Thank you! And IKR! I think visualizing texture coordinates is profound yet quite simple, yet no one reeeally talks about it. I thought it important to spread for the sheer untold usefulness😊
or just wait till you are finished modeling, then add a texture after UV unwrapping? I thought that is what UV mapping did. It mapped an image to specific faces of the model and after that, they stayed that way so if your mesh gets stretched, so will the textures. ? Maybe I don't understand the purpose of this node setup.
That is indeed true! And that could be done if one is planing on doing something like this very simply once. Something like this technique, however, has wider applications or potential. After a Group Node like this is saved as an asset, one could use it for quick application, even on multiple unique objects, without the need to mess with UVs every single time, just add the node.😁 Besides that, this technique is more fit for situations where one needs a procedural texture rather than a flat image texture. Ultimately, tho, this tutorial may constitute more of an exercise, where one may learn these techniques and apply and extend or build upon them to something even more widely useful. Something like easily texturing trees procedurally with fewer clicks and less work in the future overall. In the end, this is perhaps more of a brain-teaser which I hope can serve as inspiration to others so inclined in their projects in anyway way they may find such ideas useful
@@nrdkraft ok, well, I guess if it saves you from having to do work for every texturing so that you can animate or move the mesh w/o redoing the texture each time, that'd be good. There's apparently so many ways to do things I'm finding it hard to remember ONE GOOD WAY. I keep forgetting the shortcuts because I never wrote them down. Then I end up searching long menu lists. Hey, can you write me a geo nodes asset that will APPLY ALL @#$@#$ TRANSFORMS every time I transform an object? :) Nice tut. Hey, I'm serious. Now, I know that might be more of a python script thing but geez, if I had a nickel for every time that bit me and caused me to wonder for an hour why my stuff wasn't working......
If you want feedback; Stop cutting all the pauses out as its really difficult to follow - as soon as you finish saying something you're on to the next thing and even with arrow keys for jumping back it takes longer to watch than if you just explained slowly.
You’re absolutely right. At the time I tried to make the video as short as possible, but since posting I’ve realized that isn’t a suitable method for teaching, thus my next videos are more naturally paced. But thank you for confirming that feedback! And I apologize for the inconvenience in your viewing experience. I may update this tutorial in the future with better pacing and more.
Really awesome work! Can this approach be used to curve an emission light inside a mesh? Eg "bend light" .. If I make an emission shader (gradient using color ramp) it folllows a specific axis, even if I bend or wrap a mesh to another mesh, the emission lights just continues as a straight line along an axis.
That’s a good question! It depends on how I understand the result you’re looking for, but I’m sure there is a way to do any setup you want. Even if your goal doesn’t require an actual curve object, you can certainly manipulate a stripe or stripes of light to make it curved just about anyway you want. For example using a math node set to something like add or subtract over the input into your ramp, then using anything, like a wave texture, noise texture, a radial texture, or a manipulated vector or gradient. This will nudge different parts of the stripe over, or up or down.
I saw that you've recently started posting again, and your Blender skills are amazing. Please post more, as I am a beginner and learning a lot from videos by people like you! (Although this geonode system is not for amateurs)
I appreciate it so much!😃 And I’m glad that you are starting your journey with Blender! Yes, this tutorial is a more advanced topic. I have plans for more tutorials and my own animated content, but what tutorial(s) or explanations would you like to see? Perhaps something you haven’t been able to find elsewhere?
Thank you for this tutorial. I am going to use this in conjunction with my hair creation technique (which does not involve Blender Hair System). Subscribed. You actually take the time out to explain this process, and it is much appreciated. Thanks again, and Happy New Year to you and yours.🍺
Great tutorial! Insane how in-depth it went but it works. I have a question for something I'm doing, how would you go to make this on an extruded curve (i.e. flat curve)? I'm doing a fabric strap and I'd like the texture to follow the extruded curve, but your node here can only work for tubular curves, right?
@@Clyman974 Thank you so much! The principles are very similar. For sure you’ll still use the Spline Parameter of your main curve in the same manner as in this video and store that as perhaps your Y or Z vector-as you may choose-for example. I don’t know what method you’re using for sure but if, for example, you are just using another curve as the profile, which would make it flat, you would use the Spline Parameter of that curve in a similar manner as we found for the circle in this tutorial, but much more easily as we can use the Factor or Length more as-is since it’s just flat, and perhaps use that as your X or vector. Also in this situation one of your vector sockets, either Y or Z, may remain empty.
@@nrdkraft I think simulation and the new hair system are both unexplored so that would be welcome, but pretty much anything interesting in geometry nodes would be great. I've seen some tutorials where geometry nodes are over-used, e.g.: doing things that are only needed once (and that could be done easier using conventional modeling) purely for the sake of demonstration, but my preference would be for more practical real-world examples. Just my opinion though, you're the creator so grateful for anything you produce 🙂
@@petedejager Wonderful, thanks for the input! I get what you mean, Geometry Nodes should be used to make things easier, and I definitely plan to put simulation nodes to good use in my long-term projects. Plus for right now my strong suit is Shader Nodes. I hadn’t thought of hair so much immediately since it’s still rather new to me as well but I will need to get some good practical use out of it as time goes on too. I hope to share alot of practical stuff or out-of-the-box thinking regarding all those for sure! Thanks man! Anything else you think of, just let me know!😁
Great Stuff! Really Useful. Just for the Future, i appreciate you showing us the process and explaining the Math behind it, but maybe try minimizing the back and forth. In combination with you cleaning up the node setup and putting everything in groups, it became quiet hard to skip around and find a specific part i wanted to reiterate. It seems to me it would be easier, if you wait with the clean-up/grouping till the end of the video, so the viewer can keep overview of the whole node-setup while watching. Otherwise, thanks a lot for this useful bit of information!
Thank you for your specific input!😉 Only seeing my work through my own involved eyes it really helps to see it from someone else’s perspective! In my future videos I hope to minimize and simplify any necessary explanations perhaps with a short visual to make it even quicker to grasp for those who need to. And at first I imagined that having groups already made gives something external to aim for and to have ease of plugging in inputs as we go instead of trying to remember and find the values we want to expose at the end. However, reconsidering based on your input, in actuality, this isn’t the process in which we normally construct node groups because it isn’t intuitive. Thus I will be altering my approach for future node-based tutorials to be suitable. Thank you SO much, I appreciate the help!!😁
Ooh that’s a great question. Sadly I don’t think so as what we do in this tutorial only crests data for vertices themselves. To do something similar for volume I think we would have to use volume objects in Geo Nodes, probably manipulating the density of three different volume objects and then combining them as XYZ data after the fact in the shader, and even then I don’t think we could easily transfer the data from a curve to a volume. But never say never! I’ll have to experiment with it and see if something effective can be done!
