Lightning Arcs with Geometry Nodes || Blender 3.1

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Lightning Strike Tutorial:
• Realistic Lightning wi...
Moving Points Tutorial:
• Moving Points with Geo...
Cable Generator Tutorial:
• Cable Generator with G...
00:00 - Intro and Summary
01:28 - Scene Setup
02:31 - Distribute Points and Instancing
03:44 - Endpoint Snapping
05:08 - Proximity Noise
06:51 - Moving Points
08:23 - Arc Disconnecting
09:48 - Scaling Floating Arcs
10:28 - Fixing Normals
11:22 - Sketchfab
12:02 - Distortion
15:56 - Distorting Floating Arcs
17:00 - Quantity
18:33 - Flickering
20:37 - Thickness
22:47 - Material
25:22 - Outro
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[@bennymiltown]

Following along in 3.4. Since "Transfer Attribute" isn't a node anymore and "Capture Attribute" doesn't work exactly the same I found you need to use "Sample Nearest Surface" to grab the face normal vector if you want the lines to point away from the mesh at all times.

[@matthewward1346]

The hero we needed! 🙏

[@pnksmigge5324]

@@matthewward1346 I think all transfer node functions were renamed to sample... such as sample index

[@elultimoescriba892]

in "the Sample Nearest Surface" input "mesh", conect" the "group imput" geometry node from the left. then in the imput "value" conect a new geometry node called "nomal", in the output conect to the "value" to "rotation" of the instance point node showed in the tutorial.

[@jhonejay1426]

I'm in 3.5 and can't find the distribute point on faces node

[@PaonSol]

@@jhonejay1426 I think the Blender devs have a fetish for making unnecessary changes to confuse people.

[@frkatona]

Nobody who does geometry nodes is both this concise and offers step-by-step rationale. And your gumroad stuff is so reasonably priced at like 0 to 5 dollars! I'm a fan! I'll have to keep an eye on something else to buy to support you now that you've taught me your lightning secrets!

[@violentpixelation5486]

This lighting series is great. Can't get enough. In case you have more ideas about lighting.....keep them coming. 💯👍

[@00x2A]

I just want to thank you for your videos ! They are a great introduction to geo nodes. Your explanation are quite clear, the projects are fun and interesting, covering enough ground to let room for creativity. Really great stuff !

[@jlilz914]

THANK YOU. I always wondered how to use the geometry proximity node and this tutorial explained it great, with an engaging example. Keep it up!

[@BrettWarniers]

I labeled everything using Ctrl+J at the end, and I really wish I did this while following along. It took me about 3 hours to finish this tutorial watching on 0.75 speed and pausing frequently to keep my node tree similar. I do not at all understand what I have created. But I have created it!!! This tutorial is very well done!!! Only thing I'd like to be different in future tutorials, do not cut to a new part of the node tree, show us where you are moving the GeoNodes viewport to so we can follow along. I had to look at surrounding connected nodes a few times to orient myself in my model.

[@virgilhawkins3390]

THANK YOU for laying out what we're going to be doing and what things will look like up front. I love to know the broad strokes of what I'm about to get into before I dive into possibly hours of starting and stopping while I learn.

[@grahamthomas9319]

So I bought your lightning on gum road just posted a new short with it, it turned out sick! Thanks for making this it’s pretty great!

[@dreamsproject3355]

Wow!! I've learned writing each step down in my own words helps me understand it more!! I need to watch a few more times, but it's something I'm excited to learn!!

[@adavewiley]

As awesome as always. Thank you so much for posting these.

[@alexrizzo7740]

This is great. Thank you so much. I kept messing up the nodes and had to do the tutorial a few times, but my final result is going to be awesome imo. Thanks again.

[@Mr_Steve3D]

You really are the top dog right now in explaining Geometry nodes from my 6 months of experience. Thank you!

[@ZDB3D]

Literally went looking to see if this video was out today lol. Thank you so much!

[@JeremySmithOfNewScotland]

Great job with the tutorial, very detailed and nice pace.

[@BluebirdBridge]

Thanks for this tutorial. I used this technique in a music video that I just uploaded to KZbin. I was able to control the lightning and tweak its behavior in the video to get the amount we wanted for the final version.

[@TSScole]

this was really well done. thanks for spending the time on it.

