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Blender 4.5 LTS: Geometry Nodes

The Geometry Node Editor, like all other node-based editors, also benefits from the general improvements listed in the User Interface section.

Mesh Normals

Mesh custom normals can now be edited with geometry nodes (d3f84449ad) with the Set Mesh Normal node. The existing "Tangent Space" normals can be edited, along with a new "Free" format which is just a simple 3D vector and can be much faster.

Set Mesh Normal Node

For example, this node can be used to create smooth transitions between two meshes without changing the topology.

Import Nodes

Several nodes for importing external data have been added.

Import Nodes

Files can be dropped directly into Geometry Nodes to create the corresponding import node.

Loading sequences is currently best done with the new Format String node.

Loading a Sequence

Grease Pencil

  • The new Set Grease Pencil Depth node controls the depth (rendering) option that can also be found in the Grease Pencil object-data properties (20ce477ea0).
  • The new Set Grease Pencil Color node writes stroke/fill color and opacity (8a01c9b8ec).
  • The new Set Grease Pencil Softness node to control "Softness" attribute (ad90cceb1e)
  • The add menu now has a "Grease Pencil" submenu (a910486fe0).
  • String input for layer names are now searchable with a menu that lists all the available layers (69a722cee5).
    Named Layer Selection

Visual Geometry to Objects

The new Visual Geometry to Objects operator converts procedurally generated instances to objects and collections that are editable as part of the scene's data (63e6f53ba0).

More New Nodes

  • A new Camera Info node has been added. This can be used for camera culling (ade8576bf7).
    Camera Culling
  • There is a new Instance Bounds node (3d1b6f53f3).
  • The Match String node has "Starts With", "Ends With", and "Contains" operations (8a869c20e9).
  • New Bit Math node (39c2f01b51).
    New Nodes
  • The operations from the "Attribute Statistic" node are accessible without a geometry input in three new nodes (17b5ab6965).
    • Field Average
    • Field Min & Max
    • Field Variance
      New Field Nodes
  • The Format String node supports a syntax compatible with Python and path templates (182797ea61).

Node Tools UI

  • Panels and attribute search are now supported in the node group operator redo panel (f66aa6529a).
    Redo Panel with Subpanels

Miscellaneous

  • The Mesh to Curve node has a new "Face" option that converts each face to a cyclic curve (a48d155c87).
  • The instance geometries created by the String to Curves node are now given names based on their corresponding text character (3f596a651c).
  • The Bounding Box node now has an option for whether to include the radius of curves and point clouds (06f6d77979).
    • This does not necessarily produce the same values as before, because the node used to ignore curve radius while not ignoring point cloud radius.
  • Image inputs exposed to the modifier now have buttons to create or open an image instead of just selecting from existing images (f9e02b5925).
  • The Curve to Mesh node now has a "Scale" input to scale the profile curve. This replaces the implicit use of the "radius" attribute that was used before. (a92b68939a)
  • Viewer nodes now support shortcuts similar to the compositor viewer nodes. Press ctrl+1..9 to set a shortcut and 1..9 to activate it (d8d09cdadb).
  • Link-drag-search now supports adding zones (82116aca2f).
  • Muted Switch nodes have better internal links (61e99ca667).
  • The Menu Switch node supports switching menus now (87f0ab292f).
  • New Left Handle and Right Handle default field inputs for node groups (c55ffb5258).
  • Default field inputs from built-in nodes are propagated to node group inputs (c55ffb5258).
  • The Vector Math node supports the "Power" and "Sign" operation now (0a1ff2b2ff).

Performance

  • Vertex to edge attribute domain interpolation is roughly 1.7x faster (33db2d372f).
  • Corner to vertex attribute domain interpolation is parallelized, and roughly 1.4x faster (eae60bc3e6).
  • Face to vertex domain interpolation is also parallelized, with playback speedups of ~7x and 1.12x observed (c85b297aac).
  • Face corner normals (used when there is a mixture of sharp and smooth geometry, like with auto smooth) and custom normals are calculated over twice as fast (a224ba806d).

Python API

  • A new GeometrySet API has been added that allows retrieving evaluated geometry for objects in a much more direct way than before (29fddf4710, Documentation).