Often people asked me about status of Animation Nodes (AN) development and usage in relative to Geometry Nodes. As this is a very tricky question, I hope the following paragraph can serve as a very good reference/clarification in case people brought it up again:
The short answer is that I no longer make tutorials and recommend people to learn AN, although I still use AN occasionally.
1. Geometry Nodes are technically never meant to replace AN because they work on different hierarchy. AN is for object, Geo Node is for geometry. While there are many overlaps between them, there are also certain functions only available in AN, such as controlling group of objects, light parameters, and cameras. AN can also help integrate group of objects with existing simulation system in blender. In contrast, Geo Node requires you to build everything from scratch. Other things only available in AN include working with audio, MIDI, Text data, etc. An example of AN controlling lights can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoJq1.... Note that it's not just instancing light, but also controlling the light powers and potentially other settings.
A concept called "Collection Nodes" was discussed many years ago to actually replace AN functionality, and I honestly don't see it coming within 10 years.
2. Jacques was the original developer of AN, and he is one of the core developer in Geo Node team. Does it mean learning AN will help me understanding Geo Nodes?
NO, their working logics differ a lot, and honestly I think Geo Node is more convenient to work with despite missing native "Falloff" Nodes. That's why I made my mograph node group presets and used them in my tutorials.
3. If Jacques went to develop Geo Nodes now, does it mean AN is dead without development?
Actually Jacques left AN many many years ago. When I joined in 2018 learning blender he was already gone from AN development AFAIK. The development was continued by Omar, who also became a blender developer focusing on Cycle and Viewport Compositor.
Currently AN no longer receives any New Features. However AN is actively maintained with bug fixes by Omar.
While many add-ons became unusable as blender keeps updating its python API / python library version, AN is always upto date with the newest blender version.
In fact, about two month ago I found a bug and Omar solved it pretty quickly.
From this point of view, people can always feel comfortable using it.
At the end, the reason I no longer teach about AN is because most stuff can be done in Geo nodes easier and faster. Learning AN will be more difficult and time consuming and it does not help people learning Geo nodes anyway. However, for people who needs it, AN sometimes can still be un-replaceable and is actively maintained with versioning and bug fixes.
I updated the add-on a little bit. just to improve some search experience in 4.0. Since the add-on is not auto-updating as the presets, this means you may want to go to gumroad page to download and re-install the add-on for 4.0. bradley-animations.gumroad.com/l/jSyDM Note this is NOT mandatory, but it may avoid some tiny bad experiences specific since 4.0. And if the updated add-on is broken, please let me know.
A side note is that my throat gets burned out these days. I will likely take a rest until next year. If I were to make any recordings, they must be [Noding], which contains no audio 99.999% of time. (up to now I only have 1 voiced-tutorial left un-published.)
Will I make tutorials about Simulation Branch? I am not sure yet.
Here are some summary of my Thoughts about Tutorials of Geometry Nodes Simulation Branch:
►1. I returned to Blender after a long break due to hype in the community about the Simulation Branch, but I am skeptical of hype in the community as people often get excited about things they are not familiar with. Examples include the Geometry Nodes in 2.93 and the "Tessellate Mesh node" which never made it to the Master branch.
►2. I dislike how many people post animations made in the Simulation Branch and claim they were made in 3.5 Alpha without mentioning the Simulation Branch. It gives the impression that the Simulation Branch will be in 3.5 Alpha, when it has already been decided it will not be.
►3. The Simulation Branch is experimental and unstable, and is updated as few as once a month. I do not recommend using it for projects. It sounds reasonable to learn the new system early, but it is important to remember that it is still under development and may change. In the past, Blender 3.0 ended up being very different from "3.0 Field Branch".
►4. The "Simulation Nodes" themselves are not complicate, but it is about how to use existing Blender knowledge in a simulation. If you do not have a good understanding of Blender already, the Simulation Branch will not add much.
►5. I discourage people from "abusing" the Simulation Branch as it can be performance-expensive and not live-updated, making it time-consuming to work with as you have to run a simulation to see the changes in the result. It is better to have a good understanding of the basics of geometry nodes, problem-solving skills, and choose the best method for your specific problem. https://youtu.be/NeD6O8wkzcU
Do we need to know how a car is built in order to drive it?
It's not the first people discuss/complain my usage of presets within the tutorial. Neither my first time to respond to it. Here I want to take this opportunity to talk about it again so that potentially more people can hear about the full stories in texts.
