Reaction Diffusion with Simulation Nodes - Blender 3.6

Advanced Geometry Nodes course: www.canopy.games/p/advanced-g... the beginner course: www.canopy.games/p/bcs-geomet...
In this session we're going to be setting up a reaction diffusion effect with Simulation Nodes in Blender 3.6.
Right now, simulation nodes have been added to master but 3.6 is still a daily build so you can download it here: builder.blender.org/download/...
Grab the final file here: / 82947128
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Geometry Nodes Toolkit: gum.co/erintools
Merch? erindale.threadless.com/
Discord: / discord
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Contents:
00:00 - Intro
01:30 - Texture setup
03:40 - Simulation Zone
04:50 - Reaction Diffusion Nodes
09:12 - Visualising the Effect
11:15 - Balancing the values
13:30 - Displacement
18:00 - Driving from an image texture
23:45 - Creating splines
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[@PCgmesforever]

Erindale: "I know some people aren't fans of a purple simulation zone..." also Erindale: *makes it more purple for the rest of the video* :D

[@SrObser]

I love how simple doing this has become after simulation nodes. Just a couple of blur attribute and storing inside the simulation, while the rest is the cherry on top. Really shows the potential of this node system.

[@Erindale]

Glad to see that loops are getting the development they need

[@dan1435]

Simulation nodes are so great, love seeing all the creativity in the community! Hopefully this means we will also get for loops soon

[@Erindale]

Hopefully! These definitely lay the ground work

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Recursion would be more useful than iteration.

[@aimanbryan1424]

Thank you for making learning the hard things fun and approachable. 😊

[@Erindale]

Thanks so much

[@IvanFlack]

Yet another stunning tutorial! Well delivered and easy to follow! Thanks one again!

[@UltraVitamin]

Thank you so much!!! I have been trying to get a customizable version of reaction diffusion working in Blender for months. You helped a lot

[@todesdigga3891]

Wow this is soo cool! You and Seanterelle are really pushing the boundaries for that organic generative content 🔥🔥🔥

[@Erindale]

Sean is crazy honestly. No one has any business being that smart 😩

[@PunmasterSTP]

Reaction diffusion? More like "Really cool information!" 👍

[@vstreet7583]

Just BRILLIANT. Absolutely BRILLIANT. Thank you! Dg

[@Erindale]

Thank you Dg! Hope you're well

[@__leoayres__]

You're the best! 😍

[@jimmac]

Brilliant explanation and one of the few vids I’m still able to keep up with ;]

[@Erindale]

Thanks so much!

[@JoeyCarlino]

Erin is the GOAT. Thank you for this I'm excited about simulation nodes finally being part of the main branch, its gonna be awesome seeing what everyone does with it.

[@Erindale]

Yeah welcome to the blender procedural renaissance

[@DonaldDrennan]

This is very interesting! It looks like reticulation that you can get in photographic film. Simulation nodes are interesting too, that it can affect the material and the geometry.

[@ericfieldman]

There's a movie called Vivarium that I noticed using very similar effects on a TV screen in the movie, so that kind of brought me back to this

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

26:58 Basically, the simulation zone can have constant inputs, varying inputs, and varying outputs. Varying inputs come in through the Simulation Input node, and varying outputs exit through the Simulation Output node (and are also fed back to the Simulation Input for the next iteration). Constant inputs go direct into the simulation zone, bypassing the Simulation Input node. And you’re not allowed to have outputs that bypass the Simulation Output node.

[@mickyr171]

This is so cool, always loved programming things like this but they were super slow to run because of the laplacian smoothing operation, the blur attribute is so fast, cant wait to see what other nodes are added in the future, thanks for your tutorial.

[@Erindale]

Yeah Mod did amazing on the blur node

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

4:57 Notwithstanding that Named Attribute node is outside the simulation zone, if you follow the chain of nodes to the right to find the geometry from which the attribute value is taken, you get to the Geometry input that is within the simulation zone. So that Named Attribute node is effectively also within the simulation zone.

[@thehomedepothouseplant9986]

Erindale = Daddy AKA the GOAT. Thank you KING !

[@danialsoozani]

That was amazing as always! How do you even come up with these good ideas?? and how long does it take to find the best possible way to solve it? (in this case, cuz I know it varies from project to project)

[@Erindale]

The more you know, the more you can do. Just keep challenging yourself to try new things. I have spent a lot of time in the last 3-4 years helping people on discord and that's really exposed me to a lot of new problems. I definitely recommend that kind of approach to learning as it helps more than just you

[@danialsoozani]

@@Erindale well said! I hope I'll be as good as half of you soon by challenging myself and then be able to help people and grow together! that's a very nice ideology! I'm new to discord, can you suggest any good discords with good community on blender?

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Legendary mathematician Alan Turing wrote a paper about the theory behind this, back in 1952. I’m still trying to make sense of it.

[@alkarimjadavji5739]

Loved this tutorial alot! So fun to play wit. One question though is how do you control the simulation speed? Or perhaps I miss this somewhere. Thanks 😺

[@Erindale]

It's all on those 4 values (blur and math) you should be able to balance it to run slower but it's just going to take some testing

[@alkarimjadavji5739]

@@Erindale amazing thank you 🙏🏾

[@mangomastani9847]

Great video as always. Here's a video idea and community favor that I would like to ask for - make a video about every node in geometry nodes. I've seen some video but I feel yours will be the best one in terms of clarity, example and concept. You can also then expand over the video with a full series about newly released nodes. The community really needs something like that. There are so many nodes and so much to do but we do not know every single node's purpose. It would be very helpful to have a video about it.