[@BlenderFun_]

you are really making great tutorials, learnt a lot! Keep on going!!

[@HeinerS]

Awesome tutorial. Everything well explained.

[@ThadeousM]

Thanks Joey, normally I’ve got to be at my workstation following along with blender to get the most out of longer form tuts like this but your ‘storytelling’ made this a chilled video to watch over a coffee - great stuff my guy👊🏾

[@somegreybloke]

My head is spinning! How on earth you figure all this stuff out is beyond me. Thank you so much!

[@ex18ga24]

Same, I'm also confused on how he figure this out specially in the middle of the video.

[@user-uy9lb5el2f]

Отличная работа) не думал, что Блендер насколько удивительный инструмент 👍

[@itsAndyValentine]

This was in incredibly useful look at geometry nodes. Thanks so much

[@CompanyMiki]

Amazing work man, thanks for sharing this

[@Babi4ton]

Thanks for this great informative Tutorial I got a headache, quite complicated but I will try to watch it several times to understand all of it THANKS

[@Mr_Steve3D]

Same here. I was with him up until the arch. Multiple watches for sure! Might play this dude on slow speed!

[@Khamurai]

Awesome stuff!

[@vstreet7583]

Just brilliant! Thank you! Dg

[@LGR_FGC]

Fantastic tutorial.

[@andrewcarrillo5158]

this helped so much thanks !

[@zapfsaeule2]

Great, so helpful and thanks so much!

[@Anubis7169]

amazing

[@hud_me]

Awesome!

[@HaydenWR]

Thank you I wanted to do this for a while and now I finally decided to do this without paying money

[@iva7781]

Awesome

[@MrCleetSR388]

took awhile to find my error awesome tut

[@constantinezh7156]

Thanks man

[@LineOfThy]

very neat :D

[@alan-db3oc]

thankyou sooooo muuuuucchhhhh

[@DanceManAlex]

YOOO! I just subscribed for this video!

[@The_Boscage]

The Tutorial is better but the Lightning Pack V1 is the best. 💯 Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@weiyan21]

This was my first geometry node tutorial since the donut. Wow this shit gets intense. Thanks for this though. Very clear. Thank you

[@Rosa_Siabi]

THank you!!

[@biancaglaser]

nice!

[@violentpixelation5486]

edit: ah ok, I have to switch through the Geometry nodes in the Modifier tap. I'm not sure why but I have a bunch in there (I guess from earlier attempts.) I had to switch to the correct one. It's super easy now to setup the arcs. Hi Joey, bought the arc pack and I have problems getting it connected. I did paste in my geonodes from your tutorial and they where kind of working, just had problems with the proximity so I bought your arcs pack because it's easy costumizable. There's just a "How to use" video for the lightning pack but not for the "arcs" pack.

[@user-pp5fd6fm5e]

appreciate highly detailed explaination, its great help for aducation, and free! with my first salary - I`m going to spend some on your gumroad page). Seriously

[@gnocchiv]

good video xd

[@Arashi3DVR]

This video was awesome! It took me over an hour to get through it, but I made it to the end and am happy with the result! Does anyone know if there is a way to get this exported as an FBX or GLB object so that it will behave in a 3d world as it does in Blender?

[@neerajbhatt3368]

THANX A TON...I am EN" LIGHTENED" ....Got it in the end...Thanx a LOIGHT....Could you post a Node set up to check for values and connections....

[@sammedia3d]

i love it! are the files on your gumroad compatible with 3.5 or 3.6 ? Thanks a lot for your hard work

[@blueberryhaze3603]

damn that was a god one! i will enjoy this video until i learn blender hehehe!

[@Kimpanter]

Thanks for the detailed explonations! Say, would it be possible to parent something to the end of the lines? I feel like being able to have a point-light at the end of them would really elevate the look where it interacts with a surface. Or to let it emit sparks on impact.

[@cg.man_aka_kevin]

Now I can make Thor's scene come into contact with lightning effect! 🔥🔥🔥⚡⚡⚡

[@PaonSol]

Thanks so much for this. This works great, and I modified it to make it work for my purposes! One thing, though, and I'm not sure I missed it: How do I tweak how *often* the sparks go flying? It's hard for me to use it as is without that feature. The animation speed is a bit too fast right now. Edit: Oh, I suppose I just mess with the scene time and divide it...duh.

