Now that geometry nodes are out, what are they good for? How do you use them?
I thought this new thread could be separate from development one started November 2020:
Here is some eye candy:
Microbe Crawl by “RedJam9”
Ripple Cube by “RedJam9”
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From what I’ve seen from the demo files, the new geometry nodes seem good for Motion Graphics with lots of objects and text effects.
Also, have they replaced the Hair Particle System for things like scattering trees across a landscape, or are there still times when you would want to use a Particle System?
How is the Geometry Nodes system different from Shader Nodes? How is it the same?
Hi @Boder , have a look at my YT channel, currently it’s mostly about scattering stuff, but at least you’ll get an idea of what can be achieved.
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For those who want to know what Scattering means, it’s basically when you statically position many different copies of an object across the surface of a mesh. Is that right?
Here is some of the early history of Geometry Nodes:
Pebbles Scattering
“Trees and flowers” (design goal)
Simple forest (first test by dreamak)
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They have the latest pebbles and flowers over at The Project Page for Geo Nodes.
The Release Notes from the Wiki list all the available nodes and show the node setup for the pebble scattering.
The Blog Post from December has an overview of the project and a few links. The November Blog Post outlines development plans.
The 2.92 Manual has a whole section on Geometry Nodes.
What is the story behind Point Clouds? Are they still going to be used? Are they gone?
What about a Workspace for Geometry Nodes? Is an official one in the works, or does anyone have their own version of something like the “Shading” workspace but for Geometry Nodes?
Not exactly personally. Just in general. But I thought you might know. Sorry if that was annoying. Just trying to get others in on the thread or it will die.
As far as I know they’re still experimental in 2.93 and devs don’t have a use for it(or something in between the lines.) When you use Point distribute node, points created are basically points cloud.
Once I heard Pablo Vazquez saying that it’d be good to have it, that’s all I remember, I recommend to use this channel https://blender.chat/channel/everything-nodes or thread at devtalk https://devtalk.blender.org/t/geometry-nodes … to get questions like these answered directly by developers, not sure if they’re able to follow yet another thread about GeoNodes at blenderartists 
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Here are the nodes that are after 2.92 and coming for 2.93 so far:
Attribute Combine XYZ
Attribute Sample Texture
Attribute Separate XYZ
Collection Info
Is Viewport
String
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I’ve rendered out a new version of “Microbe Crawler” experimenting with Geometry Nodes and EEVEE. This one is titled “Microbe Walker”. Would like to give credit to the author of “Microbe Crawl” if anyone has that information. I downloaded it on January 23, possibly from this website.
Enjoy this new video:
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That was a test I did on my redjam9 channel, thanks for asking!. That reminds me that I need to add the hdri’s to those projects and reupload them. There has been some confusion as what you see in the viewport in workbench is not what renders out in eevee, as the world shader is not set up in those project files. I am just using the default hdri’s that were from HdriHaven so I need to package them up when I have time.
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Oh, sweet mother, I can sleep tonight! That was going to keep me up. I’ve been playing with it all day and having a lot of fun. That was confusing about why the Render View looks HDRI-lit but EEVEE renders black and there was no World Texture. Now not only do I know who made it but it actually isn’t a bug, just a trick in Render View. YES! I thought it looked like the same artist.
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Yeah, there is quirk/bug where if you have the viewport set to eevee/render mode and save the file, when you reopen the file the viewport mode is in solid mode. Hence why I have been saving these demos while in material preview viewport mode (using the inbuilt hdri), as it then opens up this way for a user. I need to get in the habit of checking the eevee render mode and setting up the world material before posting blend files online!
Have you played with Viewport Render Animation? (do you know about it)
Yes, you right that it can be rendered out like this. Although I am trying to make these demos as foolproof as possible since people will want to hit f12 or the standard render options.
The best way I have found is to pack the low res hdri that comes with blender as a texture in with the blend file. Then it is a matter of setting up the world texture to mimic the viewport by using the lightpath node to not have the hdri visible, hence getting a black background. This way it will look the same in material preview mode, eevee render mode and when the scene is rendered out.
What is the workflow strategy for scattering points inside geometry? Say like I want to scatter not just on the surface of a cube but also inside it,
There is a node being worked on currently that will most likely be in the 2.93 release for volume point instancing. My hacky workaround is to use an array modifier on the base object with an empty to scale these instances inwards. Then instance onto this resulting mesh.
You can also use the remesh modifier on the base mesh in blocks mode and then instance onto this result for a gridded volume effect. I have a nice setup that does procedural voxel explosions that use this idea.