Why do I uses presets? My presets are combinations of several most commonly used nodes for commonly desired functions, I group them up to speed up the workflow. Instead of continuously pulling them from the system, change the settings and doing the linkages. Using presets is a part of my real-life workflow and I shared them for free regardless.
Why do I recommend people using presets? Because it's tedious and a wasting of time to keep adding nodes and change settings for basic functions. It's also easier to maintain the node tree if you can group a function in one node instead of hundreds of math node. Also some presets are made to overcome temporary limitations of blender, such as which I've explained in: https://youtu.be/EJQClQk9hvQ. Note the limitation, that instance can't contain attributes, is nearly resolved in 3.1 alpha. Meaning it's rather a waste of time for you to learn any workaround to do it in 3.0. However, should I do all tutorials in the most advanced 3.1?
People once suggested to link tutorials/manuals talking about each of presets under my tutorial, while they also mentioned the side effect of doing so. Here's my response: If people know Geometry Nodes well enough, people can easily figure out how the most of these presets are built. If they don't, don't they need to spend time on the tutorials for every blender nodes as well? Despite manual of blender 3.0, why do people still need to watch tutorials instead of making their own animations? Is blender manual helpful enough to make them good animators?
Basically, my answer is that: You DO NOT need to know how a car is built in order to drive it, just like you don't need to know how blender is coded in order to use it. If people can accept blender, which is a pre-coded software, they should easily accept presets, which are pre-made group nodes for basic functions. Many people aren't familiar with Geometry node as well as my presets. It will be better to forget about the prejudice against the usage of node groups and try to learn them in practice. Another practical reason that I can't make manuals for presets is that, I don't have time.
It's audience freedom to decide whether they watch my tutorials or not. In fact, I've never asked audience to "like my video and subscribe to my channel". It's also not my obligation to make tutorials for the community, neither do I have commitment like in patreon or so. I also do not live with the money I earn from youtube or gumroad; actually the money I earn is as minimal as 1/1000 of my tuition fee of a single semester, and/or I rather earn less money by spending time making these tutorials. Therefore, please use these free presets and free tutorials wisely.
At the end: I will be happy if people can extract core principles from my tutorials and reproduce these animations without presets. They do not need to watch my full tutorials once they get the idea, even though this means I earn less money. As being said, I am not doing these for money, so please use these free presets and tutorials wisely.
If you have any question or suggestion, you can contact me at: discord.gg/TzuN6sPxQU
For whatever reasons, there's a server being made for discussion and answering questions about nodes: discord.gg/TzuN6sPxQU Also, there's a new series coming out as "geometry nodes modeling practice", which intends to do tiny and dumb stuff which may or may not be practical, such as a keycap from keyboard. If you have any idea feel free to share in the comment/discord/my facebook at www.facebook.com/NeisBradley.
I'm shortly coming back to make tutorials. Thus hereby I want to ask you one question. Your answer will be very much appreciated.
Earlier there were multiple instances that people asked me whether I hold an animation-nodes specific server. My answer was no. The main question here is whether you wish to have an animation-nodes specific server for discussion? Likely I won't make it as fancy as many other servers, but if there was such a server, what would you expect from that server? Perhaps you may see this poll elsewhere, please don't vote multiple times for fair statistical result.
A note to add: although I said animation-nodes specific server, but I will be happy to discuss Geometry Nodes or others as well.
The preset library V2.3 has been pre-released at: gum.co/BmlCe. It's possible to use it to follow certain new noding such as "circuit generator", etc. Further announcement and explanations will be made in a more future date.
I am going to have finals. Important updates related to preset library / others will be announced...hopefully within 2020. There is no guarantee. So I may actually see you again in 2021 as well.
new preset library for 2.90 may be released before Oct. 2020. I don't have time to do the bug fix and maintainence specifically for AN in 2.83 LTS. Therefore I may keep the preset library at V1.2 or update slightly to V1.3 for AN version 2.1. But I will do most of work on blender 2.9+ and AN version 2.2 from now on.
Bradley Animation
Often people asked me about status of Animation Nodes (AN) development and usage in relative to Geometry Nodes. As this is a very tricky question, I hope the following paragraph can serve as a very good reference/clarification in case people brought it up again:
The short answer is that I no longer make tutorials and recommend people to learn AN, although I still use AN occasionally.
1. Geometry Nodes are technically never meant to replace AN because they work on different hierarchy. AN is for object, Geo Node is for geometry. While there are many overlaps between them, there are also certain functions only available in AN, such as controlling group of objects, light parameters, and cameras. AN can also help integrate group of objects with existing simulation system in blender. In contrast, Geo Node requires you to build everything from scratch. Other things only available in AN include working with audio, MIDI, Text data, etc. An example of AN controlling lights can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoJq1.... Note that it's not just instancing light, but also controlling the light powers and potentially other settings.
A concept called "Collection Nodes" was discussed many years ago to actually replace AN functionality, and I honestly don't see it coming within 10 years.
2. Jacques was the original developer of AN, and he is one of the core developer in Geo Node team. Does it mean learning AN will help me understanding Geo Nodes?
NO, their working logics differ a lot, and honestly I think Geo Node is more convenient to work with despite missing native "Falloff" Nodes. That's why I made my mograph node group presets and used them in my tutorials.
3. If Jacques went to develop Geo Nodes now, does it mean AN is dead without development?
Actually Jacques left AN many many years ago. When I joined in 2018 learning blender he was already gone from AN development AFAIK. The development was continued by Omar, who also became a blender developer focusing on Cycle and Viewport Compositor.
Currently AN no longer receives any New Features. However AN is actively maintained with bug fixes by Omar.
While many add-ons became unusable as blender keeps updating its python API / python library version, AN is always upto date with the newest blender version.
In fact, about two month ago I found a bug and Omar solved it pretty quickly.
From this point of view, people can always feel comfortable using it.
At the end, the reason I no longer teach about AN is because most stuff can be done in Geo nodes easier and faster. Learning AN will be more difficult and time consuming and it does not help people learning Geo nodes anyway. However, for people who needs it, AN sometimes can still be un-replaceable and is actively maintained with versioning and bug fixes.
1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 12
View 0 replies
Bradley Animation
I updated the add-on a little bit. just to improve some search experience in 4.0.
Since the add-on is not auto-updating as the presets, this means you may want to go to gumroad page to download and re-install the add-on for 4.0.
bradley-animations.gumroad.com/l/jSyDM
Note this is NOT mandatory, but it may avoid some tiny bad experiences specific since 4.0.
And if the updated add-on is broken, please let me know.
The add-on code is also available on github: github.com/Gerstmann-Bradley/Bradley-Presets-Add-o…
A side note is that my throat gets burned out these days. I will likely take a rest until next year.
If I were to make any recordings, they must be [Noding], which contains no audio 99.999% of time.
(up to now I only have 1 voiced-tutorial left un-published.)
1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 20
View 5 replies
Bradley Animation
Will I make tutorials about Simulation Branch? I am not sure yet.
Here are some summary of my Thoughts about Tutorials of Geometry Nodes Simulation Branch:
►1. I returned to Blender after a long break due to hype in the community about the Simulation Branch, but I am skeptical of hype in the community as people often get excited about things they are not familiar with. Examples include the Geometry Nodes in 2.93 and the "Tessellate Mesh node" which never made it to the Master branch.
►2. I dislike how many people post animations made in the Simulation Branch and claim they were made in 3.5 Alpha without mentioning the Simulation Branch. It gives the impression that the Simulation Branch will be in 3.5 Alpha, when it has already been decided it will not be.
►3. The Simulation Branch is experimental and unstable, and is updated as few as once a month. I do not recommend using it for projects. It sounds reasonable to learn the new system early, but it is important to remember that it is still under development and may change. In the past, Blender 3.0 ended up being very different from "3.0 Field Branch".
►4. The "Simulation Nodes" themselves are not complicate, but it is about how to use existing Blender knowledge in a simulation. If you do not have a good understanding of Blender already, the Simulation Branch will not add much.
►5. I discourage people from "abusing" the Simulation Branch as it can be performance-expensive and not live-updated, making it time-consuming to work with as you have to run a simulation to see the changes in the result. It is better to have a good understanding of the basics of geometry nodes, problem-solving skills, and choose the best method for your specific problem.
https://youtu.be/NeD6O8wkzcU
2 years ago | [YT] | 2
View 3 replies
Bradley Animation
Do we need to know how a car is built in order to drive it?
It's not the first people discuss/complain my usage of presets within the tutorial. Neither my first time to respond to it. Here I want to take this opportunity to talk about it again so that potentially more people can hear about the full stories in texts.
