Spirographs and Circles - Geometry Nodes Tutorial

Advanced Geometry Nodes course: www.canopy.games/p/advanced-g...
Grab the beginner course: www.canopy.games/p/bcs-geomet...
In this lesson we're making a spirograph pattern generator!
Grab the final lesson file here: / 80381745
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Geometry Nodes Toolkit: gum.co/erintools
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Contents:
00:00 - Intro
01:30 - Maths process
11:42 - Setting the size
14:47 - Geometry process
21:15 - You don't need to understand to do
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[@Erindale]

Hope you enjoy the session! How do you feel about revisiting older tutorials to upgrade them to the new Blenders?

[@rishikruthinmalireddi2005]

Yes it will be a good idea 😊

[@khashayarr]

I want to say yes but I wonder how sustainable that is with all the changes to the node system! If you're able to then it'd be amazing! I'd suggest perhaps putting the version in the title too! 🙏

[@OnePatrix]

I think that some of them you could recreate in Simulation Nodes if they comes out, in this way - you could not only recreate it, but also explain what are SimNodes are and how they works for people whos never touched them. Also I want to thank you that you share your knowledge with us for FREE. Your videos are unbelieveably good and for me its shocking that they are really free.

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

I think it is a good idea to revisit older tutorials simply due to the rate of change in Blender. I do understand they are going to slow the rate of major releases, but still, it keeps getting better and it can throw you off when they change the node structures.

[@BRON3D]

That's great Erindale

[@BlendTheCube]

I m just in love by the pacing of this video, Every explanation is crystal clear, i love how you explained "How Multiplying Sine and Cosine makes up a Circle".

[@Erindale]

That's great to hear! Thanks so much

[@eliasvargas.]

the geo-node goat

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

Great explanation of the math involved! I love how geometry nodes are basically visual programming!

[@Erindale]

They are absolutely visual programming, just very scoped down to geometry tasks 😅

[@ThadeousM]

I'd really like to see Blender intergrated into the UK public school curriculum. Seeing the maths take shape has a huge effect!

[@Erindale]

Definitely agreed! Maths can be so visual with the right tools

[@totheknee]

Amazing idea. I wish we had something like Blender when I was in grade school (1980s). Hopefully you sophisticated islanders have an easier time updating the curriculum than we have across the pond. It's so bad over here, we get history books banned by the State for having history content in them...

[@oho6oho]

Thank you for the great tutorial. Could you please elaborate a little bit how are you solving overlapping curves in 3d, because all logic provided is two dimensional . For example the point the two curves intersect one should go above the other and vice versa. Thank you in advance :)

[@MrMygh543]

I've just watched your old tutorial, understood and converted the math in it for a project, so this timing is incredible! Thank you so much for teaching this!

[@Erindale]

Glad it's useful!

[@coreys2686]

For anyone who's curious, 3.5 also has the organization of the "Add" menu.

[@Erindale]

Somehow I never really touched 3.5 🤔 thanks for sharing

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

8:09 Just a note that it is more conventional to use the cosine to compute the x coordinate and the sine for y, rather than the other way round. This way the 0° direction follows the positive x-axis, while 90° lies along the positive y-axis. With the convention that the axis of rotation points along the positive z-axis, this gives you the traditional “right-handed” coordinate system. That is, if you make a fist with your right hand and stick your thumb out, that thumb points along the axis of rotation, while the curl of the other fingers indicates the positive direction of rotation.

[@Erindale]

Thanks! I find it really triggers something in me when it starts on one side instead of centered like I just know it's not going to balance 😅

[@ForgoTV]

Much appreciated, great content. One way I like to approach these tutorials is watch them while playing a game, then go back and try it, knowing the video is there for reference. Side note, didn't realize you worked for Unity, as a shareholder, only gives me more confidence. :)

[@Erindale]

Hell yeah! Unity is a great place to work

[@zboy303]

Top tutorial. Love the explanation of the maths in this one. Super useful.

[@neerajbhatt3368]

Wow...this was another Portal opened up for me into another Blender universe!!!! Kudos to you

[@orenmatar]

Your videos are just amazing! They give me a real understanding of the maths and logic behind modeling and inspire me to think of the beautiful creative things that can be done. Quick question: What if I wanted to have these spirographs as textures? I would love to see a video explaining how to create spirals and spirographs in the shader editor.

[@Erindale]

That is definitely a challenge in itself! You’d have to create the mask and the UV for the ribbon. Much harder than with geometry nodes that’s for sure

[@legofreak5769]

I should have watched this a few days ago. my solution for a similar issue was a bit more complicated. i converted a circle to points, moved the points, and then made a group to draw lines between all the points.

[@IvanFlack]

Super fun...thoroughly enjoyed this one! Many thanks Erin!

[@Erindale]

Great to hear! Thanks!

[@karl-heinzbiederbick87]

Thank you very much for sharing, really helpful!

[@edisonkertawijaya3039]

Thanks for your tutorial dude. I'm still new on blender, and have no clues where should I start to learn node.

[@Erindale]

This is a good place!

[@TommyLikeTom]

love you, missed you, sorry I'm mentally ill

[@Erindale]

Hope you're doing alright!

[@visionary_3_d]

Great Stuff. 😄Thanks for sharing.

[@PaulLPhabett]

Absolutely Brilliant tutorial. This was explained so well and really helped me understand the math behind spirograph. I've been looking for a tutorial like this for AGES.

