How to Scatter Objects WITH GEOMETRY NODES in 2023! (Blender Tutorial)

In this video, learn to use geometry nodes to scatter objects, as well as to randomize scale and rotation on objects in Blender!
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Introduction
0:11 - Adding a geometry nodes window
1:07 - Adding points on your object
2:13 - Showing your original geometry with your points
3:49 - Scattering on object on your points
4:50 - Using the object info node to reference an object
5:30 - Importance of applying rotation and scale
6:15 - Adjusting object placement point with object origin
7:40 - Adding input options to your geometry node setup
8:40 - Adding random scale to our scatter setup
10:40 - Adding random rotation to your objects
12:00 - Adding the combine XYZ value and changing random value to vector
13:45 - Scattering collections of objects with Geometry Nodes
14:54 - Fixing scaling and placement issues
16:52 - How to save your scatter node as an asset

[@TheCGEssentials]

Hi everyone! Let me know what you think about this tutorial in the comments below! :)

[@izinoq709]

Great tutorial =]

[@victorleitejardim1719]

Amazing!

[@Sixstring65adgmail]

Is there a way to scatter objects only on the horizontal faces. So as soon as there's a slope, objects are not being scatters.

[@myztazynizta]

Slow and detailed tutorials like this are essential. For people who have been using geometry nodes daily since day one, the contents of this video is like 18 seconds of thought and 45 seconds of mouse movement.

[@TheCGEssentials]

You know, I was thinking about this. To DO this would take less than a minute, but the tutorial showing the how's and why's was almost 20 minutes long. I suppose you've got to start with a foundation, then once you know, it doesn't take so long anymore.

[@myztazynizta]

@@TheCGEssentials throw in the fact that a lot of people severely lack a math foundation. I'd love a course that goes over 1st grade to 9th grade math concepts using just blender.

[@VanillaVercetti]

What, you don't want this in a 30 second format on tiktok with annoying music and text labels all over the screen?

[@mahxm7631]

Thank you! Every Geometry Nodes tutorial is warmly welcomed 😀

[@TruthSurge]

This is the clearest tut on geometry nodes and scattering I have seen. I have not gotten far into Blender (maybe 4 weeks). But this looks as if it would work for anything you want to place onto the surface of an object. Flowers in a field. Random people on a street scene. I am definitely going to be building this from your tut and trying it. If I created some plane-based model of some flowers and created say 4 versions for variety, then I could put those into a collection and then get a kind of patchy field of them, I think. Thx!!!!

[@vizdotlife]

Just what I was looking for! Thank you 🙏It's limitless the potential and creativity that could be used with geometry nodes

[@izinoq709]

Hey man, I've started to study Blender recently, I'm glad to see you keep going and thank you for your teachings and videos

[@SpoonerStudios]

Brilliant thank you. Just what I needed, a simple and easy to learn tutorial on Geo Nodes. Very useful.

[@illinoisslots4323]

Amazing tutorial!

[@rjwh67220]

Way to go, Justin, just what I needed. Thanks!

[@attuldesai1584]

This is what I want ❤ Thank you so much.

[@victorebhodaghe3885]

i really appreciate this, thanks!

[@thcarneiro]

THANK YOU! This helped a lot! Your tutorial helped me to finally make my scattering work, and I am close to finish my project. When it is done, I am going to post a link here.

[@bellousow2607]

Amazing as always thank you 🙏 much

[@TruthSurge]

Finally got all this made and the only thing I need to add is a way to paint weights to areas so that the points added get put out MORE in the areas with more weight (ie, large patches of plants instead of too uniformly distributed everywhere). I think I saw someone do that but I'll have to look that up again. I also so people restricting vegetation by height. That sounds like a good idea. thx again for the clear explanation and examples.

[@kodiakbluefox6643]

Thank you very much for this wonderful video! One of the few Blender KZbinrs that I really enjoy watching.

[@ginogarcia8730]

Thanks for this, helps me better understand the first step of getting many objects as points.

[@asthalis]

Very nice illustration of geometry nodes. Thanks from an interested beginner !

[@ranjitzzz100]

Very well explained!!👌😊. Extremely helpful video. Thanks!

[@kinkwongma4909]

Thank you very much, it's a great demonstration of geometry node

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad it was helpful!

[@semoueslati2586]

awesome tutorial bro!~

[@TemoanaD]

Very awesome tutorial, thank you very much

[@ConsolasEight]

It's amazing -- since the UI overhaul Blender has been fun to use, and even stuff I never thought I'd ever get a handle on has become just a simple process of finding a tutorial like this one.

[@Dina_tankar_mina_ord]

been struggeling to grasp geometry nodes since lauch. but this tut really gave me the overview to understand it. I used it to scatter bubbles inside a whiskey glas. thank you.

