Procedural fantasy city creation using Geometry Nodes

The evolution of Geometry Nodes in Blender has enabled the creation of increasingly larger procedural projects and setups over the past year. This talk focuses on the construction of a fantasy city from basic building blocks.
Starting with a simple idea, a city layout and terrain are generated, buildings are grown from the ground up, populated with props and shaded procedurally.
"Procedural fantasy city creation using Geometry Nodes" by Emilis Baltrusaitis
Blender Conference 2022
2022-10-29 10:00 at the theater.

[@phyzxengrmoore6928]

One guy, one laptop and a fan on a kitchen table. This is the way great kingdoms are made! He being a non programmer has made huge strides into logic to presentation. I commend you sir. Take a bow and go even further.

[@Victimxofxprogress]

"TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A KITCHEN, WITH A LAPTOP AND BLENDER "

[@havocthehobbit]

Im blown away. The initial time to create these nodes versus the scale and variety you have at your fingertips for years to come is unbelievable . you may have spent 3 to 6months creating these nodes but its 5+ years of reusability in concepting , movie and game assets for hundreds of projects . GN's are so powerful in the right hands and they keep on geting better and better .

[@Voxavs]

I think you also could start small and then expand the node system over time, so you can always have some procedural tools to work with instead of waiting for half a year b4 you can actually use it.

[@black0ut76]

@@Voxavs Yes absolutely, and just to clarify, that's exactly the process I went through. Creating tools in a vacuum is too abstract for me, and I think it's best to have active goals and problems that you solve as you go along, building up the toolset in the process based on your needs.

[@zarodgaming1844]

5 years of reusability ??? Are you aware of the average time interested per game/creation of the average gamer?

[@havocthehobbit]

@@zarodgaming1844 yes I am, what are you specifically trying to say? Your ambiguity doesnt bring your point across well .

[@3dbob891]

and it's not even a new concept. Houdini is arround for quite a while and fairly adapted in the industry. The world of Farcry 5 was entirely made in houdini, games like the Ascend are almost completely done there and studios like embark use houdini for their entire artistical creation approach. Why mention houdini and not blender? well. Blender lacks every support by any software for anything possible to do with geometry nodes. The only thing possible to do is creating with geometry nodes in blender, which is a fracture of what's possible with houdini, let alone the nodes themselve.

[@isweartofuckinggod]

This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I want to be using blender for. Thank you so much for sharing!

[@AndreySokolovRu]

9:15 the loop is the one of the most eagerly wanted option for me in Geometry Nodes! Outstanding work!

[@lamlam595]

this is what i looking for so many years! glad that i jump from 3ds max to blender 4 years ago!

[@fabifabifabi158]

Really cool stuff and 100% agree that we need the loop node. Loops within loops. And jumps/breaks. But mainly loops.

[@erz3030]

This bloke was super likeable and easy to listen to present. Blender should hire him to do more presentations haha. Good stuff! Very thought provoking!

[@adamvorkel9472]

Incredibly powerful tools and some ingenuity = unbelievable results. This dude is too humble, loved the presentation!

[@andyjmoody]

That's the most next level thing I've seen while starting to learn blender and geometry nodes. Unreal work to plan and have the vision to create the building blocks.

[@MrSubsound90]

The levels of each creation are mind blowing.

[@mickyelmb]

This was a fascinating demo of Geometry Nodes. I look at the work you put into creating these modules and the scalability of the project is so awesome. I get intimidated when I start trying to use nodes because everything gets out of hand so fast. Now I see how doing something once can be modified and used repeatedly throughout all your designs. Thank you.

[@vstreet7583]

Just BRILLIANT! Absolutely fascinating. A great presentation. Thank you! Dg

[@tusharkashyap2431]

Saw his work few days ago on artstation and fell in love with his works and today when he said he do all this with his laptop, i am blown away and got so much inspiration, thank you Emilis

[@jonbrouwer4300]

That's an insane workflow he's created. Wow!

[@vak5461]

Not what I was looking for but so glad I ended up here! Mind blown!

