WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000 Hey there. 2 00:00:01.140 --> 00:00:04.620 So Blender 4.3 is released and it comes packed with a lot of new features. 3 00:00:05.100 --> 00:00:06.720 That also goes for geometry nodes. 4 00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:10.880 To give you a good overview of what these new features are and how you should best 5 00:00:10.881 --> 00:00:13.940 go about using them, I want to walk you through them in this video. 6 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:16.100 So first up, there are gizmos. 7 00:00:16.840 --> 00:00:17.360 That's right. 8 00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:21.680 The fancy little widgets that you have in your 3D viewport to control objects and 9 00:00:21.681 --> 00:00:23.820 manipulate them are coming to nodes as well now. 10 00:00:24.040 --> 00:00:28.280 For now, that doesn't directly mean much for the average user, but it's more aimed 11 00:00:28.281 --> 00:00:32.560 at geometry nodes users that are building their own tools to give them the ability 12 00:00:32.561 --> 00:00:36.360 to build those tools in a way that they're interactive in the 3D viewport. 13 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:39.137 Down the road, more and more tools that are built into 14 00:00:39.138 --> 00:00:42.260 Blender will also have their own gizmos coming out of the box. 15 00:00:42.740 --> 00:00:46.880 So in the end, users that just use geometry nodes hidden away behind a 16 00:00:46.881 --> 00:00:51.500 modifier interface will be able to benefit from these gizmos, but also geometry nodes 17 00:00:51.501 --> 00:00:55.780 users that build their own custom node trees will be able to use these gizmos to 18 00:00:55.781 --> 00:00:59.280 manipulate the effect of the nodes themselves in the 3D viewport. 19 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:01.720 So let's go a little bit over how that works. 20 00:01:02.220 --> 00:01:05.644 At the moment, there are just three different gizmo nodes, 21 00:01:05.744 --> 00:01:09.200 the linear gizmo, dial gizmo and the transform gizmo. 22 00:01:09.740 --> 00:01:12.119 Essentially, what these gizmos do is just provide 23 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:14.861 you with a different interface to control values. 24 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:18.160 Let's build a basic example for a grid plane. 25 00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:21.160 First of all, let's add the linear gizmo node. 26 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:25.000 On its own, it doesn't really do much yet. 27 00:01:25.100 --> 00:01:29.440 It just provides us with the interaction for this arrow in the 3D viewport, 28 00:01:29.780 --> 00:01:31.680 but it does not control anything. 29 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:34.500 And in the end, it just snaps back to its original 30 00:01:34.501 --> 00:01:37.860 position, which is given in the linear gizmo position input. 31 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:41.968 And other than you might expect, there is not an 32 00:01:41.969 --> 00:01:45.020 output giving us the value that the gizmo changes. 33 00:01:46.220 --> 00:01:51.420 Instead, there is just an input socket, which will affect what the gizmo controls. 34 00:01:52.020 --> 00:01:54.734 So to actually control the size of the grid, we need 35 00:01:54.735 --> 00:01:57.160 some other value that we can control with the gizmo. 36 00:01:57.440 --> 00:01:59.880 For now, let's just add in a value input node. 37 00:02:00.440 --> 00:02:02.909 And this we can then connect to the grid input 38 00:02:02.910 --> 00:02:06.760 for the size x parameter, and also to the gizmo. 39 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:11.800 Now that the value input of the gizmo is connected to something, you can see that 40 00:02:11.801 --> 00:02:16.260 there is a double line drawn instead of the regular link between them. 41 00:02:16.480 --> 00:02:20.420 This communicates that there is now a different kind of connection happening. 42 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:27.320 So information from the gizmo is basically flowing back to this value node. 43 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:33.300 So when I now interact with the arrow, you can see it changes the value here. 44 00:02:33.820 --> 00:02:37.960 This way of controlling values with gizmos in the nodes might seem a little bit 45 00:02:37.961 --> 00:02:41.680 convoluted at first, but you will see later how this is very useful. 46 00:02:42.140 --> 00:02:46.200 Okay, so since this gizmo is supposed to control the size of the grid in the x 47 00:02:46.201 --> 00:02:50.220 dimension, let me fix up the position and the direction inputs of the gizmo. 48 00:02:50.221 --> 00:02:54.726 Let's use a combine xyz node and plug the value that we are 49 00:02:54.727 --> 00:02:58.220 controlling in the x input, and then use that for the position. 50 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:01.320 For the direction we can just type in 100. 