Why do I uses presets? My presets are combinations of several most commonly used nodes for commonly desired functions, I group them up to speed up the workflow. Instead of continuously pulling them from the system, change the settings and doing the linkages. Using presets is a part of my real-life workflow and I shared them for free regardless.
Why do I recommend people using presets? Because it's tedious and a wasting of time to keep adding nodes and change settings for basic functions. It's also easier to maintain the node tree if you can group a function in one node instead of hundreds of math node. Also some presets are made to overcome temporary limitations of blender, such as which I've explained in: https://youtu.be/EJQClQk9hvQ. Note the limitation, that instance can't contain attributes, is nearly resolved in 3.1 alpha. Meaning it's rather a waste of time for you to learn any workaround to do it in 3.0. However, should I do all tutorials in the most advanced 3.1?
People once suggested to link tutorials/manuals talking about each of presets under my tutorial, while they also mentioned the side effect of doing so. Here's my response: If people know Geometry Nodes well enough, people can easily figure out how the most of these presets are built. If they don't, don't they need to spend time on the tutorials for every blender nodes as well? Despite manual of blender 3.0, why do people still need to watch tutorials instead of making their own animations? Is blender manual helpful enough to make them good animators?
Basically, my answer is that: You DO NOT need to know how a car is built in order to drive it, just like you don't need to know how blender is coded in order to use it. If people can accept blender, which is a pre-coded software, they should easily accept presets, which are pre-made group nodes for basic functions. Many people aren't familiar with Geometry node as well as my presets. It will be better to forget about the prejudice against the usage of node groups and try to learn them in practice. Another practical reason that I can't make manuals for presets is that, I don't have time.
It's audience freedom to decide whether they watch my tutorials or not. In fact, I've never asked audience to "like my video and subscribe to my channel". It's also not my obligation to make tutorials for the community, neither do I have commitment like in patreon or so. I also do not live with the money I earn from youtube or gumroad; actually the money I earn is as minimal as 1/1000 of my tuition fee of a single semester, and/or I rather earn less money by spending time making these tutorials. Therefore, please use these free presets and free tutorials wisely.
At the end: I will be happy if people can extract core principles from my tutorials and reproduce these animations without presets. They do not need to watch my full tutorials once they get the idea, even though this means I earn less money. As being said, I am not doing these for money, so please use these free presets and tutorials wisely.
If you have any question or suggestion, you can contact me at: discord.gg/TzuN6sPxQU
3 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 68
View 18 replies
Bradley Animation
For whatever reasons, there's a server being made for discussion and answering questions about nodes: discord.gg/TzuN6sPxQU
Also, there's a new series coming out as "geometry nodes modeling practice", which intends to do tiny and dumb stuff which may or may not be practical, such as a keycap from keyboard. If you have any idea feel free to share in the comment/discord/my facebook at www.facebook.com/NeisBradley.
Best,
BA
3 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 4
View 1 reply
Bradley Animation
I'm shortly coming back to make tutorials. Thus hereby I want to ask you one question. Your answer will be very much appreciated.
Earlier there were multiple instances that people asked me whether I hold an animation-nodes specific server. My answer was no. The main question here is whether you wish to have an animation-nodes specific server for discussion? Likely I won't make it as fancy as many other servers, but if there was such a server, what would you expect from that server? Perhaps you may see this poll elsewhere, please don't vote multiple times for fair statistical result.
A note to add: although I said animation-nodes specific server, but I will be happy to discuss Geometry Nodes or others as well.
Best,
BA
4 years ago | [YT] | 4
View 1 reply
Bradley Animation
The preset library V2.3 has been pre-released at: gum.co/BmlCe. It's possible to use it to follow certain new noding such as "circuit generator", etc. Further announcement and explanations will be made in a more future date.
4 years ago | [YT] | 1
View 0 replies
Bradley Animation
I am going to have finals. Important updates related to preset library / others will be announced...hopefully within 2020. There is no guarantee. So I may actually see you again in 2021 as well.
4 years ago | [YT] | 5
View 0 replies
Bradley Animation
new preset library for 2.90 may be released before Oct. 2020.
I don't have time to do the bug fix and maintainence specifically for AN in 2.83 LTS.
Therefore I may keep the preset library at V1.2 or update slightly to V1.3 for AN version 2.1.
But I will do most of work on blender 2.9+ and AN version 2.2 from now on.
4 years ago | [YT] | 6
View 0 replies