Rotation tips on curves in Geometry nodes - Blender tutorial ENG - 1/3 videos

[@abhiraaid]

I don't know how many times I come back to this video 😄

[@andrea_ciani]

Lol 😂

[@p.artcha]

I don't think anyone has explained the Euler Rotation and Align Euler to Vector as clearly as you have. I find myself coming back to this video still every time I need to make a complex rotation. Thank you!

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you very much Pouya Aflatoun for your comment! I really appreciate it!

[@MaxKr-g9g]

spent two hours trying to solve the problem with the correct rotation of objects. I found the solution in this video. Thanks!

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Максим, i'm happy to hear that!

[@3dflos]

Thanks a lot for this video men ! I was strugguling for like 2-3 hours to do something and this video gave me the solution in like 5 minutes ! You're a life saver ! thank you formy mental health 😂😂

[@andrea_ciani]

LOL! Thank you 3dFloS! I'm happy to have helped you! I hope you can find the other videos equally useful 🙂

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

My day is saved and my happiness is unmeasurable! Thank you so much for this

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Craft Reaper! 🙂

[@GeorgFKa]

Amazing. Thank you so much for resolving several headaches I had animating and deforming stuff around curves.

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you GeorgFK! I'm glad I could help you!

[@ThadeousM]

*Note to future self 17:47 Align Euler to Vector rotation locking* Thanks man, I return to this video regularly. Hope you're well!

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Thadeous! Good to hear that! I'm fine and i hope you too 🙂

[@jefflhama]

I love this type of fundamentals video

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you jeff!

[@tiagogiraovideos]

Super well explained. Very easy to understand. Was very useful

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you tiagogiraovideos! I hope other videos could be useful as well as this one!

[@heljoshinmax9459]

imho best explanation on youtube. Thank you!

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you heljoshin Max!

[@AlekseiNetkachev]

Amazing tutorial.

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you so much Алексей!

[@philippe6724]

Nodes mastery! Thank you for sharing your amazing knowledge. Grazie Mille Andrea!

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Phelippe! Your feedback si important for me! This week i will post a new video about making a vector viewer! Stay tuned! Maybe there could be other stuff to learn :-)

[@anton_gavrev]

Hello! Thanks for this lesson. I wanted to add a comment that if add curve length node and multiply it with output parameter of the tilt control group (before Set Curve Tilt node), then the number of turns on the rope will always be the same regardless of the length of the curve. And when the curve is been edited, it will not be necessary to select the number tilts rounds everytime. Sorry for my english. Have a nice day!

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Антон Гаврев! Yes, it’s true and thanks for this addictional information. It can help people who need it. In addiction the same technique is used to maintain the same distance in the resample curve node by count if someone don’t want to use the resample by length.

[@skaiyeung7183]

your tutorial is so great and clear. thanks

[@andrea_ciani]

Yes! You just need to use the "Tangent" field, connect it to the "Vector" socket of "Align Euler To Vector" selecting the axis you want to align. Connect the output to the "Rotation" input socket of "Instance on point" node as described in min 14:14 The concept is the same.

[@skaiyeung7183]

@@andrea_ciani what if i not using the instance. use only a circle to follow the curve. is it possible to set with tangent

[@andrea_ciani]

@@skaiyeung7183 If you mean a circle that follows the curve like a motion path yes you can. You can check out this link on my discord server: discord.com/channels/1017325233503473745/1017443629071085608/1054685894050857010 Join in the server with the link in the description of the video and than go to this link to see the workflow. And thank you for your feedback!

[@FORTHEGAME-c1n]

really thank you

[@andrea_ciani]

You're welcome @user-ck9oz7qh1m!

[@kristiansdzenis5284]

Amazing tutorial, thank you so much for making them

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Kristians!

[@gordonbrinkmann]

Nice video, working with curves and their normals and tangents is a bit tricky to understand so your explanations are surely helpful. Only criticism: when creating an object to represent the axes, I always prefer to do it consistently, like all pointing in the positive direction. But yours is red in +X and blue in +Z direction, but your green axis is pointing in -Y direction. I would have made that +Y instead.