51 00:03:02.180 --> 00:03:05.500 You will also notice that the gizmo does not always just show up. 52 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:06.660 It depends on the context. 53 00:03:07.300 --> 00:03:09.035 The behavior is a bit different depending on 54 00:03:09.036 --> 00:03:11.060 whether or not you have a node editor open. 55 00:03:11.420 --> 00:03:14.752 With a node editor, the gizmos will only show up if 56 00:03:14.753 --> 00:03:17.680 you have the node selected that corresponds to them. 57 00:03:18.260 --> 00:03:21.880 So either the gizmo node itself or the node that they are controlling. 58 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:26.120 If you always just want to see the gizmo, you can also toggle this checkbox. 59 00:03:26.720 --> 00:03:29.213 Since the grid is in the center of the object, the 60 00:03:29.214 --> 00:03:32.740 position of the gizmo should actually be half of the size. 61 00:03:33.660 --> 00:03:38.640 So let's add a multiply node right here to multiply with 0.5. 62 00:03:38.940 --> 00:03:40.260 And now it's in the correct spot. 63 00:03:40.600 --> 00:03:45.440 But if I interact with the gizmo now, you can see that it doesn't stay to the size. 64 00:03:45.920 --> 00:03:47.060 Only if I let go. 65 00:03:48.140 --> 00:03:50.500 The reason for that is that the position is correct. 66 00:03:50.860 --> 00:03:55.560 But while I'm interacting with it, how much the value changes depending on my 67 00:03:55.561 --> 00:03:59.083 movement is derived from what is happening 68 00:03:59.084 --> 00:04:02.780 between the value I am controlling and the gizmo. 69 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:06.730 And the value that I want to control interactively 70 00:04:06.731 --> 00:04:11.520 in the viewport is not the full size, but half of it. 71 00:04:12.020 --> 00:04:16.940 So if now instead of the value directly, we connect the output of this multiply 72 00:04:16.941 --> 00:04:22.460 node, you can see that the double links still end up at this input node, 73 00:04:22.820 --> 00:04:24.720 but they flow through the multiply node. 74 00:04:25.060 --> 00:04:28.660 And when I interact with it, now everything stays attached as it moves. 75 00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:33.614 So Blender tries to smartly figure out the relationship between 76 00:04:33.615 --> 00:04:36.360 your interaction and the value that you're interacting with. 77 00:04:36.361 --> 00:04:39.700 This works for all sorts of simple math relationships 78 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:42.700 like multiplying, adding, and so on quite nicely. 79 00:04:43.160 --> 00:04:46.840 And the flow of information always takes the first input of a node. 80 00:04:47.140 --> 00:04:51.880 So here now you can see that the value that is controlled with the gizmo is the 81 00:04:51.881 --> 00:04:56.140 first input of the math node, or whatever is connected to that first input. 82 00:04:57.380 --> 00:05:00.220 Alright, so let's do the same thing for the y direction. 83 00:05:00.520 --> 00:05:05.040 Just going to duplicate the setup, plug this into y, change the direction, 84 00:05:05.760 --> 00:05:07.000 and reconnect the size. 85 00:05:07.520 --> 00:05:09.640 And now we already have the setup for both directions. 86 00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:13.140 We can quickly give the different arrows the correct colors. 87 00:05:13.820 --> 00:05:16.660 Next I want to turn this into a handy little node group. 88 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:20.700 So I'll just select these nodes, press Ctrl G, and there we go. 89 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:24.687 Now that this is part of a node group, the values of the 90 00:05:24.688 --> 00:05:27.400 node group itself can also be driven with the gizmos. 91 00:05:27.780 --> 00:05:31.340 So if I get rid of these input nodes and just leave the node group on its own, 92 00:05:32.220 --> 00:05:36.040 you can see that controlling the gizmos will directly control these values. 93 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:39.428 So we nicely have contained the gizmos inside of 94 00:05:39.429 --> 00:05:42.040 this node group and can just use them like this. 95 00:05:42.260 --> 00:05:46.600 And here again, only the gizmos for the active node will show up in the viewport. 96 00:05:47.180 --> 00:05:52.240 But if I go one step further and expose these as group inputs to the modifier 97 00:05:52.241 --> 00:05:57.340 level so that they show up here, even if now we get rid of the node editor, 98 00:05:57.640 --> 00:06:00.823 we'll be able to control these parameters from the 3D 99 00:06:00.824 --> 00:06:04.160 viewport for the active object and its active modifier. 100 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.082 This makes it very convenient when you're using a 101 00:06:07.083 --> 00:06:09.540 modifier that is set up with gizmos in this way. 102 00:06:09.960 --> 00:06:13.680 But for now, let's open the node editor back up and make some changes to the setup. 