[@kiani4208]

Thanks for this masterpiece

[@endlesslovingmovement]

Amazing work! I am really excited to learn more about geometry nodes.

[@4mb127]

Brilliant work.

[@funkypartyweasel]

This has been deeply inspiring.

[@BlenderBob]

Fantastic work!

[@LawrenceAaronLuther]

13:31 haha, fantastic node setup, answered all my questions

[@hpbecraft]

Humble dude. Great looking work.

[@user-wg7ut1du9c]

Amazing work!

[@mdsanima]

WOW! This is awesome!

[@jugibur2117]

Incredible stuff, for me as a beginner I can't imagine getting to this level, thanks for sharing!

[@Spartacular]

Over time you can. Anything others have done, you can do better.

[@Rin8Kin]

He only showed the results of his work. Inspiring in terms of what you can achieve using geometry nodes, but not very useful in terms of new knowledge. I have seen "node blocks" he was telling he "snatched away" on other channels, but seeing them combined together is whole new level.

[@TheSepetto]

This is incredible stuff.

[@Golden-uk7tp]

can't wait for a more depth in this topic and the tutorials about it.

[@PhotiniByDesign]

Brilliant presentation and brilliant art work too Emilis, well done mate...

[@everybot-it]

beautiful stuff!!

[@hitalpatel]

great work master

[@IlseMulAuthor]

I love Emilis' sense of humour! Thank you for showing us your workflow. You have made an awesome project!

[@ethankoal2756]

so self-deprecating lol.. super likeable dude :)

[@michellenieto572]

AMAZING 👏🏼

[@josephpaulgraves9250]

I did a city, Jrusaur, from my favorite ttrpg show Critical Role in Blender. Similar to what you have but less detail. It's tough. I can see the dedication and work you've put into these. Great work.

[@toushirozge]

Would love to see that if you have a link, friend!

[@Shalfatk01]

thanks for your speach . rly nice work you made here ! man ... what a wake up call... i have to learn those nodes ... thank you

[@satyakimandal6572]

One of the best talks of this years BCON!

[@jafar.blender]

It’s awesome to work in blender ❤

[@dertobbe1176]

I hated it when I first opened it up 😂 now whe I see my own progress I gotta love it❤

[@AthosSampaio]

Awesome!

[@apachon]

Very nice presentations .

[@alphablender]

Amazing...!

[@PomiDarQu]

I love when guys like him throws little awkward jokes into presentation to make it little more interesting, when the content of presentation alone is fucking jaw dropping.

[@MortalFrogArt]

I like that you have a bright red tomato as a profile pic. Nice.

[@PomiDarQu]

@@MortalFrogArt Thanks :)

[@drunkenmuse]

This was great, very inspiring While I dont personally have the time to invest in anything like this for my own work (rip deadlines lol), its a great indication on the form future tools could take

[@Hoowwwww]

his outfit is very nice, black always looks good, the watch is also very nice

[@CaCriGuz]

Amazing. :)

[@haraldgundersen7303]

Very inspiring... Seems like a nice excuse for one more thing to learn before in the end at last having to create something useful myself... 😉

[@thomaseichler2368]

13:27 this is the best (re)presentation of geometry nodes i've ever seen

[@nenghuo]

love it

[@kolupsy]

I find interesting that within the geometry nodes community it has established that creators of node groups put their initials at the beginning of node names and use snake case to label them. I don’t remember this being the case when there were only shader node groups before

[@ronaldbell7429]

It helps reduce collisions in the namespace, where you anticipate a lot of mixing and cross pollination. In more structured programming settings, they’ll prefix with package names. I guess here, where it’s generally just one person noodling around on his own projects and reusing his own nodes, personal initials come most easily to mind

[@black0ut76]

@@ronaldbell7429 exactly this, and the initial habit comes from working in studios where that's pretty common

[@taroxsplaylists7960]

Hehe, I hope I was not the only one looking for any ETK nodes there :D

[@Erindale]

@@taroxsplaylists7960 I couldn't see any either 😭

[@kolupsy]