@@nrdkraft Thanks a lot for you answer ! I find you lasts videos very interesting and easy to understand (even if i admit it's too advanced for me now) you explain things very well, very good job 💪 Can't wait to see if you find a way to figure this out
@@TheBlaster199 Thank you so much!😊 I’m always glad if I can explain things the best way I can. And I’ll try to experiment with that when I can get a chance!😁
When I apply this node setup to geometry that I made previously without it, the existing Curve Properties / Bevel data (Resolution, "Fill Caps" etc.) overrides the Curve Vector node, even though the Curve Vector node will completely remove the curve if I disconnect the Store Named Attribute from the Group Output - -so I know it is at least driving its existence in some way.
Oh that’s interesting! Yeah in order to accommodate an effect you want, you may have to incorporate the principles of this node setup either outside of the group created here, or in a new one more accommodating to your needs. In all honestly I don’t work with curves much beyond the experimentation I did for this tutorial lol
Working in Blender 3.6.2 and 4.0 and for some reason the step where you subtract 1 from the resolution and divide it by the original number seems to be unnecessary now? Not sure if they changed the way it calculates the flattened vector, but for some reason when I subtract 1, the x vector is misaligned by one face. Can anyone verify if that is correct? Unless I missed a step, but I've gone back over it a few times and it only seems to align if I eliminate that step.
Oh very interesting! I’ll have to check that in 4.0! [checks] Oh you’re right! It looks like they fixed this for us since I recorded this, thanks for alerting me to this!
@@nrdkraft Thank you for this solid tutorial. I came across the video when I was getting into blender successfully this year but the shorthand references to hotkeys and mode changes were too fast for me initially. Now that I've had time to understand a lot of the modes and standard hotkeys, this was a very digestible tutorial and especially was impressive to see the visual explanation of the coordinate space at the beginning.
Thanks so much! It’d be great if something better than this will come default in Geo Nodes. Even then hopefully knowing such techniques will prove applicable for people in other ways😊
This is pretty great. Super useful. but I have a slight problem, (with a jerry rigged workaround). I've followed the full tutorial and now have this amazing GeoNode group, but at the beginning of this, we added a "Curve Circle" then connected it to a curve to mesh............for my purposes I need it to be on a "flat" plane (similar to using the Extrude option in the geometry tab of the Curve settings in the properties panel). **I don't know what collection of nodes I would need to add/change to use a plane instead of a cylinder**. Not a SUPER big issue, since I can just Scale down the Cylinder on 1 axis to be practically flat, but if I were to "Alt S" carlessly, it would return to its original shape. any advice on where I could learn more about shaping the curve geo?
Great question! I actually should expand upon this tutorial to include more profile shapes. So there are different options, all of which would also change how we setup the texture coordinates for the initial shape too. You can use the Curve Line if you want the profile to be literally like a plane with zero thickness. From there instead of all the setup we have inside the Profile Vectors group in this tutorial, you should be able to replace all that with just the Curve Parameter “Factor” output plugged into a single Capture Attribute node which would feed into just the X value which goes into the final Capture Named Attribute node, leaving the Y slot empty and set to 0. Or vise-versa on the X and Y if you so choose. I assume this is what you want, but if instead you do want it to have some thickness by being a very flat rectangle or a very flat circle or oval, there are options for both of those as well. Let me know!
It is a problem I've looked to solve for years, your results were really great, though I doubt I could follow the tutorial to recreate it , little fast.
Thanks for the input! The original recording was an hour, so I went crazy editing to get it shorter, but perhaps that wasn’t the best choice. I’d be happy to help you any further way I can to make it easier to solve your problem!
@@nrdkraft Honestly I think I'd have been very happy to watch the hour version , as I said a problem I'd struggled with for years, it would have been worth the investment. Appreciate some audience might not have the attention span for that though. Thanks for the offer on additional help but atm having to wait on my PC to catch up with the latest versions of Blenders minimum specs( Graphics mem, and OS version). I'll be getting back to rendering later in the year I hope with new PC.
@@tdsdave I’ve had tutorial ideas lined up and this is the first one I’ve made so I’m certainly grateful to get outside opinions so I can improve my next ones! I did give into the idea that I need to cater to the diminishing attention span of today, but I think it would actually be more effective to invest my attention into viewers who really want to pay attention and understand, so I will certainly allow myself to slow down in the next ones.😊 I’m already planning some updates to this tutorial with a better version of the group node, so I’ll make it my goal to do so later in the year!😁
Ooh that’s a very good one! So, it depends on personal preference, but depending on your setup, I’d say the easiest way might be to use whatever means you’re using to corrugate your curve (if it’s something like a displacement map in Geo Nodes) plug that into its own Store Named Attribute which you can call upon in the Shaders, and manipulate that attribute there however you want (like putting it thru a ColorRamp and maybe a Mix Color). However there are other methods if your setup is much different. Please let me know!
Thanks for all the effort that went into making this video! What if I want to use a specific image texture rather than generate in blender? Is there a way to output a UV map that I can use for the curve?
Thank you for your comment! And the answer to that is yes!😊 It involves a much simpler version of the process in this tutorial, where we take the profile curve’s parameter-like the circumference vector-and leave it (basically) as it is INSTEAD of converting it into the X and Y as we did here. In this scenario the length of the curve could be used as the Y instead of the Z and that circumference could be used as the X (or vice versa) leaving the Z empty and black. I just searched and found there are already a few tutorials on YT that do just that; I don’t think a link in this comment will work but if you search “blender curve uv map” you should find a few different tutorials that use Geo Nodes in just that way!😁 However, if the tutorials you find are not helpful for your needs, please let me know!
I have a question, what if I want a custom curve profile? How would I have change this node set up if I want to take a profile object and stretch it along the curve?