[@getfanmedia]

Interesting thank you for Sharing. Ameseginalehu in Amharic.

[@blendercomp]

wow!!!! :)

[@David-zm7mi]

Hello, just wanted to give advice to anyone who got stuck at Endpoint Snapping. The list under Scene Collections must end with the "Suzanne" object. Idk if that makes sense but yeah.

[@neerajbhatt3368]

At 3.15, I see both Suzanne and points....Suzanne does not disappear as it does when you do. I am following each instruction.

[@drewh9717]

Hey man! Great tutorial! Really helped me a lot, however I'm trying to pretty it up and I'm having a little trouble with setting up a few of the inputs for the node tree... Can I just ask, where do I plug in the Inputs from Contact Spread to Flicker? I'm mainly confused about two in particular. First being in some of the preview images the Contact stability is set to something like 50 and the second thing is there being two different flicker values in the tutorial but one in the settings... Could you please nudge me in the right way? Again, Thank you so much!

[@MrCleetSR388]

This has become quite alot I think I missed a step but because how you have this laid out in chapters its not so bad to find the fix.

[@Lazlo.]

Great vid, thanks for sharing. I have two problems though. 1) most of my arcs are on one side of the object regardless of seed 2) when i rotate my object w/ the target/proximity object (relative distance remains same), the arcs still reach toward the original location

[@DemNikoArt]

Fist of all: amazing stuff! 🙂 Is there a way to make the single strands branch out? That would give it the final touch.

[@JoeyCarlino]

I show that in my other lightning video

[@DemNikoArt]

@@JoeyCarlino Oh nice, thanks. I'll check it out.

[@joshuakoosmann3423]

I'm new to blender making these, after I've made the lightning, is there a way to just add the affect to any other object without needing to redo the entire process? Thanks

[@Safetyman99]

Great tutorial (sorry I'm so late to the party). Question: When I add the transfer attribute node the "floating" curves disappear and only one arc is present. If I change Nearest Face Interpolated to Index, all the curves come back but I can't get the floaters to show. I'm using Blender 3.2. Any ideas?

[@androzons]

Thanks how to make the spline curve smooth, like root , I try to make an alien walking

[@everettvacek1]

Do you have mortal enemies at KZbin or something? How is this not getting more views?

[@RealDTSM]

what viewport effect is that at 2:31 (with how it distinctly shows the edges of the torus, and also how it has that shading effect for the suzanne? i need it so badly.

[@bomerio_re2229]

its called cavity

[@aryaman3083]

Hello 👋 Is it possible to create sparks when the lightning hits a surface

[@knightwalkr]

Can you think of a way that you could hide Suzanne but keep the lightning

[@TwTales]

Is there a way to dial in a single strike/turn on and off on queue? This looks like a good way to Palpatine someone if I'm trying to be more cinematic.

[@user-gq3fh9rj7x]

Thanks for the Tutorial body! Could you do a video where you show how we can implement your project file to a other project? I bought your file, but can't realy use it :( Thanks Mate

[@ryanbasile9316]

Is there a way to randomly switch between two set material nodes, giving the lightning more colors?

[@Firelegs101]

Not sure if this will work but heres a start Use a switch and a randomize boolean with a scene time connected to seed. Connect it to selection and inverse to another set material I DOUBT this will work but im sure its somewhere in that area so experiment from there.

[@aerobladee]

hey man awsome work, i would want to become a patreon of yours if you could tell me wich tier incudes this sick crystal effect you showed as "ad" for your patreon .

[@JoeyCarlino]

The $2 tier. I made a video about that though, if you'd rather make it yourself. The one I share isn't polished like my products.

[@smol_robo6146]

Is the eevee bloom effect required in tutorial? I'm doing it right now and don't want to continue cause I worry if I mess up ill have to spend so much time trying to redo it

[@leondeit772]

At 9.33 if we use less than instead of greater than is working without the boolean not

[@disclosure4603]

hi @Joey Carlino , at 7:32, when you type alt shift and left click, how do you go back to normal ? i dont find how to reverse the process

[@JoeyCarlino]

You do the same thing but on the very last node in your tree.