@@ronaldbell7429 that is all true and valid. I just find it surprising that this did not seem to be that much of a common practice before geometry nodes as it is now. At least from my perception and the people that I know from the blender / procedural community. Also I don’t think the namespace issue is really a thing since blender makes sure that all data blocks in a file have unique names, so there is no fear of overriding stuff (until we get into data linking and library overrides which I think still needs to get figured out properly)

[@BossBabyBestAnime]

Says he is a beginner and does not know a lot about geometry nodes... proceeds to show the biggest custom geometry nodes library setup I have ever seen

[@BuzzKirill3D]

Humblebrag is a staple in these kinds of talks

[@fakecubed]

He was a beginner, when he began. He's not a beginner anymore. And just because he didn't know the one tool doesn't mean he wasn't already familiar with node-based workflows for doing shaders, for example. A lot of those skills carry over. None of this is really that complicated, he just broke down the job into lots of small parts and then put a lot of work into it. His experience as an artist helped him to make good choices as he went.

[@DriesduPreez]

18:24 That looks amazing, it reminds me of Paaran Disen from the Wheel of Time books

[@philippmaluta978]

jaw dropping

[@KoltronZer0]

Finally getting on that SideFX Houdini grind!

[@yokidrift1720]

it's really amazing the things you can create with technology now. I'm going to learn about geometry nodes and do stuff like this but also include more detailed, made by hand stuff. I gotta find this guys socials though.

[@NewSchattenRayquaza]

what a nice dude

[@coffeediction]

holy shit that mega-node in the middle xD 8:10

[@totheknee]

Imagine working with Emilis; you'd never want to go home. This guy _and_ his work are so damn amazing! 1 in a billion, this guy. He keeps saying "other people are more skilled than I am..." Lmao, prove it!

[@KrazyKaiser]

"I was supposed to count, I have X written down" X is a good number to count to.

[@3dvfxprofessor]

Insane! Blender is going Houdini.

[@MrYoungfly1]

All I took from this is "cheesy pizza"😂. But seriously. Great work. This looks amazing!

[@fatihsonmez]

cool

[@SZMIDEL]

ALL HAIL GEOMETRY! ALL HAIL NODES! ALL HAIL GEOMETRY NODES!

[@rapideye101]

amazing work. how long did it take to do all this?

[@KuroFaust]

Holy F... Its something about i was thinked for years, but im to stupid to make something like this xD I mean part from 13:27 - where u can place smal polygon and expanding it or resized u get diefferent model with seed/generated place. Same idea like he mentioned "Lego". Only thing i had in mind, is that to drop completly idea of "textures" [bitmaps]. Go with procedural textures only [without use of bitmaps like albedo/normal maps etc. - clear maths]. Looking at his work, im starting believe that thing is avaible to "make", but it will be hell time of work and talent to be realised. sorry for my broken english 😉

[@MrCompassionate01]

Where can I find tutorials on how to do this stuff?

[@fakecubed]

There are some great tutorials right here on KZbin. Just search for Geometry Nodes and tons of videos will pop up. Erindale and Entagma are two great channels in particular. Entagma also does Houdini content, but the Blender stuff is really top notch. I believe both channels offer paid courses or stuff through Patreon, too, but I've managed to learn a lot of Geometry nodes without needing to spend any money so far.

[@jeffg4686]

really nice - add-on coming?

[@travellermercury5703]

感谢分享，收获很多。

[@peter486]

thats cool but i like Modular design inside the engine. but this is defently a time saver.

[@kens6878]

오!마!이!가뜨!

[@yasunakaikumi]

gosh darn

[@manolomaru]

✨👌👏😎😎😎 👍👍✨

[@3diculousdesigns]

I'll sign up for a 3 week tutorial pls.

[@conordyer2307]

Artists- I made this! *whispers* (using blender) Also Artists- Ai art is blasphemy. Those that embrace technology will be the artists that thrive moving forward.

[@designx101]

Where can I download it?

[@questmarq7901]

Ελα μωρη Ελλαδαρα! Παμε!

[@Vederant]

Okay, so I have a cube. What's the next step again?