The process can be basically the same, but each shape you use-like the star, rectangles or open shapes-could have slightly different tweaks which are up to your preference anyway. I’m not at my computer to check the exact terminology in Blender right now, but for the star, the resolution will need to be divided by two and plugged into the number of points (how many arms the star has). We might expose the size (or outer vs, inner radius?) of the points as well and along with that we might find a way to select the inward and outward points separately and give them different values in the “radius” part of the setup if we want the points or arms of the star to slide through the texture (like adjusting the radius) as we make the arms stick out further or flatter. For open shapes (rectangle or curved shaped that don’t go all the way around and are open on one side) the part where we divide by the resolution is probably unnecessary depending on preferences, and the pi/sin/cosin parts of the node tree will likely be different but again it depends on desired effect. And of course if you make your own curve profile shape, the setup here will be completely dependent on what you want. I would like to explore these techniques in a future video. I might even consider doing a live to get feedback or requests as I demonstrate.
No, I meant it like taking a complex object from the scene and using that as a curve profile. With the complexity ranging from several circles to entirely custom shapes.
@@drewh9717 Ohh that’s what you mean. That’s a good question. I’d have to test that out myself, but my first instinct would be to use the vector output of a Position (separating and using two of the X, Y, and Z attributes) in place of the Spline Parameter for the “X” and “Y” attributes we make. Probably directly without anything like the dividing an pi/sin/cousin stuff we did here, aside from using the radius to multiply them which is done outside that profile group here anyway.
I am also interested in finding out how to do this with a custom profile. When I follow your advice it works fine while the curve is stretched into a straight line, but as soon as I have the bend the curve in more than one dimension I get some very unexpected geometry.@@nrdkraft
@@KylePeters-tx8qb Interesting. I’d be interested to know what kind of custom profile you are using. Would it be possible to see image or video of your setup? I’m available for direct messages on Instagram by the same @ as here on UA-cam.
Yes! The group we create here and the tree within works with a Curve Line as is!😊 We can achieve this the way we do with the Spiral at 21:40. Does that answer your request?😊
umm hoyl cow, how do yhou even begin to learn this stuff haha, i'd say good tutorial but i dont think it quite appleis to me as im using the array modifier on a small object i used procedurally generated textures on, which then expaqnds along the x axis on a curve path i made to form a track and i have a road marker texture thats just going straight and not turning hmm, gotta be a simpler way
@@unknownrocketeer9289 ikr we shouldn’t have to go to all this trouble lol. But that’s why I did this so it’s easier in the future. I think I still have this file available somewhere on Patreon for download so people can just use the node without going thru all the steps in the tutorial. I should make it available for free if it’s not already.
13:07 _So let's go over to our shaders and Shift+Ctrl+Click to view the _*_Y..._* - Hmm... 🤔Upon second viewing, this appears to be the part where I just don't land on the same page somehow. After following the tutorial the first time something just didn't work despite my sincerest effort to follow every step very carefully. Thus, I started again from scratch, and after following it the 2nd time, this is where I discovered the issue lies. Whatever the reason, when I view the Y only, I get a solid black, as opposed to half white half black. I took extreme care with a lot of rewinding and rewatching each step to rule out even the remote possibility of errors on my part, but something is still off. Any idea as to what I might be missing?
Yeah, so the *X* and the *Z* are fine, but the *Y* just shows solid black. Another thing that just came to my attention is that after you make a copy of that *X Vector* frame with its contents (which, btw, was presumably meant to be re-labeled *Y Vector* ) and then connect the Value output of the *Fix Factor* Multiply node to the Value input of the Map Range node inside that duplicate of the *X Vector* frame, the connective noodle on my end appears solid, as opposed to dashed like in the video. Could this be a useful clue?
ANOTHER UPDATE: More accurately, as I found later still, I'm only able to have a dashed noodle going out of the Value output of the Multiply node inside the *Fix Factor* in the first connection I make. The second connective curve only appears solid for some reason. In other words, if I connect it to the Map Range Value slot inside the *X Vector* frame, it'll be dashed, but after I then connect it to that of the *Y Vector,* it's now solid - and vice versa. Hope this makes sense. My work-around is to make a point on the noodle of the first connection and branch it into the 2nd one (without having two noodles going out directly). Could I have stumbled upon a bug by any chance? Unless I'm missing something, this feels really anomalous.
@@IllusionSectorOh this is a strange phenomenon. I don’t believe I have ever seen a dashed line in nodes in Blender; any appearance of that in this video likely being a compression artifact or something. Perhaps this is a feature of the latest Blender 3.6? Which I haven’t gotten to test this file on yet. If using a reroute works for you to solve this that’s good, hopefully that makes the Y vector appear correctly. I’ll try to test this myself today when I get a chance to actively evaluate the issue you might be having.
@@nrdkraft _I don’t believe I have ever seen a dashed line in nodes in Blender;_ I was referring to the dashed noodles that connect slots. There are everywhere in the video and definitely not compression artifacts. Are we talking about the same thing?
@@IllusionSector ohh well would ya look at that. I just opened the file and nodes do have dashed lines now I just never noticed it, perhaps subconsciously dismissing it as antialiasing or something. Okay, you’re right, they are dashed, but if one of your node noodles is solid while being a grey factor type I don’t know why. I’m wondering if you could show a screenshot that maybe I can identify with. Are you on Instagram? If so you could message a screenshot to @nrdkraft there and I can perhaps help more effectively
@@malymotion Ah good catch, I don’t even recall where that would’ve bee seen in this video😛 I didn’t even know about a company by that name, so yes it’s for music, or at least it will be
Yeah, they never invite the nerd to the party. But that’s okay. I’ll just make a tutorial to distract myself and tune out the sound. Wasn’t very successful tho😆
@@Avetorro Oh thanks so much man!😁 Thanks for the input too! I’ll try to get the neighbors to hold it down or put something good on during my text tutorials😂
Really good tutorial! Thank you so much for the time and effort you put in here. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot watching you. =D Please, keep it up and yes, I would be super interested to know about how you made those materials. See you. Cheers!