[@AL-kn7bp]

great stuff!

[@philipmcdonnell7168]

Thanks for sharing this. I’m still getting my head around geometry nodes.

[@RealGaryGibson]

This is a great idea using GeoNodes!

[@irismuddyhehe]

thank you so much! super useful! :)

[@MR-br2uv]

THX!!!

[@roberthintz4017]

This is helpful for creating geometry nodes and assets.

[@antonformanek123]

Awsome tutorial - i like your way and style teaching Blender. I'm working with blender since years and i really missed good tutorials where you can follow the teacher really well - Geometry Node is such a complex topic and non of others could explained it so simple. explained briefly and concisely. Thanks for that :) If you make a blender course let me know :)

[@dontbealoneru]

Thank you.

[@TheCGEssentials]

You're welcome!

[@JasonCummer]

Save my project around the 16 minute mark, thank you so much

[@TheTubejunky]

5:54 Even after applying the rotation and scale to my monkey object the node monkey heads were not the same size UNTIL I also applied the rotation and scale to the plane object I was working with. Hope this helps others if they run into this trouble.

[@miafei]

thank you so much!

[@guinesswolfgg2288]

Thank you

[@pamhampton2588]

Good tutorial, as usual. You might mention the use of Ctrl-A in node setups will take you directly to Search and Add. Saves numerous steps :)

[@user-ms3if5iv6z]

you are the best

[@garenolorenzo5851]

Thanks to you I’m losing my fear from these Nodes. 🎉🎉

[@alexseleniar]

I just want to say one thing clearly........... "SO!" Amazing tutorial, thank you very much!

[@IThinkItsMe]

I normally struggle with your style of tutorials. Yove nailed this one

[@KB-kp2oz]

You need more knowledge in blender then. His tutorials are methodical and on point.

[@IThinkItsMe]

@@KB-kp2oz you didnt read or understand my comment but do me a favour dont choke on your crayons.

[@sujstet]

yes this is awesome... It would be good to distribute using image mask curves and vertex paint too

[@italoguccio]

I'm Italian boy your video are better than those in my language!!! It's Incredible!!!

[@chuctanundaspiderbone5407]

This is a nice intro to geometry nodes. I was wondering, how do you determine where the objects are scattered. For example, I have a terrain and I want a collection of rocks to be in one place and trees in a different place on the same plane. Edit. The answer to this question is in the NEXT video, thanks!

[@arpamor]

Great tutorial! I wonder what to do to align those scattered objects to the other mesh normals?

[@Cursoseducate]

Thanks for the time taken to create the tutorial and share. How could I hide the plane and leave only the random objects visible?

[@ragnarokgamerzz1631]

0:00 bro started choking 0:01 Justin here with deeez

[@taftphotography]

That was super helpful! All of a sudden the geometry nodes are clicking for me!

[@victorleitejardim1719]

Thanks for the tutorial! I was wondering if there was a way to control the scattered objects to never go through each other? And also if there was a way to control the individual density of each object in a collection (e.g. I want a higher density of one kind of tree than the other ones). I'm going to recreate marine habitats in blender for research purposes and take some measurements from the final models, and those two things are kinda getting in the way so far. Would really appreciate some tips :) Thank you

[@spando621]

Great tutorial! What would the advantage be in using geometry modifier for this instead of a particle system? Can you still use weight painting to have it not appear on parts of the objects?

[@_burd]

It would also be really cool to understand how to have conditional scattering. I'm working on something where only certain trees 'grow' beyond certain altitudes (z height?) in the terrain etc

[@TheCGEssentials]

Hmmm...not sure how to do that - I assume it would be something having to do with checking the math on the scatter points it creates and excluding them beyond a certain z-value - it definitely sounds achievable, I'm just not sure exactly how it would work

[@wildguardian]

the only thing that I miss form this awesome method is to make the scattered object not touch or clip into each other no matter the shape. and not by a distance form their central radius.. so we can , for example, scatter a bunch of rocks of different sizes and shaped into a surface... rotating them randomly.. and having them fairly close to each other too. from all tutorials I've seen about this they have elements that don't present a problem when they clip into each other.. (that and tweaking the proportion of each element on a scene..)

[@Ziiio]

Hi CGE, how do I add another collection to the geometry node setup?

[@orphydiancg7759]

what gives you most flexibility and performance using geo nodes or the particle system to scatter low poly tress like these?

[@alexmuli]

Someone how do you scatter different objects on the plane without using collection?I mean each object with its own geometry nodes but scattering on the same plane?😁 Great tutorial by the way!

[@jamescarvill6877]

Hello, is there a way to set the ratio of the objects in the collection? For instance you want to scatter lots of round trees but only a few pointy ones?