[@Erindale]

Glad it helped!

[@joshuabuckingham2367]

Lots of respect man! you've got a great mind. Really enjoyed the tutorial. I would be extremely interested to understand how you could apply procedural stained glass windows in between the geometry.

[@Erindale]

So the spirograph becomes a sort of leading? I guess a hacky way would be to use that curve to mesh pipe as a literal boolean on a shallow cube and then you can create a random value per mesh island to drive colour

[@joshuabuckingham2367]

@@Erindale Super interesting. If you've got time, I would love to hear more detail about that process? How complicated it is or is it actually quite simple? By the way, as I work in Cambridge, I ended up visiting the Mosque after watching your video. Was beautiful

[@Erindale]

Literally just a curve to mesh with a circle and capped ends. Plug into a boolean difference with self intersection on against a cube that's thinner in Z than your circle diameter. Should leave you with just the parts of the cube that were in the loops of the spirograph. Amazing you went to see it - what a beautiful bit of architecture

[@AlexanderKislyakov]

As always, great job explaining the math process and how effective it is to infer knowledge by just trying stuff out. To my not burdened with extensive math knowledge brain it's especially useful to hear and see similar concepts explained a bunch of times with a slightly different flavor. Great tutorial!

[@Erindale]

Thanks ! Glad it's useful!

[@muneer4k]

Crstal clear explanation thank for you

[@JonDigitalTV]

So good! Thank you

[@aiz.3d]

How can we randomize and make the shape more non-geometrical?

[@mathieurousseau236]

Fantastic tutorial! Subscribed :-) I wanted to take it a bit further, by using the mesh created by the geometry nodes to carve a path in an object for spheres to roll through. First, I added a plane and made it thick with solidify modifier. Positioned it to be halfway up through the Spirograph mesh. Then used difference Boolean on that plane to cut out the “curve to meshed” Spirograph…. and the plane disappears… not quite what I was hoping for. Now, if I bring the solidified plane up to completely cover up the Spirograph, and do the Boolean modifier, the plane doesn’t disappear and in wireframe viewport, I can see the Spirograph wireframe inside the solidified plane. But if I bring the plane back down so that it intersects with the Spirograph mesh, the Boolean cut just doesn’t work. I feel like the solution is real simple, but I just can’t find it. Any help appreciated ~ thanks

[@Erindale]

Booleans can be such a pain. If you're doing it inside geo nodes then make sure that self-intersections is on and also your curve to mesh on the spirograph, make sure that has a profile like a circle that's going to result in a 3D mesh, not a curve line that is just going to be a 2D ribbon.

[@mathieurousseau236]

@@Erindale Thanks! "Self-Intersection" did the trick... mostly ;-)

[@mathieurousseau236]

@@Erindale I've been sidetracked, as too often is the case, by other ideas and projects, but I have a few carved spirographs rendered. Just need to add a few more and put some music/sound to them, then I'll post a link here ~ thanks again for the tutorial!

[@mystery_guy]

@@Erindale great tutorial, really fun! I've got mathieurousseau236 method almost perfect. When I try your suggestion above, I end up with small walls at the intersections of curves, looks terrible, not realistic for a ball to roll over a wall. Any help would be much appreciated.

[@MarioRivera-png]

I need more blender math stuff

[@Erindale]

It'll come 😁

[@kkks8453]

cool！

[@PaulLPhabett]

Ok but follow up, I'm having trouble adding any randomness to this. With both the Math and Geo Nodes methods, adding random value inputs appears to randomize each point along the curve instead of just randomizing the number or turns or the radius. Ends up looking like a big mess instead of giving me a way to create procedurally generated random spirographs. Help?

[@Erindale]

If you plug an integer node into the ID socket of a random node then it will make the random output constant, rather than evaluating it per point

[@PaulLPhabett]

@@Erindale That worked! thank you so much!

[@mathieurousseau236]

Thanks again Erin for the tutorial ~ here's a first batch ;-) kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYOkmWNqrpKembs

[@Erindale]

Beautiful work!

[@totheknee]

When we 'Merkan English speakers say: "I'm gonna do it with math, yo!" Does that sound like "I'm going to learn mathematic today!," when we skip the plural "maths?"

[@Erindale]

Just one math for today. Us Brits know we might need more than one operation 😉

[@rodinarttv]

I have Blender 3.4.1 and the result is straight lines like an "L" shape, why?

[@Erindale]

You'll need to make sure you're resampling the curve to have enough points to draw out the shape

[@rodinarttv]

@@Erindale I know what mistake I did and now it works, thank you.

[@Tony-cm8lg]

Unrelated, but how’s the job at Unity going?

[@Erindale]

Amazing! Honestly such a blast what we're working on and a genuine honour to get to work alongside my team. They're insanely talented!

[@Tony-cm8lg]

@@Erindale That’s great brother 🙏 I’m glad you’ve got this awesome experience and still are able to put out interesting tutorials! I suppose you can’t disclose any interesting insider details? Haha

[@WwAiRtRhIiOnR]

The litteral god of math in procedural geometry/shaders telling he's (been) not good at math 😂 This reminds me of this video about Fourier series, or drawing with circles kzbin.info/www/bejne/qGfWeIqKeLKtaM0&feature=shares

[@Erindale]

Hahaha no no but seriously I learned it all from playing with procedural shaders in Blender 😭