Thank you so much!😃 And I’m glad you had fun with this! And I’ll plan on showing how I did textures like those! There’s so many ways of doing them and using similar techniques for many other applications, so I’m thinking rather than a tutorial, I may just challenge myself make different procedural textures on camera just for fun and for others to learn from. Maybe on live? We’ll see.😊
@@nrdkraft I too would like to thank you very much for the tutorial. I've always had a love-hate relationship with Blender. Seems like every time I try to get back into it, the darn thing can't help but remind me of the *hate* part by flying in the face of my intuition after mere minutes of use. While, again, it's great to have members of the community such as yourself filling in the gaps and generously sharing their findings, something as elementary as mapping coordinates on a meshed curve should happen *automatically,* instead relying on an excruciatingly convoluted node-spaghetti-jungle of a process that requires viewing of a 25 minute tutorial to learn how to do. (This is to say nothing of the lengths you must've gone through to figure it out in the first place before you could even share it). I want to emphasize that by no extent of the imagination is this a comment on the duration or the quality of the tutorial itself (which is superb), but rather the problem that has been plaguing Blender since inception. I've very cognizant and feel terrible for looking an open source gift horse in the mouth, but it's impossible not to feel the pain as an aspiring migrant from commercial software.
@@IllusionSector I can sympathize! It’s true we all have different perspectives, and thus different expectations, and different priorities which necessitate different practicalities. For myself that’s a reason I love open-source; being able to almost feel like I’m able to make parts of the tool myself-not so much liking the “having to make it myself” part, although I do kinda enjoy that, but actually liking the feeling of “making it the way I want” part. However at the end of the day I have to agree with you; some functions like this really, practically should be possible by default. And it may seem of little comfort that someday it might me. But I might put forth that that’s another reason (imho) that Blender can be great; if something isn’t default, someone can make it default in a way. Altho that depends on if that one makes it available for others. Thus, altho I have the asset from this tutorial available on Patreon, enough people have expressed a desire for this asset without having to emulate the tutorial (culminating in your comment now) that I’m seriously considering making this asset freely available, maybe on Gumroad or something. Even tho I have the goal of gaining support through YouTubing as a career, I value making other’s lives better more than money. Because like yourself, I would prefer functionality without having to jump thru hoops, be that having to make a node-spaghetti-jungle or be it paying someone. And I would like to facilitate that for others too.
@@nrdkraft Thanks for taking the time to reply. _that’s a reason I love open-source; being able to almost feel like I’m able to make parts of the tool myself_ Oh, absolutely. As an After Effects user with a heavily custom-expression-driven workflow I can certainly appreciate the ability to make one's own tools. Also, as intimidating as a web of nodes can be, it's nothing compared to something as un-visual as JavaScript code. So if someone like me gets this frustrated, I can only imagine how the less technically inclined must feel. As a side note, that fact that a free piece of software of Blender's magnitude could even exist at all is miracle and a testament to human generosity. Thanks again for your work and good lick on UA-cam.
Very good question! I did find a tutorial here on UA-cam that does that, but I think I might know a slightly better method. If so I’ll have to make my own tutorial for rounded ends on curves😊
Im totally lost so I think it will be easier if I just dont apply a shader to a spiral...eVarrrrrr in fact I dont texture anything... i just model so I can print them and paint them with a real life brush...that is something I excel at! Cheers...
Awesome! If that works better for you, go for it! you excel at something I am lacking in!😁 Altho I apologize if my explanations in this tutorial are quite conflated. Still a long way to go in learning how to make my tutorials intuitive.😅
Excellent tutorial, thank you for all the work! I'd love to have more insights on how to deal with end caps when working with image textures. Can't wait to see more of your Blender tuts :)
Thanks, I’m glad you find my work useful! I have a series on materials started and more on the way!☺️ As for images textures end caps, are you perhaps referring to texturing end caps on an array modifier?
19:44 how to save as an asset for the asset library
Holy crap the intro visualization of UV stuff is insanely good. If I would have seen that as a youngster, I feel like it would have changed my life.
Thank you! And IKR! I think visualizing texture coordinates is profound yet quite simple, yet no one reeeally talks about it. I thought it important to spread for the sheer untold usefulness😊
Agreed! I was impressed
@@nrdkraft Thank you so much please keep going I support you as much as I can
@@AbdullohAhmadjonov-y2x Thank you so much my friend! I’ll work on some new material soon☺️
Bro, I can total see your channel taking off! These are some amazing tutorials!
Thank you so much, man!😄 I certainly hope that I can entertain and teach/help people as much as possible.☺️
thank you
Very useful and informative🙌
Greetings from Cali, Colombia
DIRECT AND CLEAR beautiful content
Thank you so much!☺️
or just wait till you are finished modeling, then add a texture after UV unwrapping? I thought that is what UV mapping did. It mapped an image to specific faces of the model and after that, they stayed that way so if your mesh gets stretched, so will the textures. ? Maybe I don't understand the purpose of this node setup.
That is indeed true! And that could be done if one is planing on doing something like this very simply once. Something like this technique, however, has wider applications or potential. After a Group Node like this is saved as an asset, one could use it for quick application, even on multiple unique objects, without the need to mess with UVs every single time, just add the node.😁 Besides that, this technique is more fit for situations where one needs a procedural texture rather than a flat image texture. Ultimately, tho, this tutorial may constitute more of an exercise, where one may learn these techniques and apply and extend or build upon them to something even more widely useful. Something like easily texturing trees procedurally with fewer clicks and less work in the future overall. In the end, this is perhaps more of a brain-teaser which I hope can serve as inspiration to others so inclined in their projects in anyway way they may find such ideas useful
@@nrdkraft ok, well, I guess if it saves you from having to do work for every texturing so that you can animate or move the mesh w/o redoing the texture each time, that'd be good. There's apparently so many ways to do things I'm finding it hard to remember ONE GOOD WAY. I keep forgetting the shortcuts because I never wrote them down. Then I end up searching long menu lists. Hey, can you write me a geo nodes asset that will APPLY ALL @#$@#$ TRANSFORMS every time I transform an object? :) Nice tut. Hey, I'm serious. Now, I know that might be more of a python script thing but geez, if I had a nickel for every time that bit me and caused me to wonder for an hour why my stuff wasn't working......
Absolute madness! Just watched this and the Principled Metal shader one and confident if he keeps doing these this channel gon' blow up! 🤯
Wow, thank you so much, man!😌 I certainly hope to benefit and entertain people for as long as possible!