103 00:06:14.280 --> 00:06:16.156 First of all, I want to clean this up a little bit. 104 00:06:16.180 --> 00:06:19.545 We can actually duplicate this group input and just 105 00:06:19.546 --> 00:06:22.860 connect the size x and y values directly from here. 106 00:06:23.280 --> 00:06:26.560 So we have two parts of the node tree that are a little bit split up. 107 00:06:26.760 --> 00:06:30.800 The main data flow with the grid and then the gizmo information down here. 108 00:06:31.100 --> 00:06:34.506 I want to be able to control both of the x and the y scale 109 00:06:34.507 --> 00:06:37.960 with a single gizmo that goes diagonally to scale up the plane. 110 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:42.171 You can easily have multiple gizmos control the same 111 00:06:42.172 --> 00:06:45.020 values or also one gizmo control multiple values. 112 00:06:45.460 --> 00:06:49.260 To get the gizmo I just mentioned, let's duplicate one of the linear gizmo nodes. 113 00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:52.220 And for now, let's just connect it to both of these. 114 00:06:52.760 --> 00:06:57.060 So you can see if I change this gizmo, it affects both the x and the y size. 115 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:02.020 For the position, we can just add the positions of the x and the y together. 116 00:07:02.260 --> 00:07:03.960 And we can also use that for the direction. 117 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:07.260 But you can see just like we had it before, it doesn't quite stick. 118 00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:12.260 The reason for that is simply that since this is a rectangle, the ratio of changing 119 00:07:12.261 --> 00:07:16.680 the x and the y size should depend on the dimensions of this rectangle. 120 00:07:17.180 --> 00:07:20.540 To fix this, unfortunately, we need to do a little bit of trigonometry. 121 00:07:20.960 --> 00:07:23.628 To get the correct ratio between the x and the 122 00:07:23.629 --> 00:07:26.000 y component, we can just use an arctangent. 123 00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:31.400 Let's go with arctan2 so we can connect the x and the y component like this. 124 00:07:31.900 --> 00:07:34.260 And this way we essentially get the angle of this arrow. 125 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:38.200 So to get the correct ratios, now we just need a sine and a cosine. 126 00:07:39.660 --> 00:07:44.420 And to apply these ratios correctly, we just divide the values that we want to 127 00:07:44.421 --> 00:07:47.120 control by the sine and the cosine respectively. 128 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:51.500 And there you go. 129 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.900 Now everything is perfectly attached, no matter what the ratio is. 130 00:07:57.080 --> 00:07:58.845 Alright, let's quickly go over another gizmo 131 00:07:58.846 --> 00:08:01.741 type and add some more functionality to this. 132 00:08:02.220 --> 00:08:06.182 Let's add a Geometry Transform node and switch the mode 133 00:08:06.183 --> 00:08:09.780 to Matrix so we can control this with a Transform gizmo. 134 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:14.760 Again, we need something to control, so let's add a Combine Transform node, 135 00:08:15.080 --> 00:08:19.260 which combines a translation rotation and scale into a Matrix output. 136 00:08:19.940 --> 00:08:22.444 And this Transform output, we can just connect 137 00:08:22.445 --> 00:08:24.660 both to the transformation and the gizmo. 138 00:08:25.060 --> 00:08:29.160 And when I then select the Transform gizmo, you can see that it already works. 139 00:08:29.740 --> 00:08:31.400 But there is something going wrong. 140 00:08:32.140 --> 00:08:34.822 The gizmos that we previously had for the size 141 00:08:34.823 --> 00:08:38.321 of the grid are not attached properly anymore. 142 00:08:38.860 --> 00:08:40.848 The reason for that is that they are not 143 00:08:40.849 --> 00:08:42.880 actually attached to the geometry of the grid. 144 00:08:43.100 --> 00:08:45.200 But there is a simple way to change that. 145 00:08:45.560 --> 00:08:47.928 You might have already noticed that there is a 146 00:08:47.929 --> 00:08:50.781 Transform geometry output on the gizmo nodes. 147 00:08:50.860 --> 00:08:52.400 So far, we haven't been using that. 148 00:08:53.020 --> 00:08:56.561 This output is actually a tool to attach the Transform information 149 00:08:56.562 --> 00:09:00.140 of the gizmo to a geometry, exactly for cases like this. 150 00:09:00.540 --> 00:09:09.520 So if I make a of the outputs of the gizmo nodes to the geometry of the grid. 151 00:09:10.180 --> 00:09:13.800 And now you can see that Blender is clever enough to figure out that these are 152 00:09:13.801 --> 00:09:16.880 attached to the grid and should follow the same transformation. 153 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:21.020 We should also do the same thing here for the Transform node afterwards. 154 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:25.840 Since we are already controlling the size of the grid with the custom gizmo, 155 00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:30.000 I don't want to expose the scale operations of this Transform. 