[@Erindale]

One video per node or one big video with chapters?

[@mangomastani9847]

@@Erindale I think you can decide that better. You can maybe make a single long video and depending upon how complex and diverse a node can be, explain certain nodes in detail in a dedicated video. Go with whatever suits you and is beneficial for your channel. I'd watch them anyways.

[@danielsamulevic6127]

When I connect Nmaed Attribute node to Store Named Attribute like shown at 4:56 in this video, the sphere surface in Object Mode remains black and doesn't change to show the texture (Blender 3.6.0 LTS). Any idea why this can happen?

[@qbrd2611]

This is awesome! How do you get it to loop, like in the intro? I tend to make seamless loops and haven't been able to use it because they never loop... (and no tutorials explain how they loop) I was super excited because you showed it looping in the intro! But then completely skipped over that part!

[@Erindale]

You can just return the control values to the same place and the effect goes back

[@voovisualsyoutube]

Absolutely jaw droppingly amazing. My big inquiry is less about the actual process, but more about how one comes to have the knowledge to even approach the development of the technique to get to the result. Do you have a scientific background, like in molecular physics? I fell down a mathematical rabbit hole one day reading about molecular flux etc, trying to make sense of the concepts and equations that are just way too advanced. Now, bringing those concepts into a 3d environment wih a node system... it boggles my mind. Where and how do you start? Anyways i am defintaley messing around with this when i get home, even thoughi feel i am just following a technique blindly without fully grasping the why and the how of it. Anyways. You're one of the GOATs.

[@Erindale]

Thank you! My background is actually joinery and interior design 😅 Blender taught me maths just from playing with the nodes. How did I learn these things? Honestly a mix of obsession and play just stumbling across things that look interesting

[@voovisualsyoutube]

​@@Erindale wow thanks for the speedy response! God i love this community! Yah makes sense, i guess i have to continue messing about. But kudos to have managed to reproduce a realworld physical/mathematical process through nodes by just 'obsessing and playing' 😂 Definately staying tuned on your channel !

[@Juergkrebs]

🏆

[@zosterinski]

Thanks! could you say some pros and cons of this method compared to the Tissue one?

[@Erindale]

Node based workflows are their own pros but tissue has a lot of specific high level tooling built in where you’ll need to build from scratch with geo nodes

[@zachhall5061]

Is it possible to fill a mesh with this reaction diffusion. Ive seem that a lot in houdini animations? Basically a volume texture?

[@Erindale]

With volume cube you could do something. Principle is the same you're just working on a 3D grid instead of 2D

[@zachhall5061]

@@Erindale Thanks! Do you know if it would work with other custom objects besides the volume cube. My goal is reaction diffusion with someone’s logo

[@Erindale]

Use their logo to create an SDF and that can be your diffusion gradient in the negative values and anywhere it's positive (outside) you can use that to stop the diffusion

[@zachhall5061]

@@Erindale Thank you!

[@balenwalker8209]

Been a while since I've stopped by. Awesome simulation and tutorial. I had a question for you though. It's probably been years now, but do you know what happened to your procedural bridge video? I was trying to find it and it seems to have disappeared?

[@Erindale]

Yeah it's unlisted now as so much changed. I'm happy to share you the link of you want but it's all attributes as it was pre-fields

[@balenwalker8209]

@@Erindale Ahh that makes sense, I would still be down for the link though! Whatever way is easiest to send. Really appreciate it!

[@Erindale]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4rCnYCDqKuYjsk

[@balenwalker8209]

@@Erindale thank you so much!

[@Bleenderhead]

21:44 looks like the alien keypad from Obduction.

[@bbbirish74]

Dude, you are a total Blender bad ass. I recently got serious about learning Blender because I'd like to share an idea, with like minded people, that would change the World in a way that places a higher value on human potential than money. What good is money if all your needs are being met? The Blender community is a perfect example of what can happen with open source sharing of information, and I have an idea that would take this type of cooperation into a new dimension.😉 We are at a crucial point in history where the current technologies available give the citizens of Earth, the opportunity, to end a system based on competition but on cooperation. Do you know in California the homeless problem will never end because there is too much money in it? The non profit organizations "Fighting" homelessness are making tons of money. This rat race has to stop and only a large group of free minded people can make it happen. Would you have any interest in collaborating your talents with mine? Where would we be as a human race if the entire education system worldwide wasn't totally corrupt and inefficient? You are a very good teacher my friend.😁👍 I'd love a chance to talk with you about a very practical plan to literally change the world, I believe you'll get the whole idea in a millisecond.

[@Erindale]

Sounds like an amazing project! Feel free to send me an email

[@bbbirish74]

@@Erindale Can I get your email address? Or is it in a particular website?

[@bbbirish74]

Found it.☺

[@philmorton7275]

looks like brain lobes

[@dorex2007]

Technically interesting, but not too useful. I'm used to better from Erindale

[@Erindale]

Feel free to make suggestions if you have any thoughts

[@dorex2007]

@@Erindale One thing I'd like to see is a revisit to the camera culling. Something where the objects height & width are taken into account also, instead of just their point on a plane. If the camera has a tree in front of it for example, the tree disappears as soon as the point on the plane it's located at is out of camera view. This is fine for static images, but for animations it's not too good. Thanks

[@parishilt0n1]

I can't get my values balanced 🥲