Geometry Nodes

thinsoldier · October 31, 2021, 1:04am

This way? This does not change the behavior from how it was before in my video.

DNorman · October 31, 2021, 1:25am

I have managed to make them look up as well.
I am just playing with nodes, I have no idea what I am doing and do not really understand the math involved!

Here is a video (not sure why there is no preview)
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/640783682

thinsoldier · October 31, 2021, 1:28am

Yeah I have no idea what’s going on there. Hopefully someday soon they’ll turn all the constraints into geometry nodes

DNorman · October 31, 2021, 1:30am

Yes Geo nodes scare me a bit, I find them a little cryptic, but I do need to experiment.

BluePrintRandom · October 31, 2021, 2:03am

I posted the file above

check out ‘monkies in the middle’

DNorman · October 31, 2021, 2:19am

Oh I did not see that one, that looks more simple.
It seems to work the same without the normalize node is there a reason for it?

Edit: I cleaned up my version as there was no need to separate the vector and its looks just like yours without the normalize.
Edit 2: even cleaner I did not need to subtract the vectors twice, lol
That looks less cryptic!

thinsoldier · October 31, 2021, 2:53am

Can you explain what the 2 align euler nodes are doing?

BluePrintRandom · October 31, 2021, 2:57am

mesh vertex to point → point to volume → volume to mesh → metaball particles_gravity_fake_meta.blend|attachment (953.3 KB)

DNorman · October 31, 2021, 3:04am

The first one swivels the head’s y vector along their z axis so they can look from side to side and the second one swivels their y vector on their x axis so they can look up and down
Edit.
The first one has a rotation value of 0,0,0 The second one needs to know the rotation value of the first one.

Edit 2 I am still getting my head around it myself!

Edit 3 Ok I am starting to understand a bit more.

As all my monkey heads start off looking forwards on their y axis, If you only plug in the second “Euler to vector” (with y pivoting on x and the subtracted vector), half of the monkeys have to look backwards to point in the direction of the empty when it is the middle. As you move the empty on the y axis you will see that they start flipping. However they do look up and down towards the empty.

That is why they need the rotation of the z axis from the first “Euler to vector” so that they are all facing the empty from their z axis, and look towards the centre when the empty is inside the circle.

Chiggsy · October 31, 2021, 4:11am

How’d you get the dot grid instead of the regular lined grid as the background? I tried googling but I couldn’t find anything.

DNorman · October 31, 2021, 4:14am

I had the same problem and got rid of the grid completely. In the end I saved the dark theme from 2.93 in an xml and installed it in 2.31’s themes. It also got rid of the “glaring” tick boxes

AlphaChannel · October 31, 2021, 4:15am

part of the new pablo theme in 3.1, you can darken,lighten the grid too,

Chiggsy · October 31, 2021, 4:34am

@DNorman 2.31 theme?

@AlphaChannel Ahhh so it’s in the new 3.1 version . I’m still using 2.93, might wait until 3.1 is in beta. Do you know if it is there in the 3.0 beta?

DNorman · October 31, 2021, 4:36am

Sorry 2.93.1

AlphaChannel · October 31, 2021, 4:39am

image1456×902 88.5 KB

yup

thinsoldier · October 31, 2021, 5:58am

Thank you

BluePrintRandom · October 31, 2021, 2:55pm

I don’t know about blender, but some equations don’t like non-normalized direction vectors

‘matrix sheer’ or something like that

BluePrintRandom · October 31, 2021, 2:55pm

…ok.
Preformatted text

DNorman · October 31, 2021, 3:17pm

Thank you for answering, I was trying to understand the setup completely, I think I have got it now. Sometimes I just add nodes and plug things in until it works, afterwards I realise I have nodes that do not actually do anything useful (like when I separated the vectors).

BluePrintRandom · October 31, 2021, 4:22pm

Suprise everyone,
It’s bees!