Skip to content

Blender 4.2 LTS: Geometry Nodes

Geometry Nodes

  • The Realize Instances node now supports partially realizing the geometry (1db538683d).
  • Some sampling nodes now support a Group ID input to process the input geometry in multiple pieces.
  • The Remove Named Attribute node now supports removing multiple attributes that have the same prefix or suffix (6c46178a7f).
  • The Capture Attribute node now supports capturing multiple attributes at once (28cef56ad2).
  • The Store Named Attribute node can now write 8-bit integer attributes (1681e55114).
  • The rotation socket workflow is improved with more nodes and sockets.
    • The Curve to Points node now has a rotation instead of vector output socket (248dafef74).
    • The new Axes to Rotation node simplifies creating a rotation based on two orthogonal axes. Usually those are a normal and a tangent (25c134fd08).
    • Align Rotation to Vector replaces the now-deprecated Align Euler to Vector node, with better performance and clearer socket types (462e7aeedd).
    • The new Rotation input node allows inserting a constant rotation in a node group (968b98be56).
  • There have been a few user interface improvements specific to geometry nodes.
    • The sockets in the Repeat and Simulation zone and Bake node are now aligned (1f30f41af8, 5f02eaae9f).
    • The Simulation zone node now has an overlay showing which frames are baked (96db947f16).
    • The socket list for some nodes is now in the properties panel instead of in an independent panel. This applies the Bake node and repeat zone, among others (0c585a1b8a).
    • The Menu Switch node now has an "extend" socket (176c6ef329).
  • The Face Neighbors mesh topology node now gives the correct number of unique faces (dd672c38b1).
  • The Mesh Boolean node now has a "float" solver option (e3f030cce6).
    • Previously, only the "exact" solver was used in the Mesh Boolean geometry node. Now there is a choice between using the exaxt solver and the float solver, just like the Boolean modifier has.

Performance

  • The Scale Elements node was rewritten to become at least 4-10x faster (2cb3677557).
  • The Sample UV Surface node is 10-20x faster when used on large meshes (0a430fb8cb).
  • Many nodes (e.g. Grid) became faster due to general threading optimization (b99c1abc3a).

Node Tools

  • The Mouse Position gives access to the click position and a "Wait for Click" option can delay the operator's execution until the user clicks (ce224fe401).
  • The Viewport Transform node provides access to the view direction and location of the 3D viewport(83ed92d533).
  • Data-block (collection, object, material, image) inputs are now supported, with the limitation that data-blocks from separate library files with non-unique names cannot be used (65803f262f).
  • The new Active Element node makes the active vertex, edge, or face available to tools (2fe92c63d3).
  • Extra object evaluations are now avoided, improving overall performance, especially when objects have modifiers (b3ecfcd77d).
  • Socket inspection now works in the node editor for node tools (740d1fbc4b).

Matrix Socket

  • There is a new matrix socket type and a few corresponding nodes.
    • Combine Transform: Builds a matrix based on location, rotation and scale.
    • Separate Transform: Decomposes a matrix into its location, rotation and scale components.
    • Transform Point: Applies the matrix transformation on a point.
    • Transform Direction: Applies the matrix transformation on a direction. This ignores the location/translation component of the matrix.
    • Project Point: Applies the matrix on a point and also performs perspective divide.
    • Combine Matrix: Builds a 4x4 matrix from raw values (831e91c357).
    • Separate Matrix: Splits a 4x4 matrix into raw values (831e91c357).
    • Set Instance Transform: Assign a transformation matrix to each instance.
    • Instance Transform: Access the built-in instance_transform attribute (fb6b9092a7).
    • Invert Matrix
    • Multiply Matrices
    • Transpose Matrix
    • The Object Info node now has a Transform matrix output (4dfc1ede58).
    • The Transform Geometry node now supports transforming with a matrix (9fcf97d978).
  • 4x4 matrices can now be stored as attributes.
  • The Accumulate Field node now supports accumulating transform matrices (78c1c1a170).