156 00:09:30.001 --> 00:09:33.560 So in the node settings, let's just turn all of them off. 157 00:09:33.880 --> 00:09:36.530 This way, we can only control the rotation 158 00:09:36.531 --> 00:09:39.000 and translation of the grid with this gizmo. 159 00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:43.920 To make this nicely contained in the node group, let's also create inputs for those. 160 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:47.367 Now that these are exposed, we should also hook them 161 00:09:47.368 --> 00:09:50.420 up to the position and rotation of the Transform gizmo. 162 00:09:50.780 --> 00:09:55.360 So now, if I go outside of the node group, you can see we have a nice little asset to 163 00:09:55.361 --> 00:10:00.560 control the dimensions and rotation and translation of this grid very easily. 164 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:03.115 But the Transform gizmo right now is not 165 00:10:03.116 --> 00:10:05.640 actually following the rotation as we set it up. 166 00:10:06.260 --> 00:10:08.694 The reason for that is that the Transform 167 00:10:08.695 --> 00:10:12.481 orientation setting in the viewport is set to global. 168 00:10:12.660 --> 00:10:15.045 If we change this to local, it will accurately 169 00:10:15.046 --> 00:10:17.840 change into the Transform that we set, like this. 170 00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:20.380 Next up, there's the for each element zone. 171 00:10:20.680 --> 00:10:23.600 Since the beginning of implementing Geometry nodes, people have been asking 172 00:10:23.601 --> 00:10:26.640 for loops to iterate over different elements of a geometry. 173 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:31.720 And even though we had the repeat zone in Geometry nodes for a couple of releases, 174 00:10:32.220 --> 00:10:34.988 now there's a new zone that allows you to iterate 175 00:10:34.989 --> 00:10:37.440 over the geometry in a completely different way. 176 00:10:37.680 --> 00:10:42.420 The repeat zone is essentially just a serial loop to copy over the same 177 00:10:42.421 --> 00:10:45.400 functionality in succession a dynamic number of times. 178 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:49.720 The for each element zone works a bit differently and then it executes the same 179 00:10:49.721 --> 00:10:52.460 functionality for each element of a geometry. 180 00:10:52.560 --> 00:10:53.840 And that can happen in parallel. 181 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:57.640 So what that means is that you can iterate over the elements of a geometry, 182 00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:02.400 so the points, faces, edges, and so on, to execute the same functionality, 183 00:11:02.780 --> 00:11:05.980 and then output everything together merged into one geometry. 184 00:11:06.520 --> 00:11:11.960 In this example here, I'm creating a tree library this way by just having a grid of 185 00:11:11.961 --> 00:11:15.943 a bunch of points and then executing the tree generator 186 00:11:15.944 --> 00:11:18.800 once for each point while randomizing the inputs. 187 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:22.180 Doing this wouldn't have been possible in this way before. 188 00:11:22.181 --> 00:11:24.261 It would have been a lot more complicated to achieve. 189 00:11:24.740 --> 00:11:27.860 So let me just quickly go over the details of how this zone works. 190 00:11:28.540 --> 00:11:31.089 To show the for each element zone, let's go over how 191 00:11:31.090 --> 00:11:34.160 to create this kind of library of randomized trees. 192 00:11:34.580 --> 00:11:38.860 Let's start out by using the grid plane asset that we just created for the gizmos. 193 00:11:39.780 --> 00:11:43.700 The only thing that I added on top was an additional gizmo to control the resolution. 194 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:48.100 This resolution is going to be controlling the amount of trees that we're generating 195 00:11:48.101 --> 00:11:51.402 because what we're going to do with the for each element zone 196 00:11:51.403 --> 00:11:54.500 is iterate over all of the individual points of this grid. 197 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:58.880 So let's get started doing that by first of all adding the for each element zone. 198 00:11:59.420 --> 00:12:04.020 As all the other zones in Blender, it comes with an input node and an output node. 199 00:12:04.340 --> 00:12:06.120 And they already have a couple of settings. 200 00:12:06.760 --> 00:12:09.960 First of all, let's connect the grid plane with the input. 201 00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:14.200 And on the input node, you can see that we can select the different domains to 202 00:12:14.201 --> 00:12:17.160 control what kind of element we want to iterate over. 203 00:12:17.300 --> 00:12:19.260 In our case, the points will do just fine. 204 00:12:19.520 --> 00:12:22.114 In case we would want to limit this to only a specific 205 00:12:22.115 --> 00:12:24.800 selection of points, we have the input right here. 206 00:12:25.300 --> 00:12:28.621 So now whatever we do inside of the zone will be 207 00:12:28.622 --> 00:12:32.600 executed once for each individual point of this geometry. 