Geometry nodes: address discrete parts of geometry individually?

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi folks,

This is probably really simple to do and i’m not quite sure to express it, but here goes:

In the image and attached blend file you see i’ve created a number of separate objects by combining two meshes and performing a Boolean operation on them.

What i’m left with is twelve thin boxes, stacked, with space in between.

My question is: is there a way (using geo nodes) to take each of these separate 12 meshes and perform an operation on them, like move each one individually and randomly (by a small amount) in the X/Y axis?

So i guess i would need a node that takes the geometry input, works out how many discrete parts there are and lets me address them individually.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

boolean
boolean1501×1654 199 KB

boolean.blend (842.2 KB)

2

Hi, there’s the mesh island node

3

Thanks! … i tried it and i can’t get it to do much, other than delete 11 of the 12 boxes if i plug it into a “delete geometry” node. But i guess that shows it’s working.

Any idea how i incorporate it into my blend file in order to move the 12 boxes randomly?

If someone could explain, I’ll make a youtube film explaining it so others can also benefit.

4

here is an entirely different way to do what you have here:

image
image1664×1316 213 KB

This keeps everything as instances and avoids the mesh boolean node (which kills performance)

the important lesson is using the index to drive a noise texture, which then transforms the instances

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5

If you must use booleans, or you have a mesh with multiple bodies from some other operation, you can do this:

image
image1527×684 73.6 KB

as @Hadriscus mentioned, the mesh island node is your friend here

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6

Many thanks, i made a youtube film for any noobs like myself to get this working:

2 Likes