[@fakecubed]

Delete the cube, and add a plane. Then, go to the geometry nodes workspace and create a geometry nodes modifier. Disconnect the Group Input from the Group Output. Click Add > Mesh Primitives > Cube. Set the size to 2m for all three dimensions. Connect the Cube node's Mesh output to the Group Output. You now have a cube.

[@HalitHarun]

I am using houdini and here we are using the Houdini Engine plugin to bring procedural structures to the game engine. Can we still procedurally transfer props made with Blender geometry nodes to game engines?

[@AsaTaylor]

Blender uses python as it's scripting language just like the UE editor, and I believe other game devs (can't remember which talk) have done auto sync between blend files/libraries and UE projects.

[@samcho9500]

i think he is really nerious but his work is great

[@felixlipski3956]

where addon

[@DeadFreakingPool]

Question: where is he getting the assets from? Like the buildings, temples, parks and wires? Since he's texturing then I'm assuming those are his models?

[@black0ut76]

There are no assets, except a couple of things such as the courtyard and the trees. The top faces of the tower structures are inset/extruded/subdivided to generate the buildings and props from scratch in geometry nodes

[@hawkfreedom1700]

the guy who understood nothing at all about he video he's been lookin'at...

[@Harrym8710]

if u want similar assets you can look into Kitbash etc.

[@phat80]

Have anyone compared GN to Houdini? What’s the pros and cons?

[@fakecubed]

The channel Entagma is one you should take a look at. They are Houdini pros who have been working with Blender's geometry nodes since that go introduced. Their assessments of Blender are tough, but quite fair, and come from a place of deep knowledge about node-based workflows. They've been talking about Blender's work in this area since the first version that had geometry nodes, through the redesign in 3.0, and they have been really pushing each version to its limits. But my personal view is that Houdini is definitely more powerful right now, but I'd argue that Blender's interface is a lot better, more intuitive, and frankly more artist-friendly in every possible way. And, Blender's capabilities are catching up quick.

[@hongrenyan]

where we could get this fantasy project?

[@julianparis392]

Anybody know how call this technique of minute 13:39 ?

[@parikshitbelsare6914]

Can anybody suggest a tutorial for this?

[@djr9999]

my smol brain trying to understand what just happening

[@amanos7056]

How to get these???

[@user-ev6fj5up9w]

Blender 🇮🇳

[@TommyLikeTom]

Very inspiring, I will do better

[@pushkarc28]

is this available for us

[@johnnizito]

How are the better way to learn this?

[@hawkfreedom1700]

work.

[@johnnizito]

@@hawkfreedom1700 helpfull tnks

[@the4dperspective....738]

Breakthrough

[@oluwadamilola6233]

Addon pls

[@TauranusRex]

This guy is so annoying arrogant. And he has all the right to be. This is one of the most mind blowing things I have seen in years!

[@DoeJohne]

What kind of laptop does he use to create/render these images, any guess?

[@hawkfreedom1700]

Another John Doe that thinks power is the key to talent...

[@DoeJohne]

@@hawkfreedom1700 well i've paid a lot for my workstation 2 years ago and i'm not really satisfied render durations. I was wondering how people could do these kind of much more complex designs than i do and how their computers not blew up. Especially when i compare it with a laptop. power is not the key of talent of course, but blender needs it! thats all.

[@philippetoupin01]

How to draw an owl. Draw 2 circles. Draw the rest of the fucking owl.

[@AdomasZalneravicius]

mldc

[@lastshadowman]

The self deprecating attitude and nervous body language takes away from this presentation, if u do amazing work be confident in it, there is no shame in being great at something.

[@jonasberiguetemanzanillo9449]

7:15 im out

[@CHIM3RA.]

😂😂😂

[@totheknee]

0:18 - "Freakishly early in the morning; about 10am." F***, the only other intelligent person I've ever seen on the matter! Maybe there is hope for humanity yet, and we can finally get rid of the fascist assholes who judge people that don't wake up at the same time as them. PDA for the world: Wake up when it feels right for you, there's 24 hours every rotation regardless of the angle of the sun.

[@boobo]

This was a waste of time.

[@gitbuh12345qwerty]

-damn. power user