208 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:36.580 And in this case, I want to generate one tree for each point. 209 00:12:36.880 --> 00:12:40.300 For now, let's just create a cube so I can show you the basics. 210 00:12:40.780 --> 00:12:43.790 When I just add this, it's not actually part of the 211 00:12:43.791 --> 00:12:46.181 zone yet because it's not connected to anything. 212 00:12:46.300 --> 00:12:48.340 We need to connect it to the output of the zone. 213 00:12:48.660 --> 00:12:51.640 Now, right away, there are two lists of outputs. 214 00:12:51.900 --> 00:12:56.860 There are the main outputs where the main geometry is going to be passed back out. 215 00:12:57.420 --> 00:13:02.920 So if I connect this to the output of the modifier, you can see this is just the 216 00:13:02.921 --> 00:13:05.980 grid plane that we plugged in to the zone in the beginning. 217 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:11.640 But here we have the option to add additional attributes to attach to the geometry. 218 00:13:12.100 --> 00:13:16.420 But instead of the main geometry, we want to generate new geometry in this case. 219 00:13:16.780 --> 00:13:20.260 So let's connect the output to this additional geometry output socket. 220 00:13:20.700 --> 00:13:23.900 This one has an equivalent on the inside of the zone. 221 00:13:24.360 --> 00:13:27.200 And if I connect the cube here, it pops up right there. 222 00:13:27.580 --> 00:13:32.900 If we go ahead and inspect the geometry in the spreadsheet editor, you'll notice that 223 00:13:32.901 --> 00:13:35.941 this is not actually a single cube, but a cube for every 224 00:13:35.942 --> 00:13:39.000 single point of the grid, just all in the same place. 225 00:13:39.340 --> 00:13:44.560 All the cubes for the individual points are merged together in this geometry output. 226 00:13:44.880 --> 00:13:46.800 Now, let's get them all in the correct places. 227 00:13:47.180 --> 00:13:50.607 For that, we need to access the position of each individual 228 00:13:50.608 --> 00:13:53.300 point and then move each cube into the right space. 229 00:13:54.100 --> 00:13:56.700 Let's just use the transform geometry node for that. 230 00:13:57.060 --> 00:14:01.660 To get the position of each individual point, we need to use the position input 231 00:14:01.661 --> 00:14:05.920 node and then pass it in from the outside of the zone. 232 00:14:06.300 --> 00:14:09.522 This will make sure that the position is stored on 233 00:14:09.523 --> 00:14:12.860 each point and then passed into the zone as a value. 234 00:14:12.861 --> 00:14:17.300 You can see here, because of the shape of the socket, that on the outside of the 235 00:14:17.301 --> 00:14:21.500 zone, this is actually an attribute, so a different vector for each point. 236 00:14:21.780 --> 00:14:25.800 On the inside, though, we are only dealing with one point at a time. 237 00:14:25.960 --> 00:14:30.840 So here, this will always just be a single value for each point. 238 00:14:31.260 --> 00:14:35.520 And that means you can actually connect it to the translation of the transform node. 239 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:40.060 And as I connect it, you can see that all of the cubes jump into place. 240 00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:44.700 If I select the grid plane, we even still have access to the gizmos. 241 00:14:45.340 --> 00:14:48.861 Now that we have the basics set up, let me replace this 242 00:14:48.862 --> 00:14:51.221 cube with the birch node group that I have prepared. 243 00:14:51.860 --> 00:14:54.740 This is just a simple tree generator node group. 244 00:14:55.220 --> 00:14:57.540 And it also comes with some gizmos attached. 245 00:14:57.800 --> 00:15:01.940 But right now, we're just generating the exact same tree every single time. 246 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:03.100 And that's not the point. 247 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:05.180 What I want to do is randomize this. 248 00:15:05.181 --> 00:15:08.912 So something that we can very easily do is just use the 249 00:15:08.913 --> 00:15:12.360 index of the point for each iteration of creating a birch. 250 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:15.220 And this way, we already get some variation. 251 00:15:15.580 --> 00:15:20.240 But on top of just changing the seed, we can also change the other input parameters. 252 00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:22.740 So let's use a random value node. 253 00:15:23.220 --> 00:15:25.940 And then we can connect it, for example, to the branch start. 254 00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:28.580 But right away, we get an invalid link. 255 00:15:28.800 --> 00:15:32.820 The reason for that is that the ID input uses a field by default. 256 00:15:33.140 --> 00:15:35.580 But here, we need to make sure to output a single value. 257 00:15:35.780 --> 00:15:39.500 So we can just replace the ID input with the index. 258 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:43.800 And now we get some random variation of the branch start for each tree. 259 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:45.840 So let's just use a reasonable range. 