so that you have enough data to be recognized by other softwares. I don't think Blender can do anything avoiding "realize instance", because it also depends on the format and software who's gonna use this information. 3. I am not too sure about the meaning of your second paragraph. I am also afraid you misuse the term "island". In general, if you want to extrude different instances, this is exactly where "Instance domain" comes into play. You need to realize them within the node tree, but this is for a separate reason. 4. At the end, I guess you simply have some misunderstanding of geometry nodes so that you underestimate/overestimate certain functionalities. If you have specific questions, it would be better to ask in the discord server.
@@bradleyanimation120 1. Instance id/index is usable within geometry nodes. All I'm saying is it should be possible to export attribute that contains this on a "per instance" (what I would consider instance domain rather than i.e. object domain or face domain). When duplicating an object (rather than comparing it) we can still set certain parameters on a per object (domain) basis that can be utilized in shaders. I.e. object index. 2. For rendering in Blender, not exporting, so not really relevant for me. 3. Testing, in this particular case I can probably use convex hull after extrude, that does appear to collapse back to single island. Merge by distance also worked (after flipping face), so might have been some other issues in my real project. See the "modelling/Geonodes Capture Attribute breaks after boolean" post on blender artists. I'm a noob with geonodes, so you'll probably laugh your ass off :D
@@gottagowork 1. again, if you are talking about "export" by any means, it goes back to my previous point 2. 2. You can set "per object basis" by putting your parameter into group input so that every object using the same tree can have different parameters.
![[Tut] Noisy Curves Transition - Blender Geometry Nodes 3.0+ Field](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Hwfe4vKVNbA/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Tut] Noisy Curves Transition - Blender Geometry Nodes 3.0+ Field](/img/tr.png)
The more I watch this kind of a tutorial, the more I realize how many smart or smarter people are there! Awesome stuff!!
uuf same here man... I dont feel smart at all by watching these tutorials... kudos to bradley and all other rocket scientist out there...
It's actually much better to capture the attribute before instancing!!! It comes in handy when you wanna capture stuff like the tangent of the curve it's getting instanced on since that won't work here as the instances don't have a tangent. And ngl I low-key got super excited cuz I thought instances support attributes now 😭😭😂😂😂😂 Great video Bradley!!!
Dude you are magician!
Thank you so much for this incredibly insightful and useful tutorial. Please keep making more of this! Thanks!!
This is great - I was just following your previous tutorial earlier today with the Index Convergance preset. Now I can alter my workflow - thanks for the continued supply of GN mastery!
Is there a new work-around yet for the brick wall tutorial you did, where you transferred UVs from one object to another?
no and not anywhere in the short term
Cool. That's a very welcome addition and thanks for explaining. Could you maybe do a tutorial on the mesh island node? Could you for example use it to offset the mesh islands separately? Basically what the scale elements node now does for scaling individual island but for position and rotation changes of mesh islands...?
it depends on the specific case you are working with. There are some additional nodes that are planned to cooperate with the mesh island node. For now, mesh island can be either replaced by other nodes or is not too useful without other functionality installed.
Also, for now, position and rotational changes in such a case can be mostly done with "set position" and "vector rotate", etc.
Great video but a random question: how do you get the little time on top of the geometry nodes?
in overlay section on right upper corner, you can enable time display.
Amazing tutorial as always! I'm curious what steps I would need to take in order to do this with the full RGB spectrum rather than just black and white. Thank you!
in the group output, hit N you will have a panel. You can decide the data type. If you are at "float", then you are using a grey socket output meaning black and white. If you are at "Color", then you are using a yellow socket output RGB. On the other hand, of course it also depends on the actual data type you are outputting. Most of these are shown in the tutorial. What do you not understand?
@@bradleyanimation120 Thanks for the insight! This worked perfectly. I am new to Blender but working on ambitious projects so my knowledge is spotty. Now I understand it completely.
Nicely explained 👍
Thanks, great vid! ...........so almost 6 months later and now in Blender 3.2, is this still the best way to do it?
no, everything shouldd have stayed the same mostly.
@@bradleyanimation120 Great! ......... quick question: in your vid, you've got a grid of a hundred instances, and each instance gets a solid color. But imagine you had only 4 big squares (instances) instead. But you still want the color to change in the same way. So then the color needs to change across an instance. Is this an easy modification to this workflow, or am i opening a whole new can of worms?!
not really sure what you mean exactly. but I dont see any difficulty of doing so.
@@bradleyanimation120 ok! ....... i tried it but the color doesn't change across each instance ..... each instance has a solid color, regardless of how big it is, even if one side is very close to the proximity object. So what i mean is, imagine you just had one massive instance, with one end very close to the proximty object, and the other side very far away. Then you might expect the instance to have a gradient color change on it.
it would be better if you can ask in the discord server with your screenshot
seems like a great tutorial, just wish i could hear clearly what you are talking about. With all settings for the volume control set to maximum, i still fail to understand LOL
3.1 - and this helped me with 3.5 too ( but maybe now 3.5 has a recommended alternative if _Realize Instances_ is so _bad_ )
yes there are some minor changes for coloring without realize instance. but honestly realize insyance isnt really bad unless it's an extreme performance-heavy case.
Hello Bradley, is animation nodes still in use or does geometry nodes replace most features?.