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Gordon! Yes you are right about the +Y axis. As we say in italian, it's the force of habit so the default point of view when starting blender XD.

[@LoneAdventurer730]

I am your 75th subscriber. Really good video. 🤠👌

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Prakash, i appreciate it so much! Your feedback are very important for me.

[@NicolasRouelle]

Very useful tips, thanks a lot

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Nicolas!

[@BlenderLowpoly]

Nice tutorial, thanks, I have a question, if I wanted to transform each mesh into a single object and maintain the rotations, how can I do it? I tried to transform it into a mesh from the blender menu, but it only creates a single mesh for me, but I need to have all the separate objects that keep the axes oriented with rotation. in short, without the pivots being reset but maintaining the rotation of the axes.

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you 3Dave! Sorry me but i didn't understand quite well your question. Can you jump on my Discord server so we can discuss your context more deeply maybe with some image references? Tx, bye!

[@issac7787]

17:20 is a lifesaver 😇

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Issac!

[@ricokohler2686]

Thanks for the detailed explanation! But why does the orientation alignment in tip#2 work for the circle profile you plug into the curve to mesh node ? Everything you defined about the roation ends in the instance on points node and has no connection to the curve to mesh variant ? (21:20)

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Rico! It works because if you use the standard curve to mesh node, is Blender that twists the created mesh around the curve. In that case you don't need to think about rotation but only the correct degrees (or radiants) distributed in the Set Curve Tilt attribute along the curve. Blender will do the rest. A different approach is using instances because you don't have a COSTANT values along the curve but discrete values defined by the resample curve resolution. This means that you have points and each point can have own origin location and rotation in the 3d space. This is the reason i need to adjust the alignment through the Rotation socket of the Instance on points node. I hope i have helped you 🙂

[@ricokohler2686]

you did =) thanks for your answer! @@andrea_ciani

[@MrCooooKi3]

This is awesome 😱

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you MrCooooKi3!

[@Elijah_RUS]

Очень информативное видео! Спасибо.

[@andrea_ciani]

Spasiba Илья!

[@World_Theory]

I have been trying to correct the rotation of my curve for so long! With your technique, I can correct my curve enough to place a seam along the resulting mesh where it is least likely to be noticed. Good enough. But I think there's something weird going on with my curve. I now have the endpoints with matching tilts, but there's a section in the middle that tilts away from the direction of either ends. I suspect it has something to do with the fact the curve is in the shape of a half spherical spiral that goes back into itself. So I think I'd need a smooth selection (not sure how to phrase it) that looks like a bell curve or triangular wave that I can use to target that portion of the curve for an additional tilt modification to be mixed into the other one.

[@andrea_ciani]

Good to hear World Theory! For your issue, if you want you can upload a simple blend file to my discord server to show me the issue. I could try to help you solve it :-)

[@andrea_ciani]

I was thinking, you could try to insert a Set Tilting node to set custom tilting before using the tecnique in my tutorial. In this way you can set a custom tilting all = 0 or multiplying the index field by a factor and plug to the Set Tilting node.

[@World_Theory]

@@andrea_ciani My curve is a little unusual because I construct it from a single source curve that I then chop into smaller segments of curve, then I adjust the resolution of those curves, then join them back together into a single whole curve again. But in order to join them, they must be converted to a mesh so that I can merge by distance, which is the only method I've found for joining curves end-to-end. And this loses any tilt data. After that, it is converted back to a curve, so that I can convert it to a mesh, but this time also using a profile curve. It's complicated but necessary, to keep the poly count down, because it's going to be used in a resource sensitive application. I also need to construct it using geometry nodes in order to create a sister version of the mesh with which to bake high quality normals from. Thank you for the suggestions, but I already finished the model. However. If you want to find a solution to smoothly twisting a portion of a curve in the middle, I'm sure someone else could use that knowledge. I might even need it in the future, because this project gave me ideas for others.

[@andrea_ciani]

@@World_Theory Wow...it seems to be complex...I'm happy to hear that you solved your model. For the solution about smoothly twisting a portion of a curve in the middle, i added a resource on my #resources channel on my discord server (link in description) ;-)

[@Vader666th]

Thank you for this video, its very clear :)

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Vader666th! Next week i'm going to upload the video about scaling! I hope you will like it as mush as this one :-)

[@Vader666th]

@@andrea_ciani I'm looking forward to it. I also watch your other tutorials which are nice too. And the sound of your mic is getting better in this video than in the previous ones which is very nice !