260 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:48.280 And then I want to do the same for the height. 261 00:15:48.660 --> 00:15:52.099 But the height, if I go into the birch node group, 262 00:15:52.100 --> 00:15:55.100 you can see it can still be controlled with the gizmo. 263 00:15:55.500 --> 00:16:01.980 So if I just Since there is nothing to be controlled. 264 00:16:02.520 --> 00:16:05.940 To keep this control available, instead of connecting the height directly 265 00:16:05.941 --> 00:16:09.140 to a random value, we can just use a multiply node. 266 00:16:09.500 --> 00:16:14.340 And instead of connecting the random value to the first input, it propagates the 267 00:16:14.341 --> 00:16:16.960 gizmo, we just connect it to the second one. 268 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:21.900 So now we still have control, as well as randomization. 269 00:16:22.840 --> 00:16:25.361 And because of the way that the gizmos are set up, 270 00:16:25.362 --> 00:16:27.821 everything just works and is attached properly. 271 00:16:28.180 --> 00:16:31.989 And we can still just select the initial grid plane and control 272 00:16:31.990 --> 00:16:35.060 with our gizmo how this library is supposed to be set up. 273 00:16:35.740 --> 00:16:39.220 Now, lastly, I want to go over some additional aspects of the zone output. 274 00:16:39.740 --> 00:16:44.960 Instead of outputting all of these birch meshes in one single geometry, 275 00:16:45.620 --> 00:16:47.460 turn them all into individual instances. 276 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:50.560 For that we can just use the geometry to instance node. 277 00:16:51.280 --> 00:16:55.420 Now each birch tree is its own instance of a mesh. 278 00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:58.560 And you can see a list right here in the spreadsheet editor. 279 00:16:59.060 --> 00:17:02.640 And our output geometry contains these 64 instances. 280 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.641 And with these extension sockets, we can add additional 281 00:17:06.642 --> 00:17:09.900 information as attribute data on the output geometry. 282 00:17:10.680 --> 00:17:17.120 So for example, if I connect the actual height that has been in the zone to create 283 00:17:17.121 --> 00:17:22.080 a new socket here, on the outside, you get information about the height of 284 00:17:22.081 --> 00:17:25.480 the individual trees on the instance domain as an attribute. 285 00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:29.860 But to make that work properly, we need to go to the node settings and 286 00:17:29.861 --> 00:17:33.340 then change the domain to instance to match our output. 287 00:17:33.780 --> 00:17:38.620 And then if I connect a viewer set to instance, you can see right here in the 288 00:17:38.621 --> 00:17:41.447 spreadsheet that now every single tree also 289 00:17:41.448 --> 00:17:43.960 outputs its actual height as attribute information. 290 00:17:43.961 --> 00:17:48.641 By clicking while holding Ctrl, you can easily rename this in the node interface. 291 00:17:48.680 --> 00:17:51.600 It's also useful to know that you can output 292 00:17:51.601 --> 00:17:54.120 multiple sets of joined geometry together. 293 00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:56.580 If you do that, it creates this separator line. 294 00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:00.228 The reason for that is that all of the attributes you 295 00:18:00.229 --> 00:18:03.360 output belong always to the previous geometry output. 296 00:18:03.820 --> 00:18:05.160 So the order of them matters. 297 00:18:05.360 --> 00:18:07.980 But that's it for now for the for each element zone. 298 00:18:08.300 --> 00:18:12.840 One last thing to mention is that there are also different types of for each zones 299 00:18:12.841 --> 00:18:15.183 planned, like for example, to iterate over 300 00:18:15.184 --> 00:18:17.480 different parts of a mesh like mesh islands. 301 00:18:18.080 --> 00:18:22.440 But do consider that using any kind of loops in your node interface is likely 302 00:18:22.441 --> 00:18:24.200 going to come with some performance penalty. 303 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:28.500 So whenever you can solve a problem without using the for each element zone, 304 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:30.660 it's probably more efficient to do so. 305 00:18:30.940 --> 00:18:32.000 Just keep that in mind. 306 00:18:32.420 --> 00:18:37.060 Another new feature is that you can now name your geometry from within geometry 307 00:18:37.061 --> 00:18:40.080 nodes to get a better overview in these sheet editor. 308 00:18:40.460 --> 00:18:42.629 We can get a good overview of what that means 309 00:18:42.630 --> 00:18:45.241 by slightly adjusting the tree library setup. 310 00:18:45.580 --> 00:18:48.154 So right now in the spreadsheet editor, it's a bit 311 00:18:48.155 --> 00:18:50.701 hard to have an overview of all these different trees. 312 00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:53.340 So let's give them all an individual name. 313 00:18:53.760 --> 00:18:58.360 So let's add the set geometry name node right before we turn it into an instance. 