If you want feedback; Stop cutting all the pauses out as its really difficult to follow - as soon as you finish saying something you're on to the next thing and even with arrow keys for jumping back it takes longer to watch than if you just explained slowly.
You’re absolutely right. At the time I tried to make the video as short as possible, but since posting I’ve realized that isn’t a suitable method for teaching, thus my next videos are more naturally paced. But thank you for confirming that feedback! And I apologize for the inconvenience in your viewing experience. I may update this tutorial in the future with better pacing and more.
I have to agree many of the excellent Blender tutorials on YT are spoilt by super-fast delivery, with zero pauses, not just this chanel
Yes please tutorials for the textures you made
I’d be happy too! That’s probably a subject that would be suited well for a livestream, so I may do that this Friday evening😊
amazing tutorial ! Actually managed to make the texture work by following it slowly. Thank you so much ! You are a great teacher !
Aw thank you so much! Glad I could help!😊 (My next tutorials will be slower paced for sure😆)
Top Notch visual presentation! Congratulations 🥇
Thanks man, that means slot!😃
This is absolutely amazing!!! i love the explanation at the start, it gives you a good understanding of why it happens.
Well thanks! Understanding it is such a revelation which I wanted others to have too😊
It's nice to start by explaining what we are going to do, especially with these animations. Thanks
Thank you! I’m glad you found it useful!😁
Great tutorial, I can see all the little effort put into it and it feels good and fresh, easy to learn, got my sub for sure. Thanks a lot !
Thank you so much! I hope I can produce some new tutorials soon!😊
Really awesome work! Can this approach be used to curve an emission light inside a mesh? Eg "bend light" .. If I make an emission shader (gradient using color ramp) it folllows a specific axis, even if I bend or wrap a mesh to another mesh, the emission lights just continues as a straight line along an axis.
That’s a good question! It depends on how I understand the result you’re looking for, but I’m sure there is a way to do any setup you want. Even if your goal doesn’t require an actual curve object, you can certainly manipulate a stripe or stripes of light to make it curved just about anyway you want. For example using a math node set to something like add or subtract over the input into your ramp, then using anything, like a wave texture, noise texture, a radial texture, or a manipulated vector or gradient. This will nudge different parts of the stripe over, or up or down.
I just found your channel, very well structured tutorial and extremely useful, thank you!
Oh thank you so much for the kindness! And you’re welcome!
Amazing stuff! Great visual explanation at the start and easy to follow the process. Top tier tutorial!
Thank you!🥹 If it’s useful to people that’s what I hope for😊
This is too good to be free
Aw thank you! I like free, so I figure others do too😆
I saw that you've recently started posting again, and your Blender skills are amazing. Please post more, as I am a beginner and learning a lot from videos by people like you! (Although this geonode system is not for amateurs)
I appreciate it so much!😃 And I’m glad that you are starting your journey with Blender! Yes, this tutorial is a more advanced topic. I have plans for more tutorials and my own animated content, but what tutorial(s) or explanations would you like to see? Perhaps something you haven’t been able to find elsewhere?
Thank you for this tutorial. I am going to use this in conjunction with my hair creation technique (which does not involve Blender Hair System). Subscribed. You actually take the time out to explain this process, and it is much appreciated. Thanks again, and Happy New Year to you and yours.🍺
Thank you! I’m glad I was able to provide something that can prove useful somehow! I hope you find success in developing your own technique😁
Great tutorial! Insane how in-depth it went but it works. I have a question for something I'm doing, how would you go to make this on an extruded curve (i.e. flat curve)? I'm doing a fabric strap and I'd like the texture to follow the extruded curve, but your node here can only work for tubular curves, right?
@@Clyman974 Thank you so much! The principles are very similar. For sure you’ll still use the Spline Parameter of your main curve in the same manner as in this video and store that as perhaps your Y or Z vector-as you may choose-for example. I don’t know what method you’re using for sure but if, for example, you are just using another curve as the profile, which would make it flat, you would use the Spline Parameter of that curve in a similar manner as we found for the circle in this tutorial, but much more easily as we can use the Factor or Length more as-is since it’s just flat, and perhaps use that as your X or vector. Also in this situation one of your vector sockets, either Y or Z, may remain empty.
ooooooo keyed out background! very professional
Thank you! I hope to look professional, but you know what they say about glitter and gold😂
Great explanation and visualization.
Thank you so very much!☺️
Great tutorial, please make more, especially on geometry nodes if possible.
Thank you! I certainly will!😁 Any suggestions for specific things in Geo Nodes or otherwise you like to see in tutorials?
@@nrdkraft I think simulation and the new hair system are both unexplored so that would be welcome, but pretty much anything interesting in geometry nodes would be great. I've seen some tutorials where geometry nodes are over-used, e.g.: doing things that are only needed once (and that could be done easier using conventional modeling) purely for the sake of demonstration, but my preference would be for more practical real-world examples. Just my opinion though, you're the creator so grateful for anything you produce 🙂
@@petedejager Wonderful, thanks for the input! I get what you mean, Geometry Nodes should be used to make things easier, and I definitely plan to put simulation nodes to good use in my long-term projects. Plus for right now my strong suit is Shader Nodes. I hadn’t thought of hair so much immediately since it’s still rather new to me as well but I will need to get some good practical use out of it as time goes on too. I hope to share alot of practical stuff or out-of-the-box thinking regarding all those for sure! Thanks man! Anything else you think of, just let me know!😁
Great Stuff! Really Useful. Just for the Future, i appreciate you showing us the process and explaining the Math behind it, but maybe try minimizing the back and forth. In combination with you cleaning up the node setup and putting everything in groups, it became quiet hard to skip around and find a specific part i wanted to reiterate. It seems to me it would be easier, if you wait with the clean-up/grouping till the end of the video, so the viewer can keep overview of the whole node-setup while watching. Otherwise, thanks a lot for this useful bit of information!
Thank you for your specific input!😉 Only seeing my work through my own involved eyes it really helps to see it from someone else’s perspective!
In my future videos I hope to minimize and simplify any necessary explanations perhaps with a short visual to make it even quicker to grasp for those who need to.