[@disclosure4603]

@@JoeyCarlino great thanks you very much ☺

[@teenageapple3788]

Quick question. Will leaving Suzanne in the "contact" collection make the electricity arch around and make contact with the mesh? Sort of like the object is attracting the same electricity it produces

[@teenageapple3788]

Okay! I figured something very easy to do! If you want the electricity to arch back down on the mesh you can make a duplicate of the object and put it in the "Contact" collection. That's how you make what I call, the Movie Sonic effect (I call it that because Sonic's electricity arches back down onto his body when he powers up)

[@JoeyCarlino]

I have a node tree in the works that will do this efficiently, but I haven't finished it yet

[@teenageapple3788]

@@JoeyCarlino There's also another problem I ran into. After completing the node setup I noticed time and time again that some of the bolts went inside the mesh or pointed to another direction that wasn't intended like for example, the bolt is coming from the left but its pointing to the right instead, how do I fix that? Edit: It seems to be especially common on spherical objetcs

[@badlotto]

I made a sphere that I want to have electricity emitting from and back onto itself (creating arches of electricity across its surface). I followed these instructions and just set the collection info to itself and it works. Only problem is that some of the curves are going from the surface inward to the center of the sphere. How would I prevent this from happening?

[@higeroman3387]

So I'm on 3.4 and when I apply the substract math node it doesn't seem to distribute the lines equally in a circle, it seems to be more in a diagonal pattern, any idea as to why??

[@nathanielthe3rd354]

Awesome tutorial, one question if I were to use a Mixamo asset how could I achieve the same effect. Mainly asking cuz the lines don't show up for me. I'm (11:30)into the vid

[@JoeyCarlino]

It should work with animated models too. Idk why your lines aren't showing up. If you're following correctly, it'll work.

[@nathanielthe3rd354]

Ah ok cool thats good, i might have missed a step but the model when near any object no lines stretch out to touch them dunno if i have to increase anything or something but ill go back and see if anything is missed out thx

[@JoeyCarlino]

You might have to increase the distance. It depends on the scale you're working, in blender everything is measured in meters so if you're working really big or small, things could act differently. The monkey head is 2 meters tall, and I think mixamo models are a similar height, so the values in the video should be pretty close. Good luck.

[@nathanielthe3rd354]

@@JoeyCarlino Found out the problem to why the lines were showing thx again, also how did you revert the view from set position back to normal ?

[@weiyan21]

​@Nathaniel The 3rd I can't get the lines to show either. What was the issue?

[@cg.man_aka_kevin]

Now the question is, how do you make each electric strike a random color?

[@PaulRobello]

Capture the realized spline index in a named attribute then use an attribute node in the shader editor attached to a color ramp. You will have to map the index range to 0-1 for the color ramp to work correctly.

[@gunterfleck2344]

Hey, I bought the project. What do I have to do to change the object the lightning comes from and the object that receives the lightning? Thanks :)

[@David-zm7mi]

So i'm trying to add the electricity effects on my logo using a re-meshed and extruded SVG, but it only adds one dot when i add Distribute Points on Face. I increased the Seed number but it lags my laptop OUTTT. Is anyone else facing this problem?

[@buster7476]

how do i reverse the shift-alt-click effect?

[@JoeyCarlino]

Do the same thing on the last node in the tree

[@ItsWesSmithYo]

I am 100% making a lighting Donut 😂

[@hybrid6045]

how to remove the shadow of the emision thing

[@MT-07-Rookie]

is it work for Cycles?

[@shizzlemcsheezy2151]

@7:30 'alt shift and left click' - it does nothing, should I disable node wrangler?

[@arsenart648]

UnCheck the Emulate 3 Button Mouse at Edit>Preferences>Input

[@disclosure4603]

sorry im a beginner, i finished your tutorial, but now i wouldlike to add the electricity to my object, and i dont find the way to export the geometry node to another object. do you have a tutorial i can follow ?

[@knight2255]

I'm in the same boat, how does one append this geometry node tree into another blend file?