314 00:18:58.800 --> 00:19:00.740 And for now, let me just set this to birch. 315 00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:04.270 And now you can already see how all of these trees 316 00:19:04.271 --> 00:19:07.260 are now named So let's use the value to string node. 317 00:19:08.040 --> 00:19:09.540 You can set this to integer. 318 00:19:11.220 --> 00:19:12.840 And then connect the index. 319 00:19:13.220 --> 00:19:16.340 So this way we just get the number of the birch as the name. 320 00:19:16.840 --> 00:19:22.980 With a join strings node, we can now add this together with just the string birch. 321 00:19:23.500 --> 00:19:25.180 And we have ourselves a nice readable name. 322 00:19:25.660 --> 00:19:28.640 For the delimiter, I'm just going to use a space input. 323 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:31.920 And then lastly, let's just add one to the index. 324 00:19:31.921 --> 00:19:34.400 So we start counting at one instead of zero. 325 00:19:34.500 --> 00:19:36.620 For that we can also use the integer math node. 326 00:19:36.980 --> 00:19:37.720 And there we go. 327 00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:41.180 Now all the birches have a name from one to 16. 328 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:46.520 So when I now duplicate the grid asset that we created, distribute a bunch of 329 00:19:46.521 --> 00:19:52.520 points on it, and then instance the birches that we generated on those, 330 00:19:52.860 --> 00:19:57.800 you can see here in the spreadsheet editor, in the instances overview of the 331 00:19:57.801 --> 00:20:00.930 geometry that we are looking at, you'll see all of the 332 00:20:00.931 --> 00:20:03.341 instances and the name of the birch they are instancing. 333 00:20:03.560 --> 00:20:06.635 And here at the top, we have a hierarchy overview 334 00:20:06.636 --> 00:20:08.980 over all the geometry sets that are used. 335 00:20:09.340 --> 00:20:13.100 So this is our main geometry, which right now is unnamed. 336 00:20:13.580 --> 00:20:18.980 But we can, for example, set this name to forest, and it pops up right there. 337 00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:22.880 And in the hierarchy, it contains all of the individual birches. 338 00:20:23.020 --> 00:20:28.660 But since all the different instances reference the same 16 birches, 339 00:20:28.800 --> 00:20:30.760 in the hierarchy, only those show up. 340 00:20:30.940 --> 00:20:35.460 And here the number on the side tells you how many times they are being instanced. 341 00:20:35.620 --> 00:20:38.296 And by clicking on these birches, you can 342 00:20:38.297 --> 00:20:41.041 inspect the geometry of the individual ones. 343 00:20:41.080 --> 00:20:45.220 So you can see here, all these individual birches don't have any instances, 344 00:20:45.240 --> 00:20:47.280 but they do have a mesh that we can inspect. 345 00:20:47.580 --> 00:20:51.855 So now with blender 4.3, you can also inspect the 346 00:20:51.856 --> 00:20:55.160 hierarchy of geometry nodes using the spreadsheet editor. 347 00:20:55.560 --> 00:21:02.380 So for example, birch 1 is instanced 66 times in the forest, and the geometry of 348 00:21:02.381 --> 00:21:07.900 birch 1 that is being referenced these 66 times can be inspected here. 349 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:12.520 With a new warning node, you can create your own custom warnings to allow the user 350 00:21:12.521 --> 00:21:14.820 to understand more about something going wrong. 351 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:16.880 There are three different modes to this warning. 352 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:20.820 It can either be a critical error, a warning, or just an info. 353 00:21:20.821 --> 00:21:24.900 How this node works is pretty straightforward, and the warnings get 354 00:21:24.901 --> 00:21:28.760 propagated up to the modifier level through all the node groups that you're using. 355 00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:31.521 There is one thing I do want to mention about this though. 356 00:21:31.560 --> 00:21:36.340 You may have noticed that there's also a boolean output coming from the show input. 357 00:21:36.580 --> 00:21:39.364 This is essentially just a pass through and not 358 00:21:39.365 --> 00:21:42.341 actually required to get the right behaviour working. 359 00:21:42.460 --> 00:21:45.776 The reason this exists is just to give you a tool to control 360 00:21:45.777 --> 00:21:48.980 when the inputs of this node are actually being evaluated. 361 00:21:49.140 --> 00:21:52.060 If you don't use it, it will always just be evaluated. 362 00:21:52.460 --> 00:21:56.140 So it might even happen in cases where the warning doesn't actually matter. 