And at first I imagined that having groups already made gives something external to aim for and to have ease of plugging in inputs as we go instead of trying to remember and find the values we want to expose at the end. However, reconsidering based on your input, in actuality, this isn’t the process in which we normally construct node groups because it isn’t intuitive. Thus I will be altering my approach for future node-based tutorials to be suitable. Thank you SO much, I appreciate the help!!😁
is it possible to make it work for volumes ? it will be super handy for animating clouds along it but i didn't find if it's possible
Ooh that’s a great question. Sadly I don’t think so as what we do in this tutorial only crests data for vertices themselves. To do something similar for volume I think we would have to use volume objects in Geo Nodes, probably manipulating the density of three different volume objects and then combining them as XYZ data after the fact in the shader, and even then I don’t think we could easily transfer the data from a curve to a volume. But never say never! I’ll have to experiment with it and see if something effective can be done!
@@nrdkraft Thanks a lot for you answer ! I find you lasts videos very interesting and easy to understand (even if i admit it's too advanced for me now) you explain things very well, very good job 💪
Can't wait to see if you find a way to figure this out
@@TheBlaster199 Thank you so much!😊 I’m always glad if I can explain things the best way I can. And I’ll try to experiment with that when I can get a chance!😁
When I apply this node setup to geometry that I made previously without it, the existing Curve Properties / Bevel data (Resolution, "Fill Caps" etc.) overrides the Curve Vector node,
even though the Curve Vector node will completely remove the curve
if I disconnect the Store Named Attribute from the Group Output -
-so I know it is at least driving its existence in some way.
Oh that’s interesting! Yeah in order to accommodate an effect you want, you may have to incorporate the principles of this node setup either outside of the group created here, or in a new one more accommodating to your needs. In all honestly I don’t work with curves much beyond the experimentation I did for this tutorial lol
thank you so much.......just half of the video has already been a great help to achieving what i needed...i am subscribing to your page ASAP
Thank you so much and I’m glad I could help! I hope whatever your project is will turn out awesome!🙂
you are really good teacher
Thank you so much! I try my best☺️
Working in Blender 3.6.2 and 4.0 and for some reason the step where you subtract 1 from the resolution and divide it by the original number seems to be unnecessary now? Not sure if they changed the way it calculates the flattened vector, but for some reason when I subtract 1, the x vector is misaligned by one face. Can anyone verify if that is correct? Unless I missed a step, but I've gone back over it a few times and it only seems to align if I eliminate that step.
Oh very interesting! I’ll have to check that in 4.0!
[checks]
Oh you’re right! It looks like they fixed this for us since I recorded this, thanks for alerting me to this!
Yup, tried this in blender 4.1 and the subtract 1 from the resolution and divide it by the original number seems to be unnecessary now
@@nrdkraft Thank you for this solid tutorial. I came across the video when I was getting into blender successfully this year but the shorthand references to hotkeys and mode changes were too fast for me initially. Now that I've had time to understand a lot of the modes and standard hotkeys, this was a very digestible tutorial and especially was impressive to see the visual explanation of the coordinate space at the beginning.
@@snapxynith Awesome! I’m glad I could be helpful! And welcome to the Blender community! I hope you enjoy being a part of it☺️
You do a good job with your tutorials. I like your explanations. Thank you.
Aw thank you I appreciate that! I try to make things understandable!
Thanks a lot dude! That is one awesome workaround. This should be default in Blender
Thanks so much! It’d be great if something better than this will come default in Geo Nodes. Even then hopefully knowing such techniques will prove applicable for people in other ways😊
Thanks soo much for this video, great work!
Thank you so much! I hope it will prove useful to you!😄
Beautiful! Thank you !!!
You’re welcome!☺️
Incredible tutorial!
@@Ruuubick Thsnk you much!
@@Ruuubick Thank you much!
This is pretty great. Super useful. but I have a slight problem, (with a jerry rigged workaround). I've followed the full tutorial and now have this amazing GeoNode group, but at the beginning of this, we added a "Curve Circle" then connected it to a curve to mesh............for my purposes I need it to be on a "flat" plane (similar to using the Extrude option in the geometry tab of the Curve settings in the properties panel). **I don't know what collection of nodes I would need to add/change to use a plane instead of a cylinder**. Not a SUPER big issue, since I can just Scale down the Cylinder on 1 axis to be practically flat, but if I were to "Alt S" carlessly, it would return to its original shape. any advice on where I could learn more about shaping the curve geo?
Great question! I actually should expand upon this tutorial to include more profile shapes. So there are different options, all of which would also change how we setup the texture coordinates for the initial shape too. You can use the Curve Line if you want the profile to be literally like a plane with zero thickness. From there instead of all the setup we have inside the Profile Vectors group in this tutorial, you should be able to replace all that with just the Curve Parameter “Factor” output plugged into a single Capture Attribute node which would feed into just the X value which goes into the final Capture Named Attribute node, leaving the Y slot empty and set to 0. Or vise-versa on the X and Y if you so choose. I assume this is what you want, but if instead you do want it to have some thickness by being a very flat rectangle or a very flat circle or oval, there are options for both of those as well. Let me know!
It is a problem I've looked to solve for years, your results were really great, though I doubt I could follow the tutorial to recreate it , little fast.
Thanks for the input! The original recording was an hour, so I went crazy editing to get it shorter, but perhaps that wasn’t the best choice. I’d be happy to help you any further way I can to make it easier to solve your problem!
@@nrdkraft
Honestly I think I'd have been very happy to watch the hour version , as I said a problem I'd struggled with for years, it would have been worth the investment. Appreciate some audience might not have the attention span for that though.
Thanks for the offer on additional help but atm having to wait on my PC to catch up with the latest versions of Blenders minimum specs( Graphics mem, and OS version). I'll be getting back to rendering later in the year I hope with new PC.
@@tdsdave I’ve had tutorial ideas lined up and this is the first one I’ve made so I’m certainly grateful to get outside opinions so I can improve my next ones! I did give into the idea that I need to cater to the diminishing attention span of today, but I think it would actually be more effective to invest my attention into viewers who really want to pay attention and understand, so I will certainly allow myself to slow down in the next ones.😊 I’m already planning some updates to this tutorial with a better version of the group node, so I’ll make it my goal to do so later in the year!😁
@@nrdkraft
All sounds very cool , good luck with the channel.
