Thank you! And IKR! I think visualizing texture coordinates is profound yet quite simple, yet no one reeeally talks about it. I thought it important to spread for the sheer untold usefulness😊

Agreed! I was impressed

@@nrdkraft Thank you so much please keep going I support you as much as I can

@@user-lm4fr6xl3c Thank you so much my friend! I’ll work on some new material soon☺️

Thanks, I’m glad you find my work useful! I have a series on materials started and more on the way!☺️ As for images textures end caps, are you perhaps referring to texturing end caps on an array modifier?

Aw thank you so much! Glad I could help!😊 (My next tutorials will be slower paced for sure😆)

I appreciate it so much!😃 And I’m glad that you are starting your journey with Blender! Yes, this tutorial is a more advanced topic. I have plans for more tutorials and my own animated content, but what tutorial(s) or explanations would you like to see? Perhaps something you haven’t been able to find elsewhere?

Thank you so much, man!😄 I certainly hope that I can entertain and teach/help people as much as possible.☺️

Wow, thank you so much, man!😌 I certainly hope to benefit and entertain people for as long as possible!

Oh thank you so much for the kindness! And you’re welcome!

Thank you so much!☺️

Thank you! I’m glad you found it useful!😁

Thank you!🥹 If it’s useful to people that’s what I hope for😊

Aw thank you I appreciate that! I try to make things understandable!

Thank you so much! I hope I can produce some new tutorials soon!😊

Thank you! I’m glad I was able to provide something that can prove useful somehow! I hope you find success in developing your own technique😁

Well thanks! Understanding it is such a revelation which I wanted others to have too😊

Thank you so very much!☺️

Thanks man, that means slot!😃

Thank you so much! I hope it will prove useful to you!😄

Thank you so much and I’m glad I could help! I hope whatever your project is will turn out awesome!🙂

You’re welcome!☺️

Thank you so much!!☺️

Thank You, sir!😊

Hope it’s useful!😁

That is indeed true! And that could be done if one is planing on doing something like this very simply once. Something like this technique, however, has wider applications or potential. After a Group Node like this is saved as an asset, one could use it for quick application, even on multiple unique objects, without the need to mess with UVs every single time, just add the node.😁 Besides that, this technique is more fit for situations where one needs a procedural texture rather than a flat image texture. Ultimately, tho, this tutorial may constitute more of an exercise, where one may learn these techniques and apply and extend or build upon them to something even more widely useful. Something like easily texturing trees procedurally with fewer clicks and less work in the future overall. In the end, this is perhaps more of a brain-teaser which I hope can serve as inspiration to others so inclined in their projects in anyway way they may find such ideas useful

@@nrdkraft ok, well, I guess if it saves you from having to do work for every texturing so that you can animate or move the mesh w/o redoing the texture each time, that'd be good. There's apparently so many ways to do things I'm finding it hard to remember ONE GOOD WAY. I keep forgetting the shortcuts because I never wrote them down. Then I end up searching long menu lists. Hey, can you write me a geo nodes asset that will APPLY ALL @#$@#$ TRANSFORMS every time I transform an object? :) Nice tut. Hey, I'm serious. Now, I know that might be more of a python script thing but geez, if I had a nickel for every time that bit me and caused me to wonder for an hour why my stuff wasn't working......

Thank you for your specific input!😉 Only seeing my work through my own involved eyes it really helps to see it from someone else’s perspective! In my future videos I hope to minimize and simplify any necessary explanations perhaps with a short visual to make it even quicker to grasp for those who need to. And at first I imagined that having groups already made gives something external to aim for and to have ease of plugging in inputs as we go instead of trying to remember and find the values we want to expose at the end. However, reconsidering based on your input, in actuality, this isn’t the process in which we normally construct node groups because it isn’t intuitive. Thus I will be altering my approach for future node-based tutorials to be suitable. Thank you SO much, I appreciate the help!!😁

Thanks so much! It’d be great if something better than this will come default in Geo Nodes. Even then hopefully knowing such techniques will prove applicable for people in other ways😊

Thank you! I hope to look professional, but you know what they say about glitter and gold😂

I’d be happy too! That’s probably a subject that would be suited well for a livestream, so I may do that this Friday evening😊

Thank you! I certainly will!😁 Any suggestions for specific things in Geo Nodes or otherwise you like to see in tutorials?