363 00:21:56.460 --> 00:22:00.880 So to give Blender more insight on what information in the node tree this warning 364 00:22:00.881 --> 00:22:05.500 is actually attached to, you can use the pass through to control whatever check 365 00:22:05.501 --> 00:22:07.660 you're doing with, for example, a switch node. 366 00:22:08.020 --> 00:22:12.500 So in the case that you're using the pass through, if the output of this switch node 367 00:22:12.501 --> 00:22:15.598 is not actually being used, Blender will just 368 00:22:15.599 --> 00:22:18.320 not even evaluate the inputs of the warning node. 369 00:22:18.680 --> 00:22:21.639 This is usually not super important, but it's useful 370 00:22:21.640 --> 00:22:24.140 for you to know when you're optimising your node tree. 371 00:22:24.680 --> 00:22:28.220 Another big new feature that is more important than it might seem on the 372 00:22:28.221 --> 00:22:31.960 surface is the ability to pack bakes for simulation nodes. 373 00:22:32.540 --> 00:22:35.712 Previously when using simulation nodes, you always had to 374 00:22:35.713 --> 00:22:38.660 store the cache on disk after you baked everything out. 375 00:22:38.860 --> 00:22:40.480 Now that is no longer necessary. 376 00:22:40.780 --> 00:22:43.860 By default, everything will just be packed into the blend file. 377 00:22:44.120 --> 00:22:46.974 This is especially useful, for example, if you're 378 00:22:46.975 --> 00:22:49.260 just baking a single frame of the evaluation. 379 00:22:49.580 --> 00:22:52.080 You might want to do that for performance reasons, for example. 380 00:22:52.320 --> 00:22:56.720 So after a big chunk of the node tree is not going to change anymore, you can just 381 00:22:56.721 --> 00:22:59.542 add a big node set to still and then just bake 382 00:22:59.543 --> 00:23:02.020 it into the packed data of the blend file. 383 00:23:02.340 --> 00:23:05.006 That way, the next time you load up the blend file, 384 00:23:05.007 --> 00:23:07.720 all of the nodes before don't need to evaluate anymore. 385 00:23:08.040 --> 00:23:10.620 Because everything is just cached into the blend data. 386 00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:14.311 You can select whether to store the data on disk or 387 00:23:14.312 --> 00:23:17.560 packed, on the modifier level and the node instance level. 388 00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:21.480 By default, the node instance just inherits the behaviour from the modifier. 389 00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:25.272 There is one more huge topic that I've been kind of avoiding 390 00:23:25.273 --> 00:23:27.760 so far, because it's a bit separate from geometry nodes. 391 00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:31.486 The elaborate rewrite of the grease pencil feature in Blender 392 00:23:31.487 --> 00:23:35.120 now finally allows you to geometry nodes on grease pencil data. 393 00:23:35.540 --> 00:23:39.760 This is a huge benefit because grease pencil has a lot of tooling functionality 394 00:23:39.761 --> 00:23:42.540 that was not previously possible just using curves. 395 00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:47.120 But essentially, what that means is that grease pencil, in terms of geometry nodes, 396 00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:50.080 is more or less just handled like curve data. 397 00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:53.273 So almost all of the nodes that previously 398 00:23:53.274 --> 00:23:56.100 used curves can now also work on grease pencil. 399 00:23:56.460 --> 00:24:00.280 The reason why I'm saying almost is essentially just that grease pencil, 400 00:24:00.380 --> 00:24:05.140 besides what curves store in data, also has the functionality of layers. 401 00:24:05.800 --> 00:24:10.580 So in the context of geometry nodes, grease pencil can mainly be understood as 402 00:24:10.581 --> 00:24:14.060 instances of curves rather than curves directly. 403 00:24:14.660 --> 00:24:17.172 If you really want to treat grease pencil just 404 00:24:17.173 --> 00:24:19.480 like curves, you will first need to convert them. 405 00:24:19.620 --> 00:24:22.262 But there are nodes to convert back and forth 406 00:24:22.263 --> 00:24:24.360 from grease pencil to curves and backwards. 407 00:24:25.020 --> 00:24:27.347 So yes, now you can also just create grease 408 00:24:27.348 --> 00:24:29.901 pencil data from scratch in geometry nodes. 409 00:24:30.260 --> 00:24:32.819 Additional nodes give you the ability to merge grease 410 00:24:32.820 --> 00:24:35.820 pencil layers based on their name or an A group ID. 411 00:24:36.280 --> 00:24:39.327 The name of the layers, in this case, is using the same naming 412 00:24:39.328 --> 00:24:41.880 functionality that I've mentioned earlier in this video. 413 00:24:42.360 --> 00:24:47.000 But yes, since grease pencil data now essentially is just curve data under the 414 00:24:47.001 --> 00:24:49.067 hood, this opens up a whole new world of 415 00:24:49.068 --> 00:24:51.500 possibilities that have not been there before. 416 00:24:51.940 --> 00:24:55.840 So that's it for the big new features for geometry nodes in Blender 4.3. 417 00:24:55.841 --> 00:25:00.180 For a complete list of all the changes, also for all the other areas in Blender, 418 00:25:00.520 --> 00:25:03.640 make sure to check out the release nodes page on blender.org. 419 00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:06.329 And I hope for geometry nodes, this gives you a 420 00:25:06.330 --> 00:25:08.680 better understanding of how to use the new features.