[@alizee3687]

Could you please tell me how did you add trees to the workspace?

[@ReinOwader]

How to avoid intersecting instances. I want to cover floor with balls but I don't want them intersecting with each other. I could reduce density, but this doesn't look good. I need more control over those points. Can I remove automatically some instance points based on their proximity to other points. I imaginge points have some id or sequence number on them and then those points are tested how far they are from previous points. If point is too close to other, then it is removed/or ignored from instancing. But as I am new to this, I don't know where to look for help. OK, never mind. Next day I started to explore nodes again I stumbled on Merge by Distance node. This did exactly what I needed.

[@christianmartinez351]

Hello friend, thanks for sharing. I have a question... Can I delimit the dispersion with the GAEA alpha map? Using Geometry Nodes?

[@acmejia]

Thank you! Great tutorial. Now, how does one scatter exactly 2000 (or n) objects? The density is fine but in my project the number is set...

[@minthu6955]

by the way, how about tracking. if any interest on their job. such as van , train in example ?

[@konstantinv7229]

But if I want to organise Susanna heads not randomly, like separate mesh, not connected with the plane (base) mesh?

[@matglk2084]

Great tutorial, however, I have one small question: Do you know how to make the scattered objects float over every face direction of the base object and rotate itself towards the face of the base object?

[@minthu6955]

can you track southeast asia and some sport league.. ( tracking ) from GPS. (MIN)

[@damenhannah1]

I wonder if there would be a way to scatter like this with geometry nodes, but have the individual Suzzannes result in multiple objects within the scene such that they would be individually transformable, editable etc. Like have a geometry node graph "run" and be able to customize the output if that makes sense.

[@reaganmonkey8]

This part is randomization 9:15

[@mokalux]

I am not sure but you may want to click apply geometry node in the modifier property tab?

[@reaganmonkey8]

@@mokalux after that you would need to enter edit mode, select all, click “P”, then click separate by loose parts. Another way would be to click L in edit mode and move the loose parts

[@damenhannah1]

@@reaganmonkey8 That's definitely interesting, but I wish it was based on the original object within the scene collection. Like if the monkey (Suzanne) had glasses that were disjoint geometry from the rest of the face, but still part of the same blender object. I wouldn't want those two to be disconnected, which I imagine would be the case with the method you describe.

[@RichardInteractive]

@@damenhannah1 collection?

[@chachaG-le9yd]

How can I control the density of scattered objects separately?

[@Arno3099]

what if i place an empty or an object in the middle and make all susans point to it? how do we setup that kind of rotation here?

[@blue-pineapple]

How do I make the objects scatter with the maximum number while not overlapping with one another, basically covering up the whole plane.

[@_burd]

So am I right in thinking physics then be added to the scattered objects? To allow those sitting on an incline can 'settle' on the surface rather than clip into the terrain?

[@TheCGEssentials]

I'm not sure I'd do that with physics - most scattering setups I've seen just use the intersection between the object origin and the plane they're scattering on. For MOST applications it doesn't matter if they clip into the plane because you can't see it, assuming your models are set up right

[@HypeShark]

How do you change the scattered things to an image without it making the plane the image.

[@Peter25Z]

I know this was 10 months ago but I have 2 questions if anyone could answer them. 1: After successfully scattering the objects I want, how would I stop it from scattering in a specific path? For example, I'm scattering a bunch of grass blades and I want to have a path with no grass on it. Can I just use weight paint? 2: How do I make them react to wind or other forces? Is it just applying the physics to the singular objects?

[@minthu6955]

object Info on geometry is character contain everything.

[@Penguincop24]

Lets use yours as an example: If I wanted the trees on the hill slanted along the hill's face, how do I do that? Basically right now the trees are all still completely vertical, even when on the hill. I want to be able to use the tree's normals.

[@gayfoole]

When I do this with trees, they always cluster around the trees instead of on the plane. Is there a way to fix this? Thank you!

[@jgstr]

Why can I not find “scatter points across surface” ?? Blender 4.1

[@user-wh4wm3mw7l]

so funny that you made a 3d model of your dog lol. What's your dog's name?

[@TheCGEssentials]

That's Bonnie

[@TheTubejunky]

"first thing you need to do is add a window"?...... CORRECTION: ADD A PLANE* lol

[@TheCGEssentials]

Sigh...ooops

[@TheTubejunky]

@@TheCGEssentials No worrys friend. These tutorials are godsend! Thank you for making them and all your hard work!

[@EoaH]

your content is good info. But please get a low pass filter, your audio hurts my ears (maybe a pop filter too). (before someone says it: I can't put the volume down cos its the frequency)