Is there the equivalent of the animation nodes Interpolation curves in geo nodes?
GN does not replace all features AN has, but I no longer recommend people to learn AN unless you need a specific functionality which AN can accomplish for your emergent needs.
"curve interpolation" node is equivalent to "float curve" / "RGB curve" node, although the design is quite different so the workflow is a little bit tricky. At least by functionality they are completely the same.
@@bradleyanimation120 Thanks :)
using realize instance just after capturing attr on instances is controversial, i hope the dev will fix this. and thx for the tut i needed this !
Yes, it's recognized by developers. It's just that they need to code GN and render engine separately. Unfortunately they didn't have time to finish it for 3.1.
I don't see how connecting to attribute out node magically shows up colors. what did i miss? in 3.7 this setup doesn't' seem to work. I can however store name attribute (C) between instance on points and realize instance nodes to make it work .. no need to output any attribute to the output group node.
Not sure about which part of tutorial you are talking about exactly. There's also no blender 3.7 ever in the world. Either it's 3.6, or 4.0, or other versions.
Also here are some information possibly to your questions:
1. "Store Named Attribute" is not provided until 3.2. Therefore it does not exist at the time of making this tutorial. Outputting attribute to the group node was a mandatory step with no alternatives.
2. It's told since 4:30, at the time of 3.1, "Instance domain" was just created compared to 3.0, but "render engine" couldn't recognized this new attribute. This has been changed since around 3.4 or so. Nowadays for random color of instances, realize instances are not needed any more in all cases.
For more information to solve your problem, it would be better to ask in the discord server with your "node tree", etc.
@@bradleyanimation120 my bad.. mean to say Blender 3.6.7
@@bradleyanimation120 thanks for the advice. i wasn't trying to solve any problem yet.. just following tutorials and trying to replicate.. and since you used a different version of blender than me, certain things changed an are no longer the same .. replicating your exact geometyr/shader node trees didn't seem to work for me (so i may have missed something, or blender version difference made it so it doesn't work for me). I am on blender rocket chat for specific questions I have about noding. What discord channel has blender nodes topic btw ?
It's in the link of description
So what's even the point of the instance domain if it can't be used for anything?
Even instance id and index would be useful for randomization purposes.
I swear, trying to figure out geometry nodes is going to land me in a mental institution.
Maybe some day something will click for me, I'm just not seeing it very likely atm.
"Instance domain" has a lot of uses, such as what's being shown in the tutorial. If we don't have "Instance domain", it will cost lots of nodes to get different color of instances. For now we still have to realize instance, but as said it's only because render engine needs to be coded at other time. It doesn't invalidate the usefulness of Instance domain.
If you are looking for randomization of instances. It's a completely different issue which many people are thinking it wrongly. Instance domain should not be expected to solve this issue regardless.
@@bradleyanimation120 I mean instance domain to me suggests the ability to export attributes identified with a certain instance or at least the index/id/index. For me it's kind of a game breaker having to realize instances, as the whole point of reducing stress goes away.
The problem I have is constructed meshes not staying as a single island, so geometry/random per island is out of the question. Converting curve to mesh, extruding it up, extruding to thickness - geometry/random goes away. May be missing something essential, but I find geo nodes hard to grasp.
@@gottagowork
1. Instance index/id is not anywhere relevant to realize instance. These are two totally separate issues. I am afraid you've understand them wrongly. The usage of Instance domain is stated in the previous comment as well as in this tutorial. In fact "Instance domain" is a sort of game breaker if I were to say.
2. If you need to export mesh, you always need to realize instance so that you have enough data to be recognized by other softwares. I don't think Blender can do anything avoiding "realize instance", because it also depends on the format and software who's gonna use this information.
3. I am not too sure about the meaning of your second paragraph. I am also afraid you misuse the term "island". In general, if you want to extrude different instances, this is exactly where "Instance domain" comes into play. You need to realize them within the node tree, but this is for a separate reason.
4. At the end, I guess you simply have some misunderstanding of geometry nodes so that you underestimate/overestimate certain functionalities. If you have specific questions, it would be better to ask in the discord server.
@@bradleyanimation120 1. Instance id/index is usable within geometry nodes. All I'm saying is it should be possible to export attribute that contains this on a "per instance" (what I would consider instance domain rather than i.e. object domain or face domain). When duplicating an object (rather than comparing it) we can still set certain parameters on a per object (domain) basis that can be utilized in shaders. I.e. object index.
2. For rendering in Blender, not exporting, so not really relevant for me.
3. Testing, in this particular case I can probably use convex hull after extrude, that does appear to collapse back to single island. Merge by distance also worked (after flipping face), so might have been some other issues in my real project. See the "modelling/Geonodes Capture Attribute breaks after boolean" post on blender artists. I'm a noob with geonodes, so you'll probably laugh your ass off :D
@@gottagowork 1. again, if you are talking about "export" by any means, it goes back to my previous point 2.
2. You can set "per object basis" by putting your parameter into group input so that every object using the same tree can have different parameters.
how to convert point colors to face in blender 3.1?
attribute capture from "point" to "face"
DON'T Use your stupid Presets thank you!
Then please just be "smart" enough to avoid this channel and its content, thank you!
@@bradleyanimation120 all right I will