Blender Tutorial: Connect The Dots with Geometry Nodes, The 'Plexus' Effect

This time we'll create the "plexus" effect with Geometry Nodes inside of Blender. Manuel shows you how to abuse geometry to fake a loop, that tests all connections between the points of an incoming point cloud and compares their lengths. Then, only the ones are drawn, that are shorter than a certain threshold, creating an intricate geometric pattern.

00:00 Intro
00:42 Create the point cloud
02:43 Some theory
06:52 Create stand-in points for the loop
08:83 Create the index arrays
11:49 Sample the original points positions
12:40 Create the tests
15:50 Store the original positions to attributes
17:35 Create lines
20:38 Mesh the curves and the points
21:50 Put Colors on the points
24:46 Put Colors on the connections
28:45 Move the points inside of the point cloud

[MicheleoTuTo]

I know this is absolutely irrelevant, but his voice is ASMR for me. His plosive sounds are like walking on paper bubble wrap, and I can't get enough of it <3

[FarukAhmet]

Index manipulation is one of the harder thresholds you need to cross when moving onto intermediate and advanced parts of node construction. It hurts your brain a bit at first but it's also very satisfying when you manage to solve little puzzles like this one. This is a great demonstration of it, thanks! Always look forward to more Geometry Nodes tutorials from you.

[BlenderBob]

We badly needed this 2 years ago. Thanks for the awesome tutorial. Subscribed!

[zboy]

A nice addition to this set-up is to have the connections fade out before they disappear.

Add another Store Named Atrribute after the other four (before Delete Geometry) and name it 'fade'.

Plug the Distance to the Value input of a Map Range (Smoother Step looks best) using these settings:
From Min:0
From Max: plug in your distance greater than value
To Min:0
To max:1

Then place a Mix Shader in Cd material between your BSDF and Material Output and add a Transparent BSDF to the bottom socket and add another Attribute and pluc the Fac to the Mix Shader Fac. Don't forget to use the same name 'fade'.

In Eevee set the material to 'Alpha Blend'.

[HAZD_xyz]

Amazing. i've managed to undestand all and nothing at the same time. I will copy everything with no mercy! Thanks

[AArmstrongC]

🤯 while watching this tutorial my neurons got the plexus effect... just a few connections remain, and most of them got deleted.
Thanks fot the Tutorial!

[kaikizzle]

Honestly one of the best explained tutorials to a geometry nodes topic out there. I appreciate that you explain every logical decision and also which kind of results from the calculations you expect and why. Great!

[TripTilt]

Mind blowing! Absolutely! I need to try that!
And I know something you don't know :) It hurts me to see you copy the nodes and plug everything back in, let me tell you, Ctrl+Shift+D duplicates selected nodes with the input noodles! Also works in shader nodes... you're welcome, keep on making such great tutorials and keep pushing the limits!

[Al_KR_t]

You can also invert distance through color ramp and connect it into "set curve radius" before "curve to mesh" to make short lines thicker and long lines thinner! Great tutorial, thank you. I love that you include theory in the beginning so that I actually understand what is going on!

[theroyalbureau]

I really appreciate the forward momentum and explanation in these tutorials.

I absolutely hate it when someone takes you down one path only to say "this is the WRONG way to do this bit and now I'm going to show you the correct way."

[gowthamnaa]

Your Intro animation is mesmerizing.. watched it a few times before going in for the actual video..

[SKHooligan]

Wow. This is a lot of information but incredibly valuable. I love how thorough and deliberate you are about the way you go about this.

[nenghuo]

Love your GN Video, is always inspiring.

[fakecubed]

Really cool project. I'm confident I could have figured out the math myself and most of the rest, but the sample index nodes and store named attributes nodes is where I would've run into trouble. All the index stuff with fields is so useful but it's always a struggle for me to work out on my own. I really need to start using those nodes more and get more comfortable with them so this sort of thing becomes more intuitive to me. I appreciate the fairly complex but still understandable example. I'll be studying this quite a bit. Thank you.

[nebukam]

Absolutely incredible tutorial, thank you for putting this together. This is a truly brilliant workaround the lack of loop nodes at the moment :)
Some alternative approach at two places:
- The module set-up around 10:40 could be replaced by a "Wrap" function (from the same math node) using `Point Count` as a `Max` input.
- For color/attribute retrieval, this can be done with less node at the end using `Index Sampling` by sampling the position; ultimately allowing to sample and transfer more attributes from the original cloud more easily than duplicating the mapping setup. It's technically an approximation but in this setup it's 100% reliable. Ultimately more maintainable and performant! :D

[tomsharpe]

Simply amazing the power of this free software...thank you Manuel for having such an affable manner making something as complicated as this seem so easy...I could listen to you all day...

[_blender_man_]

One of the best Blender tutorial! Thanks a lot for your work!

[mardvkmedia]

wow, this was such a clever approach. I love this channel. this is killer work!

[OperonArt]

Another excellent showcase Manuel, Entagma is definitely my go to channel for Houdini and Blender!

[ryguy]

You are next level homie. Amazing walk-through of this effect.