@@tdsdave Thanks! And I hope you get the best PC very soon!
what about radius coordinate, I need it in corrugated pipe where valleys of the pipe diffirent color
Ooh that’s a very good one! So, it depends on personal preference, but depending on your setup, I’d say the easiest way might be to use whatever means you’re using to corrugate your curve (if it’s something like a displacement map in Geo Nodes) plug that into its own Store Named Attribute which you can call upon in the Shaders, and manipulate that attribute there however you want (like putting it thru a ColorRamp and maybe a Mix Color). However there are other methods if your setup is much different. Please let me know!
Thanks for all the effort that went into making this video! What if I want to use a specific image texture rather than generate in blender? Is there a way to output a UV map that I can use for the curve?
Thank you for your comment! And the answer to that is yes!😊 It involves a much simpler version of the process in this tutorial, where we take the profile curve’s parameter-like the circumference vector-and leave it (basically) as it is INSTEAD of converting it into the X and Y as we did here. In this scenario the length of the curve could be used as the Y instead of the Z and that circumference could be used as the X (or vice versa) leaving the Z empty and black. I just searched and found there are already a few tutorials on YT that do just that; I don’t think a link in this comment will work but if you search “blender curve uv map” you should find a few different tutorials that use Geo Nodes in just that way!😁 However, if the tutorials you find are not helpful for your needs, please let me know!
Amazing content, thank you.
Thank You, sir!😊
Thanks for lesson!
Hope it’s useful!😁
I love your hair sir
Thank you so much!😄
I have a question, what if I want a custom curve profile? How would I have change this node set up if I want to take a profile object and stretch it along the curve?
The process can be basically the same, but each shape you use-like the star, rectangles or open shapes-could have slightly different tweaks which are up to your preference anyway. I’m not at my computer to check the exact terminology in Blender right now, but for the star, the resolution will need to be divided by two and plugged into the number of points (how many arms the star has). We might expose the size (or outer vs, inner radius?) of the points as well and along with that we might find a way to select the inward and outward points separately and give them different values in the “radius” part of the setup if we want the points or arms of the star to slide through the texture (like adjusting the radius) as we make the arms stick out further or flatter. For open shapes (rectangle or curved shaped that don’t go all the way around and are open on one side) the part where we divide by the resolution is probably unnecessary depending on preferences, and the pi/sin/cosin parts of the node tree will likely be different but again it depends on desired effect. And of course if you make your own curve profile shape, the setup here will be completely dependent on what you want. I would like to explore these techniques in a future video. I might even consider doing a live to get feedback or requests as I demonstrate.
No, I meant it like taking a complex object from the scene and using that as a curve profile. With the complexity ranging from several circles to entirely custom shapes.
@@drewh9717 Ohh that’s what you mean. That’s a good question. I’d have to test that out myself, but my first instinct would be to use the vector output of a Position (separating and using two of the X, Y, and Z attributes) in place of the Spline Parameter for the “X” and “Y” attributes we make. Probably directly without anything like the dividing an pi/sin/cousin stuff we did here, aside from using the radius to multiply them which is done outside that profile group here anyway.
I am also interested in finding out how to do this with a custom profile. When I follow your advice it works fine while the curve is stretched into a straight line, but as soon as I have the bend the curve in more than one dimension I get some very unexpected geometry.@@nrdkraft
@@KylePeters-tx8qb Interesting. I’d be interested to know what kind of custom profile you are using. Would it be possible to see image or video of your setup? I’m available for direct messages on Instagram by the same @ as here on UA-cam.
Can you make a Geo Nodes tree that allows you to texture a curve line.
if so please do 🙏🙏
Yes! The group we create here and the tree within works with a Curve Line as is!😊 We can achieve this the way we do with the Spiral at 21:40. Does that answer your request?😊
such a great video!!!
Thank you so much!!☺️
tysm !!
You’re welcome!😊
I made it all, but i dont know how to plug it into my shader! because my shader has many texture coordinates, so im not sure where should it go
What kind of texture are you trying to map using this tutorial?
Thank you! Is it possible in Unreal Engine 5?
You’re welcome!☺️
Ohh I’m afraid I wouldn’t know; I don’t use Unreal, I’m sorry.😔
@@nrdkraft thanks)
umm hoyl cow, how do yhou even begin to learn this stuff haha, i'd say good tutorial but i dont think it quite appleis to me as im using the array modifier on a small object i used procedurally generated textures on, which then expaqnds along the x axis on a curve path i made to form a track and i have a road marker texture thats just going straight and not turning hmm, gotta be a simpler way
@@unknownrocketeer9289 ikr we shouldn’t have to go to all this trouble lol. But that’s why I did this so it’s easier in the future. I think I still have this file available somewhere on Patreon for download so people can just use the node without going thru all the steps in the tutorial. I should make it available for free if it’s not already.
13:07 _So let's go over to our shaders and Shift+Ctrl+Click to view the _*_Y..._* - Hmm... 🤔Upon second viewing, this appears to be the part where I just don't land on the same page somehow.
After following the tutorial the first time something just didn't work despite my sincerest effort to follow every step very carefully. Thus, I started again from scratch, and after following it the 2nd time, this is where I discovered the issue lies. Whatever the reason, when I view the Y only, I get a solid black, as opposed to half white half black. I took extreme care with a lot of rewinding and rewatching each step to rule out even the remote possibility of errors on my part, but something is still off. Any idea as to what I might be missing?
Yeah, so the *X* and the *Z* are fine, but the *Y* just shows solid black. Another thing that just came to my attention is that after you make a copy of that *X Vector* frame with its contents (which, btw, was presumably meant to be re-labeled *Y Vector* ) and then connect the Value output of the *Fix Factor* Multiply node to the Value input of the Map Range node inside that duplicate of the *X Vector* frame, the connective noodle on my end appears solid, as opposed to dashed like in the video. Could this be a useful clue?
ANOTHER UPDATE: More accurately, as I found later still, I'm only able to have a dashed noodle going out of the Value output of the Multiply node inside the *Fix Factor* in the first connection I make. The second connective curve only appears solid for some reason. In other words, if I connect it to the Map Range Value slot inside the *X Vector* frame, it'll be dashed, but after I then connect it to that of the *Y Vector,* it's now solid - and vice versa. Hope this makes sense.
My work-around is to make a point on the noodle of the first connection and branch it into the 2nd one (without having two noodles going out directly). Could I have stumbled upon a bug by any chance? Unless I'm missing something, this feels really anomalous.