@@nrdkraft I think simulation and the new hair system are both unexplored so that would be welcome, but pretty much anything interesting in geometry nodes would be great. I've seen some tutorials where geometry nodes are over-used, e.g.: doing things that are only needed once (and that could be done easier using conventional modeling) purely for the sake of demonstration, but my preference would be for more practical real-world examples. Just my opinion though, you're the creator so grateful for anything you produce 🙂

@@petedejager Wonderful, thanks for the input! I get what you mean, Geometry Nodes should be used to make things easier, and I definitely plan to put simulation nodes to good use in my long-term projects. Plus for right now my strong suit is Shader Nodes. I hadn’t thought of hair so much immediately since it’s still rather new to me as well but I will need to get some good practical use out of it as time goes on too. I hope to share alot of practical stuff or out-of-the-box thinking regarding all those for sure! Thanks man! Anything else you think of, just let me know!😁

Thank you so much! I try my best☺️

You’re welcome!😊

That’s a good question! It depends on how I understand the result you’re looking for, but I’m sure there is a way to do any setup you want. Even if your goal doesn’t require an actual curve object, you can certainly manipulate a stripe or stripes of light to make it curved just about anyway you want. For example using a math node set to something like add or subtract over the input into your ramp, then using anything, like a wave texture, noise texture, a radial texture, or a manipulated vector or gradient. This will nudge different parts of the stripe over, or up or down.

Thank you for your comment! And the answer to that is yes!😊 It involves a much simpler version of the process in this tutorial, where we take the profile curve’s parameter-like the circumference vector-and leave it (basically) as it is INSTEAD of converting it into the X and Y as we did here. In this scenario the length of the curve could be used as the Y instead of the Z and that circumference could be used as the X (or vice versa) leaving the Z empty and black. I just searched and found there are already a few tutorials on YT that do just that; I don’t think a link in this comment will work but if you search “blender curve uv map” you should find a few different tutorials that use Geo Nodes in just that way!😁 However, if the tutorials you find are not helpful for your needs, please let me know!

Great question! I actually should expand upon this tutorial to include more profile shapes. So there are different options, all of which would also change how we setup the texture coordinates for the initial shape too. You can use the Curve Line if you want the profile to be literally like a plane with zero thickness. From there instead of all the setup we have inside the Profile Vectors group in this tutorial, you should be able to replace all that with just the Curve Parameter “Factor” output plugged into a single Capture Attribute node which would feed into just the X value which goes into the final Capture Named Attribute node, leaving the Y slot empty and set to 0. Or vise-versa on the X and Y if you so choose. I assume this is what you want, but if instead you do want it to have some thickness by being a very flat rectangle or a very flat circle or oval, there are options for both of those as well. Let me know!

Oh that’s interesting! Yeah in order to accommodate an effect you want, you may have to incorporate the principles of this node setup either outside of the group created here, or in a new one more accommodating to your needs. In all honestly I don’t work with curves much beyond the experimentation I did for this tutorial lol

Glad I could be of some use!😄

Thank you so much!😃 And I’m glad you had fun with this! And I’ll plan on showing how I did textures like those! There’s so many ways of doing them and using similar techniques for many other applications, so I’m thinking rather than a tutorial, I may just challenge myself make different procedural textures on camera just for fun and for others to learn from. Maybe on live? We’ll see.😊

@@nrdkraft I too would like to thank you very much for the tutorial. I've always had a love-hate relationship with Blender. Seems like every time I try to get back into it, the darn thing can't help but remind me of the *hate* part by flying in the face of my intuition after mere minutes of use. While, again, it's great to have members of the community such as yourself filling in the gaps and generously sharing their findings, something as elementary as mapping coordinates on a meshed curve should happen *automatically,* instead relying on an excruciatingly convoluted node-spaghetti-jungle of a process that requires viewing of a 25 minute tutorial to learn how to do. (This is to say nothing of the lengths you must've gone through to figure it out in the first place before you could even share it). I want to emphasize that by no extent of the imagination is this a comment on the duration or the quality of the tutorial itself (which is superb), but rather the problem that has been plaguing Blender since inception. I've very cognizant and feel terrible for looking an open source gift horse in the mouth, but it's impossible not to feel the pain as an aspiring migrant from commercial software.

@@IllusionSector I can sympathize! It’s true we all have different perspectives, and thus different expectations, and different priorities which necessitate different practicalities. For myself that’s a reason I love open-source; being able to almost feel like I’m able to make parts of the tool myself-not so much liking the “having to make it myself” part, although I do kinda enjoy that, but actually liking the feeling of “making it the way I want” part. However at the end of the day I have to agree with you; some functions like this really, practically should be possible by default. And it may seem of little comfort that someday it might me. But I might put forth that that’s another reason (imho) that Blender can be great; if something isn’t default, someone can make it default in a way. Altho that depends on if that one makes it available for others. Thus, altho I have the asset from this tutorial available on Patreon, enough people have expressed a desire for this asset without having to emulate the tutorial (culminating in your comment now) that I’m seriously considering making this asset freely available, maybe on Gumroad or something. Even tho I have the goal of gaining support through YouTubing as a career, I value making other’s lives better more than money. Because like yourself, I would prefer functionality without having to jump thru hoops, be that having to make a node-spaghetti-jungle or be it paying someone. And I would like to facilitate that for others too.