[@JoeyCarlino]

File > append Find the file and click on it Go to node groups, find the group you want, select "fake user" and append it

[@nrnayem5028]

5:56 bro i have a question can u explain a little why substracting it make the line go different direction ?? if i could use substract then i should be able to use add to but it doesnt work ...what is the logic behind this

[@JoeyCarlino]

Subtracting FROM 0 makes the number negative. The order you do it matters. 1 - 0 = 0 0 - 1 = -1

[@GearMaster-ku1xf]

After doing this at the very end when i convert the curve to geometry all the textures go black

[@81fiths]

good vid but if you could just slow down a bit unless im just really slow

[@gordonbrinkmann]

Each time you use the "Greater Than" node you want the opposite and use the "Not" output instead... I didn't understand from the beginning on why you're using "Greater Than" anyway. You wanted the lines to connect if the monkey is closer to something - not further away. So checking if the distance is "Less Than" a certain value would have been the logical choice in the first place. 🤔

[@JoeyCarlino]

Yeah, that's true. You could use either. It kind of depends on what you're targeting, like if you just wanted to delete arcs when your object gets far away, you could use the greater than node.

[@gordonbrinkmann]

@@JoeyCarlino Hmmm... no? You delete them by using the Selection input. This takes a boolean value, yes or no. If you want to delete something that gets far away, the distance becomes bigger. So is the distance "Greater Than" some value? Yes - but yes means, keep it in the selection although you want to get rid of it. Which means you have to switch it with a "Not" node like you do in the video, but that's completely unnecessary if you could also get the same result with one math node set to "Less Than".

[@JoeyCarlino]

I already acknowledged you were correct. I don't always use the "not" with the "greater than" though. Like when I was targeting the floating arcs at 10:05. Would it be more efficient to use a "less than" in this case, yes, but I would still need to invert it at that one point.

[@androwaffaiisaleh2243]

yes

[@skar8192]

helo, I bought on gumroad all Lightning Tools for Blender but but I can't make the lights appear on Electricity Arc Generator

[@JoeyCarlino]

Try downloading the newest build of Blender 3.1, that has solved all of the issues so far.

[@slaughterman44]

so i have an object that is cell fractured into pieces adn I used a force to blow it up, i want electricity to connect each piece so when it is revered it looks like the electricity is pulling it together, would this tutorial be good or should I look at the other lightning video?

[@JoeyCarlino]

This method should work for that

[@slaughterman44]

@@JoeyCarlino theres 40 different pieces, I thought they couldn't be in the same collection?

[@JoeyCarlino]

Instead of distributing points on two separate collections, distribute points twice on the same collection

[@slaughterman44]

@@JoeyCarlino so i want 1 piece to arc to another piece and for it to keep arc-ing and branching out to each piece, so would I have to put the nodes on each piece?

[@JoeyCarlino]

If you want to be very deliberate about the placement, a more manual approach might be better. Like placing curves exactly where you want them.

[@erenkarasahin1974]

Does it work on Cycles? Or just evee?

[@JoeyCarlino]

It works in both

[@khoorikhoori6229]

hi ...sir ... i have problem ... if i work in blender version 3.2 and i save the blend file ... and then if i come back to same file that i have saved it is switching to version 2.91 .. and all my work desappears.... how can i solve this issue

[@JoeyCarlino]

This won't work in 2.91 unfortunately

[@MrMargaretScratcher]

You've probably installed 2.91, and that is set as the default program to use if you double click on a blendfile.

[@rainer4172]

i have a question how can i make objects have amazing texture not matcap i mean have any colors in one object edit:not plain colors or normal color just textures and where do i download fonts for my text safely {web}

[@JoeyCarlino]

The Blender official KZbin channel has a good beginner playlist for 2.8 that has a material video. For free fonts you can use Google fonts

[@rainer4172]

@@JoeyCarlino nc and thx for telling me and have a great day

[@_MandoCalrissian]

Ok so he just emailed me about this video even though i don't even have notifications on for him so i don't even know how he did that and i was like "Who the heck is this guy" then i looked him up pressed the youtube link and it brought me to this blender channel (I do Blender) And i was like "Oh i'm an idiot i probably just watched one of his videos" and i was confused before so i was relieved that it was some Blender guy.

[@maxon8010]

for some reason it didn’t work out for me, like you, I use 3.2 but even everything is different, it’s very insulting

[@constantineergius1626]

this method work with unity?

[@JoeyCarlino]

I don't use unity, but it can be baked to alembic if that helps at all. I tested that recently.

[@constantineergius1626]

@@JoeyCarlino alembic?

[@JoeyCarlino]

The animated lightning can be exported. Alembic is a file type.

[@joyy2299]

How do I see my mesh again after I press alr+shit+left click

[@JoeyCarlino]

Do the same thing with the last node all the way to the right