Blender Geometry Nodes

2026-ongoing | Computational design | B3D

Basics

Blender version: Blender 4.5 LTS (the last Intel Mac compatible)

Basic commands:

G: Move
R: Rotate
S: Scale
G/R/S + x,y,z: axis-controlled transformations
N: Sidebar for numerical input
Shift + D: Duplicate
Tab: Edit mode
Corner drag: split the viewport panel, position the mouse over the top-right corner of the panel until + sign appears
Right-click the boarder between panels: Join Right/Left

Rendering

Set a camera
- Look through the camera: Numpad 0 or Camera icon at the right
- N to open the side menu panel > View tab
- Check the Camera to View
- Frame the view as standard viewport (camera follows)
- Uncheck the Camera to View
Adjust camera settings
- Select the camera first
- Properties tab (at bottom right) > Data tab (only appears when a camera selected)
  - Focal length etc.
Add lights
- Shift + A add area light
- Move and rotate lights
- Select the light and go to Properties tab (green light bulb icon)
- Settings
  - Power, color, size etc.
Set background
- Go to World tab (red globe icon)
- Surface > Background
Set render settings
- Go to Output tab (printer icon)
  - Set resolution, frame rate, frame range (Frame start - End)
  - Output > File format > PNG sequence or FFmpeg video for animation (FFmpeg for short test)
  - Encoding > Container: MPEG-4 (Default: Matroska)
- Go to Scene tab (camera icon)
  - Render engines > Eevee or Cycles
  - Render > Max Samples, Time Limit for setting quality
Render
- Go to Render menu at the top (File / Edit / Render …) > Render Animation

Geometry nodes:

Geometry nodes are “modifier”, run on an object
Go to Modifier at the right, Add Modifier > Geometry Nodes
Or got to Geometry Nodes panel, click New at the top
Group Input > Processes > Group output
Shift + A: Add modifier
X: delete
To disconnect, grab a connector and release
Drag a component on a connector to insert it
M on a node: temporarily mute

Examples

2D grid
- Grid, Mesh to Points: generate a plane mesh and convert it into points
3D lattice
- Mesh Line, another Instance on Points: multiply the grid a long Z axis > 3D lattice
- Instance on Points: generate instance (lightweight references) on points > 2D grid
- Set Material
3D lattice using mathematical process
- Mesh Line: Generate vertices (count: 1000, offset: 100 mm) > output as a mesh > Mesh to Points: convert the mesh into points
- Index: get the index number of the element currently being processed like i in for i in range(N): (this case, Mesh Line: 0, 1, 2, 3, … 999) (Document)
- To create 10 x 10 x 10 lattice points, do some math:
```
   X goes 0–9 repeatedly             : X = i % 10
   Y goes 0–9 per block              : Y = (i / 10) % 10
   after 100 numbers go one layer up : Z = i / 100
```
- Combine XYZ > Set Position
- Instance on Points to generate cube instances
Blender’s field system hides the loop and hides the list unlike Python or Grasshopper
- Unlike Python, it does not perform 3 loops
  points = [] for z in range(10): for y in range(10): for x in range(10): points.append((x, y, z))
- Unlike Grasshopper, there is no data tree, everything is flattened.
Perforated ball (based on Geometry Nodes Ep02 – Working with Geometry)
- Ico Sphere > Dual Mesh: create “dual” (turning faces into vertices, vertices into faces) docs
- Extrude Mesh (Offset: 0.0) > Scale Elements (Scale: 0.9)
- Delete Geometry (Selection: connect Top from Extrude Mesh)
- Extrude Mesh + Flip Faces > Join Geometry: create extruded and closed faces > Merge by Distance: merge edges
- Subdivide Surface > Set Shade Smooth

3D cubes

This is a test randomly removing cubes as the initial state of the CA.

Ref: