Blender 4.1: Geometry Nodes

Baking

• The Bake can save and load data from inside node groups so that its inputs don't have to be recomputed (00eaddbd51) (manual).
• The bake node and simulation baking can save references to geometry materials (2d2b087fcf).
  • Baked data-block references can be managed in the "Data-Block References" panel of the node editor sidebar.
• Duplicate data in bakes is deduplicated more effectively, resulting in much smaller bake files in cases with identical geometry or attributes (586fadd6d2).
• Volumes can be baked as part with simulation nodes or the bake node (444e148976).
• Bake caches are no longer lost after undo (7bb1ce1241).

Nodes

• The Musgrave Texture node was replaced by an extended Noise Texture node.
• The Menu Switch node allows creating custom "enum" menus to allow switching between options in the group interface (5ad49f4142).
• The Split to Instances node allows separating a geometry into multiple pieces based on a group ID (5bee6bcedc).
• The Index Switch node allows choosing between an arbitrary number of inputs with an index (8d5aa6eed4).
• The Sort Elements node allows reordering geometry elements based on some sort key. (37b2c12cfa).
• The Fill Curve node now has a "Group ID" input to limit filling to specific curve groups (90de0368cd).
• Node tools are now supported in object mode (3fcd9c9425).
• The Rotate Rotation node replaces the Rotate Euler node as a faster and clearer way to modifier rotations (f4867c0d70).
• Five nodes have been changed to use the rotation socket introduced in the last release (600a133521, 49087a84d0).
  • Distribute Points on Faces
  • Instance on Points
  • Rotate Instances
  • Transform Geometry
  • Object Info
  • Instance Rotation
• The Active Camera input node gives the scene's current camera object (75f160ee96).
• The Set Curve Normal node now has the ability to set free ("custom") normals (f63a7c1ee9).
• The Viewer node overlay can now be displayed as text values directly instead of colors (b85011aee0).
• The Blackbody shader node is supported in geometry nodes (3f485c8bf3).

Modifier

• Node panels are now displayed in the modifier interface, making it much simpler to organize (ad7a5abb2d).
• The panels in the geometry nodes modifier have been reorganized (9df4ffc0c2):
  • The Output Attributes panel is hidden when it is empty.
  • A new Manage panel contains a new Bake and Named Attributes panel.

Performance

• The Extrude Mesh can be over 6 times faster for large meshes with many vertex groups (6aaa74cda9).
• The Shortest Edge Paths node can be at least 60% faster (c106066900).
• The Face Group Boundaries node can be over three times faster (5429e006c8).
• The Edges to Face Groups node can be over seven times faster (274b2dbe5e, 33442e0992).

Auto Smooth

• The mesh "Auto Smooth" option has been replaced by a modifier node group asset (89e3ba4e25).
  • This means geometry nodes now has the ability to set edge sharpness and create split normals without the need for an "original" mesh with the auto smooth option.
    • The behavior of sharp handles in the *Curve to Mesh* node is also controllable, and possible to create from scratch.
  • Blender automatically chooses whether to calculate vertex, face, or face corner normals given the presence of custom normals and the mix of sharp/smooth edges and faces.
  • Face corner "split" normals are calculated when there is a mix of sharp and smooth elements.
  • For more information on the impact to modeling, see the Modeling section.
  • For more information on the Python API changes, see the Python API section.

A node group asset to replace the behavior of the Auto Smooth option