What?

Geo Backpack is a set of Geometry node based modifiers / node groups aimed at quick and procedural mesh creation and editing in Blender 3.1. The node groups are specially designed with an aim- Artists focuse on art. You will not need to understand the inner workings of these node groups at all (if you don't want to).

How?

Geo Backpack utilises the power of Blender Geometry nodes to its fullest to provide a convenient workflow to the user. These node groups can be used both in a node tree or in a modifier stack.

Why?

Because this pack is based on node groups rather than python scripting, it is a lot more stable and less prone to breaking after Blender updates. These can also be easily edited if required.

Overview

The pack contains 5 main node groups-

• Smart mask
• Volume solidify
• Planar curve fill
• Non-planar curve fill
• Curve connect
  

1. Smart mask - Similar to in-built mask modifier, but produces smooth edges using a laplacian algorithm.
2. Volume solidify - Uses volumes to add thickness to surfaces. Friendlier to work with compared to the traditional solidify modifier.
3. Planar curve fill - Fills a curve to create a flat surface along the average plane of curve. Supports intersection.
4. Non-planar fill - The filled curve keeps the original position. Does not support intersections.
5. Curve connect- creates a surface by connect connecting curve splines in the order of creation

All these might sound complicacted, but trust me, they are very simple and easy to use (See examples). These node groups can be used to do anything from concepting to creating a base to final render.

There are also four utility node groups for ease of use in the modifier pack -

1. Object reference- Import geometry from another object
2. Collection reference- Import geometry from all the objects of a collection
3. Assign material- Assign material to a geometry. Meant to be used with the "curve" tools.
4. Shade smooth / flat- Set the shading of a geometry

Installation

• Extract the downloaded zip file to the desired location.
• In Blender, navigate to Preferences> File Paths> Asset libraries and click on the "plus" icon

  

  
  
• In the file browser, navigate to the extracted folder "Geo Backpack" (without version marking) and click on "Add new asset library" after entering the folder
• Name the new library "asset backpack"
• Now you can access all the node groups and objects from the asset browser
• I would recommend opening the "asset.blend" file to add the objects and node groups into two different catalogues using the filter tool.

General Instructions

There are three ways to use these node groups-

1. Drag and drop the node groups into a node editor

   

   
   
2. Or, drag and drop the "dummy objects" into the 3D view. You can either reference another object using the object reference modified or edit this object itself.

   

   
   
3. Or, if you have already imported the node group using method 1 or 2, then you can directly add the node group to the modifier stack. You can even also drag and drop the "import all" object to import all the node groups into the current file. (I would recommend doing this upon starting a project)

   

   
   

Use the tooltips to know the use of a particular input. All the inputs with the spreadsheet icon are meant to be used with nose groups.

All the inputs with the "spreadsheet" icon are meant to be used with vertex groups / attributes.

Examples

Image showcasing the 5 main tools

Project created to test the node groups

Performance

The node groups have been designed to have the best performance possible. But due to some limitations of Blender, editing can get slow at times

If multiple volume remesh modifiers are using the same geometry data (i.e. through object / collection reference or alt+D duplicate), all of them will update when trying to update one. So it is advised to ise separate source geometries for different objects

Node groups are evaluated even if the object is hidden, instead use the disable in viewport option

Try and separate geometries into parts if editing is getting slow.

Demo Files

Two demo are included in the zip file along with the main "assets.blend" file. Explore them to learn to learn about the tools!

Feedback and Questions

Use this Blenderartists thread for feedback and questions.