@@IllusionSectorOh this is a strange phenomenon. I don’t believe I have ever seen a dashed line in nodes in Blender; any appearance of that in this video likely being a compression artifact or something. Perhaps this is a feature of the latest Blender 3.6? Which I haven’t gotten to test this file on yet. If using a reroute works for you to solve this that’s good, hopefully that makes the Y vector appear correctly. I’ll try to test this myself today when I get a chance to actively evaluate the issue you might be having.
@@nrdkraft
_I don’t believe I have ever seen a dashed line in nodes in Blender;_ I was referring to the dashed noodles that connect slots. There are everywhere in the video and definitely not compression artifacts. Are we talking about the same thing?
@@IllusionSector ohh well would ya look at that. I just opened the file and nodes do have dashed lines now I just never noticed it, perhaps subconsciously dismissing it as antialiasing or something. Okay, you’re right, they are dashed, but if one of your node noodles is solid while being a grey factor type I don’t know why. I’m wondering if you could show a screenshot that maybe I can identify with. Are you on Instagram? If so you could message a screenshot to @nrdkraft there and I can perhaps help more effectively
20:50 Good advice
I'm glad it's useful!😊 It's still a new features and I need reminders on using it so I figure it'll help others too😁
instructive
Glad I could be of some use!😄
I could note that you have an Acappella folder, that's from the acappella company or another kind of music a capella?? :P
@@malymotion Ah good catch, I don’t even recall where that would’ve bee seen in this video😛 I didn’t even know about a company by that name, so yes it’s for music, or at least it will be
Wow Suzanne is size of the King Kong!
Yeah with a two meter wide head, I shudder to think what kind of damage she in her entirety could do taking a walk through the city!😦
This sounds like someone trying to record a tutorial while the people next door are having a party.
Yeah, they never invite the nerd to the party. But that’s okay. I’ll just make a tutorial to distract myself and tune out the sound. Wasn’t very successful tho😆
@@nrdkraft haha, great tutorial though. Man you sure know your stuff.
@@Avetorro Oh thanks so much man!😁 Thanks for the input too! I’ll try to get the neighbors to hold it down or put something good on during my text tutorials😂
Really good tutorial! Thank you so much for the time and effort you put in here. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot watching you. =D Please, keep it up and yes, I would be super interested to know about how you made those materials. See you. Cheers!
Thank you so much!😃 And I’m glad you had fun with this! And I’ll plan on showing how I did textures like those! There’s so many ways of doing them and using similar techniques for many other applications, so I’m thinking rather than a tutorial, I may just challenge myself make different procedural textures on camera just for fun and for others to learn from. Maybe on live? We’ll see.😊
@@nrdkraft
I too would like to thank you very much for the tutorial.
I've always had a love-hate relationship with Blender. Seems like every time I try to get back into it, the darn thing can't help but remind me of the *hate* part by flying in the face of my intuition after mere minutes of use. While, again, it's great to have members of the community such as yourself filling in the gaps and generously sharing their findings, something as elementary as mapping coordinates on a meshed curve should happen *automatically,* instead relying on an excruciatingly convoluted node-spaghetti-jungle of a process that requires viewing of a 25 minute tutorial to learn how to do. (This is to say nothing of the lengths you must've gone through to figure it out in the first place before you could even share it). I want to emphasize that by no extent of the imagination is this a comment on the duration or the quality of the tutorial itself (which is superb), but rather the problem that has been plaguing Blender since inception. I've very cognizant and feel terrible for looking an open source gift horse in the mouth, but it's impossible not to feel the pain as an aspiring migrant from commercial software.
@@IllusionSector I can sympathize! It’s true we all have different perspectives, and thus different expectations, and different priorities which necessitate different practicalities. For myself that’s a reason I love open-source; being able to almost feel like I’m able to make parts of the tool myself-not so much liking the “having to make it myself” part, although I do kinda enjoy that, but actually liking the feeling of “making it the way I want” part. However at the end of the day I have to agree with you; some functions like this really, practically should be possible by default. And it may seem of little comfort that someday it might me. But I might put forth that that’s another reason (imho) that Blender can be great; if something isn’t default, someone can make it default in a way. Altho that depends on if that one makes it available for others. Thus, altho I have the asset from this tutorial available on Patreon, enough people have expressed a desire for this asset without having to emulate the tutorial (culminating in your comment now) that I’m seriously considering making this asset freely available, maybe on Gumroad or something. Even tho I have the goal of gaining support through YouTubing as a career, I value making other’s lives better more than money. Because like yourself, I would prefer functionality without having to jump thru hoops, be that having to make a node-spaghetti-jungle or be it paying someone. And I would like to facilitate that for others too.
@@nrdkraft
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
_that’s a reason I love open-source; being able to almost feel like I’m able to make parts of the tool myself_
Oh, absolutely. As an After Effects user with a heavily custom-expression-driven workflow I can certainly appreciate the ability to make one's own tools. Also, as intimidating as a web of nodes can be, it's nothing compared to something as un-visual as JavaScript code. So if someone like me gets this frustrated, I can only imagine how the less technically inclined must feel.
As a side note, that fact that a free piece of software of Blender's magnitude could even exist at all is miracle and a testament to human generosity.
Thanks again for your work and good lick on UA-cam.
I need this for Luxcore😔
how to Create a round end
Very good question! I did find a tutorial here on UA-cam that does that, but I think I might know a slightly better method. If so I’ll have to make my own tutorial for rounded ends on curves😊
Im totally lost so I think it will be easier if I just dont apply a shader to a spiral...eVarrrrrr in fact I dont texture anything... i just model so I can print them and paint them with a real life brush...that is something I excel at! Cheers...
Awesome! If that works better for you, go for it! you excel at something I am lacking in!😁
Altho I apologize if my explanations in this tutorial are quite conflated. Still a long way to go in learning how to make my tutorials intuitive.😅
i aint doin allat
Yeah, it’s quite the ordeal ain’t it?
And I probably made it look harder than it has to be.
Excellent tutorial, thank you for all the work! I'd love to have more insights on how to deal with end caps when working with image textures. Can't wait to see more of your Blender tuts :)
Thanks, I’m glad you find my work useful! I have a series on materials started and more on the way!☺️ As for images textures end caps, are you perhaps referring to texturing end caps on an array modifier?