[@andrea_ciani]

@@Vader666th Thank you, i appreciate it! Your feedback is important for me. I'm already working on the next recorded videos and the sound will look like this. In the future i will try to make the sound even better.

[@ailanezz]

how can we control the scale of the instances with a gradient ramp? so the length of the curve is mapped as the ramp, and the scaling is controlled by the white/black of the ramp, representing the length. so i can have smaller object at a certain paart of curve.

[@andrea_ciani]

Hi Ai Lane! I would suggest you to watch the next video about the scaling. After let me know if you still have doubts about it 🙂

[@higherquality]

I've been going apeshit with nodes like spline parameters, sample curves and mesh lines. None of them work. I wanted to put sticks on a spiral. This video single handedly saved me from ragequitting blender

[@andrea_ciani]

Hi higherquality! I'm very happy this video has helped you!

[@daniilponomarenko6847]

Hi Andrea, amazing videos, thank you very much! I have one problem, cant solve it. I have one curve (1) for path and another curve (2) that is for geometry node body (snake). I want to make second (2) curve to follow path curve (1) and that is easy with curve modifier. But I found problematic to transfer tilt from curve 1 to curve 2, I think that I don't understand something.

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Daniil! Actualy you don't need to transfer nothing. You can just change manually o with GN the tilt of the points of the curve (1) (manually edit the curve, select the points and press CTRL-T or go in the Item section properties pressing N on the viewport). The curve modifier on the snake (2) will do the rest. Join on my Discord server. I made an example so you can download it.

[@daniilponomarenko6847]

@@andrea_ciani Thank you, you are my hero! Will happily join )

[@andrea_ciani]

@@daniilponomarenko6847 Hi Daniil! I added a message on the issues channel. Download it! 😉

[@blackonlearn8643]

Can you explain what is radiant ?

[@andrea_ciani]

The radiant is the ratio between the length of an arc (L) and the radius of the circumference that defines the arc (r) itself. rad = L/r so you get 1 rad when the length of the arc is equal to the radius. For all circumferences you get 2*pi rad (1 entire round angle) when you calculate the circumference (L) divided by the radius so (2*pi*r)/r => r disappeared and it remains 2*pi (the entire round angle) that in degrees are 360°. I hope to have helped you 🙂

[@loggan90]

If you set the object count to 1 how do you animate it along the curve?

[@andrea_ciani]

if you mean that you want a follow path effect for only one instance i put a new resource on my discord server right now. Join with the link in the description if you want to see the GN workflow 🙂

[@tiagopesce]

any way the constraints stop affecting instance on points rotation?

[@andrea_ciani]

I would say no because the constraints on curves work on the entire object and not for each control point.

Muito bom! Obrigado.

[@andrea_ciani]

Thank you Marcos!

[@_casg]

bro does this work for poly curves?

[@andrea_ciani]

Yes, absolutely!

[@neilmarshall5087]

You need to stop making your axis model wrong. You have the Y axis pointing to the negative.

[@andrea_ciani]

Hi Neil, what do you mean exactly? Can you explain your point of view? If you want you can jump in my discord server so we can discuss in more detail

[@neilmarshall5087]

@@andrea_ciani Your XYZ axis model has the Y axis pointing toward the -Y not the +Y it should point toward. This makes part of your Node set up wrong for anyone with the correct shaped XYZ model. It is not 100% important, but you should be doing something a basic as an XYZ axis correctly.

[@neilmarshall5087]

@@andrea_ciani BTW The videos are fantastic 👍

[@andrea_ciani]

​@@neilmarshall5087 👍Oh yes, understood, sure! My intention was just to show a way to prepare the general environment of the axes to let people choose whatever axes and direction they want to use in their project. In this tutorial i chose the axes in an absolutely random way 😄

[@andrea_ciani]

@@neilmarshall5087 Thank you very much Neil! 🙂