​@@nrdkraft Thanks for taking the time to reply. _that’s a reason I love open-source; being able to almost feel like I’m able to make parts of the tool myself_ Oh, absolutely. As an After Effects user with a heavily custom-expression-driven workflow I can certainly appreciate the ability to make one's own tools. Also, as intimidating as a web of nodes can be, it's nothing compared to something as un-visual as JavaScript code. So if someone like me gets this frustrated, I can only imagine how the less technically inclined must feel. As a side note, that fact that a free piece of software of Blender's magnitude could even exist at all is miracle and a testament to human generosity. Thanks again for your work and good lick on KZfaq.

Aw thank you! I like free, so I figure others do too😆

You’re absolutely right. At the time I tried to make the video as short as possible, but since posting I’ve realized that isn’t a suitable method for teaching, thus my next videos are more naturally paced. But thank you for confirming that feedback! And I apologize for the inconvenience in your viewing experience. I may update this tutorial in the future with better pacing and more.

Ooh that’s a great question. Sadly I don’t think so as what we do in this tutorial only crests data for vertices themselves. To do something similar for volume I think we would have to use volume objects in Geo Nodes, probably manipulating the density of three different volume objects and then combining them as XYZ data after the fact in the shader, and even then I don’t think we could easily transfer the data from a curve to a volume. But never say never! I’ll have to experiment with it and see if something effective can be done!

@@nrdkraft Thanks a lot for you answer ! I find you lasts videos very interesting and easy to understand (even if i admit it's too advanced for me now) you explain things very well, very good job 💪 Can't wait to see if you find a way to figure this out

@@TheBlaster199 Thank you so much!😊 I’m always glad if I can explain things the best way I can. And I’ll try to experiment with that when I can get a chance!😁

Thanks for the input! The original recording was an hour, so I went crazy editing to get it shorter, but perhaps that wasn’t the best choice. I’d be happy to help you any further way I can to make it easier to solve your problem!

@@nrdkraft Honestly I think I'd have been very happy to watch the hour version , as I said a problem I'd struggled with for years, it would have been worth the investment. Appreciate some audience might not have the attention span for that though. Thanks for the offer on additional help but atm having to wait on my PC to catch up with the latest versions of Blenders minimum specs( Graphics mem, and OS version). I'll be getting back to rendering later in the year I hope with new PC.

@@tdsdave I’ve had tutorial ideas lined up and this is the first one I’ve made so I’m certainly grateful to get outside opinions so I can improve my next ones! I did give into the idea that I need to cater to the diminishing attention span of today, but I think it would actually be more effective to invest my attention into viewers who really want to pay attention and understand, so I will certainly allow myself to slow down in the next ones.😊 I’m already planning some updates to this tutorial with a better version of the group node, so I’ll make it my goal to do so later in the year!😁

@@nrdkraft All sounds very cool , good luck with the channel.

@@tdsdave Thanks! And I hope you get the best PC very soon!

Ooh that’s a very good one! So, it depends on personal preference, but depending on your setup, I’d say the easiest way might be to use whatever means you’re using to corrugate your curve (if it’s something like a displacement map in Geo Nodes) plug that into its own Store Named Attribute which you can call upon in the Shaders, and manipulate that attribute there however you want (like putting it thru a ColorRamp and maybe a Mix Color). However there are other methods if your setup is much different. Please let me know!

Yes! The group we create here and the tree within works with a Curve Line as is!😊 We can achieve this the way we do with the Spiral at 21:40. Does that answer your request?😊

The process can be basically the same, but each shape you use-like the star, rectangles or open shapes-could have slightly different tweaks which are up to your preference anyway. I’m not at my computer to check the exact terminology in Blender right now, but for the star, the resolution will need to be divided by two and plugged into the number of points (how many arms the star has). We might expose the size (or outer vs, inner radius?) of the points as well and along with that we might find a way to select the inward and outward points separately and give them different values in the “radius” part of the setup if we want the points or arms of the star to slide through the texture (like adjusting the radius) as we make the arms stick out further or flatter. For open shapes (rectangle or curved shaped that don’t go all the way around and are open on one side) the part where we divide by the resolution is probably unnecessary depending on preferences, and the pi/sin/cosin parts of the node tree will likely be different but again it depends on desired effect. And of course if you make your own curve profile shape, the setup here will be completely dependent on what you want. I would like to explore these techniques in a future video. I might even consider doing a live to get feedback or requests as I demonstrate.

No, I meant it like taking a complex object from the scene and using that as a curve profile. With the complexity ranging from several circles to entirely custom shapes.

@@drewh9717 Ohh that’s what you mean. That’s a good question. I’d have to test that out myself, but my first instinct would be to use the vector output of a Position (separating and using two of the X, Y, and Z attributes) in place of the Spline Parameter for the “X” and “Y” attributes we make. Probably directly without anything like the dividing an pi/sin/cousin stuff we did here, aside from using the radius to multiply them which is done outside that profile group here anyway.

