How I make Point Cloud Videos - Blender 3.5 Geometry Nodes Tutorial

My workflow as of February 2023, Using Cycles point cloud objects, we can render vast numbers of points for large scale enviroments.
A short intoduction into geometry nodes and how to use it in conjunction with point clouds, and some of the projects I have used it for.
Links:
projects.blender.org/blender/...
github.com/TombstoneTumblewee...
blender.org
www.blender.org/
Made with Blender

[@stagrei8233]

Great work and great tutorial. Thanks for sharing.

[@super_jo_nathan]

Thank you for mentioning the new importer at the start of the video! I'm happy to say that the new importer has been merged with blender 3.6 alpha and is available for download!

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Thank you so much for developing it! I've tested it with some big files and it's so fast! How much work do you estimate there is to implement point normals? I'm so excited to rebuild my entire library with it. Thank you again

[@super_jo_nathan]

@@KeirChaggarBrown great to hear that it's working well for you! The importer already writes the vertrex normals internally, but Blender does not fully support them yet. Once it does, it should just work. Sadly I don't know how long that would take since I'm not working on that.

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

@@super_jo_nathan interesting, thanks again

[@anastasiatsk6613]

You are amazing, thank you!

[@RobertWildling]

Beautiful Videos you make! Very unique, very "catching" (meaning: I can't get away from them)! Thanks for sharing!

[@supremenanner524]

Ive just began to dable in photogrammetry and self teaching point clouds. The sheer level that you take this to is absolutely mind blowing and shows me how far things can really go. Phenomenal demonstration.

[@Miner3dBurns]

After playing with MAYA, this seems like the way to go, cheers

[@rubenortiz7735]

Really beautiful stuff. Looking forward to seeing more content great work. Could you also share the song used in this video?

[@user-du6zt3cu1q]

Your videos are absolutely stunning and amazing! I'm hoping you'll do a tutorial on point cloud disintegration/dissolve effects - as shown (quickly) with the gas pumps (@ 3:30 in the tutorial). I'm struggling with the node tree. Thanks for your videos! Cheers.

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

With geometry nodes my methods are changing quite fast, I find new ways of experimenting with the points with new nodes / updates. Simple particle simulation in geometry nodes are easy expand to have complex looks, I'd really recommend persevering with geo nodes. Good luck

[@user-du6zt3cu1q]

@@KeirChaggarBrown Thanks, I'll keep working on it! I look forward to seeing more of your videos - they are fantastic - amazing work!

[@lukeransfield]

Amazing work Keir, thanks for sharing with us 👍maybe slightly tangential, but have you looked into using Touch Designer at all?

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

I have, but blender is free and open source, it makes me feel good to contribute to the community:)

[@GregMaslin]

Hey man I absolutely love this work. I would love to chat about this stuff. I've been playing around this past week and can't get enough of it

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Amazing! Give us a email if you're interested in talking more!

[@OKEdits]

That cell division sim is insane!

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Check out the tutorial! kzbin.info/www/bejne/fofFnqppjb-ji5Y

[@OKEdits]

@@KeirChaggarBrown you legend 🙏🙏

[@victordemartrin]

Hey man, thanks for the Tutorial. I cant convert my .ply to Point Clouds ? I installed the plugin and I tried on 3.4.1 and 3.5, but i cant see the option in the Menu.

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

I don't really know what would cause that, select your object and convert to point cloud should work, try searching for the operator in f3

[@victordemartrin]

@@KeirChaggarBrown Thanks man actually I figured out, we actually need the very last Blender Alpha at the time we do this, so today it's 3.6. It won't work on 3.5 :)

[@RobertWildling]

@@victordemartrin I use 3.6.7 and there is no "Layout => Object => Convert => Point cloud" option available... is that a function that comes with the custom importer? Because in Blender 4.0.2 there is no such convert option available neither...

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Try the beta

[@RobertWildling]

@@KeirChaggarBrown It's (still) there in 4.1.0 alpha...

[@dawei886]

Thank you so much for this tutorial, very inspiring! I'm wondering is there a way to change some of the points to different shapes? For instance, if I wanna change 30% of the points to triangles. How to achieve that? Cheers!

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Use a separate node, random value into it's selection socket set at .3. then instance on points. You'll probably want to keep the pc as a mesh

[@prwurech]

Many thanks for sharing. Is there a way of rendering the points as semi-transparent?

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Just adjust the alpha in the shader nodes

[@dimazykov_]

Thank you. When I convert to mesh I lose all colours. Where is my mistake? (And my lights dont work at scene)

[@iCamSkiEz]

Hey man, I'm just getting into this point cloud stuff and I've captured some footage and exported as a TIFF sequence like some other videos suggested. What are you doing to turn your sequence to pointcloud, Metashape? My version won't seem to let me export a PLY without upgrading to paid version.

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

I use colmap, using the command line interface gives you the most control, but colmap or mve if you don't have a cuda gpu

[@nonprofit7163]

why cant I convert it into a point cloud?

[@user-je9du7zz1t]

the effect right at 3:54 looks amazing, anyone any idea on how to make that?

[@jonnygrown22]

you should try this with neural radiance fields

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

I have, but cannot find a way to export the volume data to import it into blender for actual CGI work to be done

[@carlas1720]

I`ve been working with this plugin quite some time now but since I need to export a 4k stereoscopic video of my scene blender gives me CUDA errors. Did you ever experience these while using the plugin and visualising big point cloud objects?

[@alexbender220]

Hey Keir, I would love to chat to you about this process. It would be great to see more about your data capture process, how you take video and transform it into this type of date. I would love to start experimenting with this sort of image making, but I'm total novice in all things 3D and computing. I'm a cinematographer and wanting to incorporate 3D point cloud environments into some of upcoming projects - any help would be appreciated.

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Happy to do a few sessions of training in blender depending on how much knowledge you already have. Content my on my email find in the about section of youre interested

[@andreeailiescu2220]

I tried adding the Col Attribute, but my Point Cloud still won't be displayed in colour. Any thoughts why? Thanks!

[@adityamanoj5742]

did you check the name of your color attribute in the object properties ?

[@albertcallejoamat7837]

Hi I don't find the io_mesh_ply folder in blender 4 and 4.1 directories, have you some update for that?

[@TheMurkinator]

same

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

In 4.1 the importer should work, if not definitely in 4.2. you don't need to do anything

[@duppi_xd]

missing tab convert to point cloud. Tell me what to do( blender 3.5)

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Try the latest 3.6 alpha, it was only available in the alpha

[@G1NJO]

well its doesnt work on animated abc files :/

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

It does, just use geo nodes

[@tomasyaconis7030]

my blender 3.5 dont have the "convert to point cloud" :C , any help?

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

I think it was in 3.5 while it was in alpha, so try the newest 3.6 release and it should work

[@matchdance]

@@KeirChaggarBrown 3.6 didn't have it either :(

[@artemskiy3910]

same problem here, I don't have "Convert to point cloud" option available

[@KeirChaggarBrown]

Ignore it if you can't find it, the mesh to points node does the same or the points node