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    single materialsmodelinggeometry-nodeshard-surface

    BCITY | Building a Procedural City Generator with Geometry Nodes

    Instructor:
    M
     Mike Hodgetts
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    ☆☆☆☆☆
     ( 1 )

    We Built this City!

    From the moment Geometry Nodes hit the scene, Blender artists have wanted to generate procedural cities. While several commercial add-ons exist to achieve city generation in a variety of ways and quality - what if you want build your own from scratch?

    This is precisely the goal of the BCITY course! Mike Hodgetts is a bona fide node wizard and he's here to guide you step-by-step through his process of developing a city generator!

    Get Caught Up

    Are you brand new to Geometry Nodes?

    This course is aimed at intermediate node padawans. If this is your first GN project, consider these courses as prerequisites.

    ASSEMBLE: Intro to Procedural Modeling with Geometry Nodes

    CUBICITY: Creating & Utilizing Asset Libraries

    What you will learn

    We won't lie to you: Geometry Nodes is one of the most complex and technical aspects of Blender. It's often quite difficult to wrap one's mind around the logical mindset.

    Fortunately, Mike's expertise and ability to convey information effectively is the driving force behind this course. With over 5 hours of comprehensive curriculum, you're in very good hands!

    Here are some specific things you will learn through this course:

    • Working with Attributes
    • The power of procedural and parametric modelling techniques utilizing curves
    • Creating parametric and dynamic shaders with Geometry Nodes attributes
    • Procedurally generating UV coordinates
    • Utilizing Repeat Zones and For Each Loops
    • Keeping an organized node graph with the use of Node Groups
    •  Instancing distribution methods

    Chapter 1

    Foundations

    Geometry Nodes are complex so it's best to start by zooming out and understanding the process at a macro level before diving into the micro details.

    Chapter 2

    Roads

    Roads define the grid-like pattern that establishes much of a city's structure. This is a great place to establish fundamental Geometry Nodes procedure before getting to more complex tasks.

    Chapter 3

    Lane Markings

    Finalize the road system with dynamically updating lane markings, including vehicle lane counts and crosswalks.

    Chapter 4

    Instances

    A crucial component of Geometry Node power is instancing. Here we will variably populate our streets with lamps, benches, traffic lights, and trees.

    Chapter 5

    Buildings

    As the #1 feature of cities, buildings are important to get right. Learn how to mask out a dynamic grid-pattern to establish building footprints, extrude into building proxies, and then instance building pieces into complete structures.

    Chapter 6

    Final Thoughts

    Mike concludes the course with a few final thoughts on Geometry Nodes as a whole along with challenging you with a final exercise.

    ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

    Mike Hodgetts

    Hi there! I'm the Head of CG for Sim-Plates where we create 360-degree backgrounds for virtual production car processing, all with Blender. I'm a 3D generalist, technical artist, specializing in toolset development. I'm excited to teach you how to create custom procedural toolsets with Geometry Nodes!

    Get this course and 274 others by joining CG Cookie

    Join Now
    Awarded upon completion:
    100xp +
    Course Curriculum
    1 Review
    • ☆☆☆☆☆
      Nathi Tappan(nathitappan) ·

      This course is a doozy!

      Mike has a very easy way of teaching an incredibly complex topic, and I was surprised with how much sense everything made to me as I followed along (especially with how terrible at math I am lol).

      While I don't feel like I could have devised the plan to create the city generator on my own (not without a lot of sweat, cussing, and tears), I feel like after this course I'm equipped with all the tools I need to troubleshoot and even visualize what's going on.

      I also feel better now knowing that working with GeoNodes involves so much trial and error. Makes me feel like I can do it, even if slowly.

      Great course! Definitely recommended.