I am also interested in finding out how to do this with a custom profile. When I follow your advice it works fine while the curve is stretched into a straight line, but as soon as I have the bend the curve in more than one dimension I get some very unexpected geometry.@@nrdkraft

@@KylePeters-tx8qb Interesting. I’d be interested to know what kind of custom profile you are using. Would it be possible to see image or video of your setup? I’m available for direct messages on Instagram by the same @ as here on KZfaq.

Oh very interesting! I’ll have to check that in 4.0! [checks] Oh you’re right! It looks like they fixed this for us since I recorded this, thanks for alerting me to this!

Yup, tried this in blender 4.1 and the subtract 1 from the resolution and divide it by the original number seems to be unnecessary now

@@nrdkraft Thank you for this solid tutorial. I came across the video when I was getting into blender successfully this year but the shorthand references to hotkeys and mode changes were too fast for me initially. Now that I've had time to understand a lot of the modes and standard hotkeys, this was a very digestible tutorial and especially was impressive to see the visual explanation of the coordinate space at the beginning.

@@snapxynith Awesome! I’m glad I could be helpful! And welcome to the Blender community! I hope you enjoy being a part of it☺️

Thank you so much!😄

I'm glad it's useful!😊 It's still a new features and I need reminders on using it so I figure it'll help others too😁

What kind of texture are you trying to map using this tutorial?

You’re welcome!☺️ Ohh I’m afraid I wouldn’t know; I don’t use Unreal, I’m sorry.😔

@@nrdkraft thanks)

Yeah, so the *X* and the *Z* are fine, but the *Y* just shows solid black. Another thing that just came to my attention is that after you make a copy of that *X Vector* frame with its contents (which, btw, was presumably meant to be re-labeled *Y Vector* ) and then connect the Value output of the *Fix Factor* Multiply node to the Value input of the Map Range node inside that duplicate of the *X Vector* frame, the connective noodle on my end appears solid, as opposed to dashed like in the video. Could this be a useful clue?

ANOTHER UPDATE: More accurately, as I found later still, I'm only able to have a dashed noodle going out of the Value output of the Multiply node inside the *Fix Factor* in the first connection I make. The second connective curve only appears solid for some reason. In other words, if I connect it to the Map Range Value slot inside the *X Vector* frame, it'll be dashed, but after I then connect it to that of the *Y Vector,* it's now solid - and vice versa. Hope this makes sense. My work-around is to make a point on the noodle of the first connection and branch it into the 2nd one (without having two noodles going out directly). Could I have stumbled upon a bug by any chance? Unless I'm missing something, this feels really anomalous.

@@IllusionSectorOh this is a strange phenomenon. I don’t believe I have ever seen a dashed line in nodes in Blender; any appearance of that in this video likely being a compression artifact or something. Perhaps this is a feature of the latest Blender 3.6? Which I haven’t gotten to test this file on yet. If using a reroute works for you to solve this that’s good, hopefully that makes the Y vector appear correctly. I’ll try to test this myself today when I get a chance to actively evaluate the issue you might be having.

@@nrdkraft _I don’t believe I have ever seen a dashed line in nodes in Blender;_ I was referring to the dashed noodles that connect slots. There are everywhere in the video and definitely not compression artifacts. Are we talking about the same thing?

@@IllusionSector ohh well would ya look at that. I just opened the file and nodes do have dashed lines now I just never noticed it, perhaps subconsciously dismissing it as antialiasing or something. Okay, you’re right, they are dashed, but if one of your node noodles is solid while being a grey factor type I don’t know why. I’m wondering if you could show a screenshot that maybe I can identify with. Are you on Instagram? If so you could message a screenshot to @nrdkraft there and I can perhaps help more effectively

Yeah, they never invite the nerd to the party. But that’s okay. I’ll just make a tutorial to distract myself and tune out the sound. Wasn’t very successful tho😆

@@nrdkraft haha, great tutorial though. Man you sure know your stuff.

@@Avetorro Oh thanks so much man!😁 Thanks for the input too! I’ll try to get the neighbors to hold it down or put something good on during my text tutorials😂

Yeah with a two meter wide head, I shudder to think what kind of damage she in her entirety could do taking a walk through the city!😦

Awesome! If that works better for you, go for it! you excel at something I am lacking in!😁 Altho I apologize if my explanations in this tutorial are quite conflated. Still a long way to go in learning how to make my tutorials intuitive.😅

Very good question! I did find a tutorial here on KZfaq that does that, but I think I might know a slightly better method. If so I’ll have to make my own tutorial for rounded ends on curves😊

Yeah, it’s quite the ordeal ain’t it? And I probably made it look harder than it has to be.