Week 6 - Building Production in Blender

This week I started creating a key structural element for the game environment: the building in Blender using the geometry nodes system. The logic behind using the geometry nodes was that it would let me build the building parametrically: you define each architectural component in the form of a node and then instantiate it in repetition vertically up the side of the building without having to place it manually. This would let me define a flexible, adjustable building without having to move objects in the scene, just change parameters in the node editor.

Unfortunately the geometry nodes system proved more difficult than I had imagined. The geometry node system assigns materials differently to standard mesh workflows where you select faces in edit mode and give it to a material slot, each geometry output requires its own Set Material node be placed in the node graph, and understanding where to hook up different materials to different outputs was the majority of this week. I was also reusing materials and textures from a Blender tutorial that had a worn look to them, and although this cut down on texture creation time it still needed to be connected correctly through the node material system.

What I learned this week is that it is an incredibly big risk to be learning new technical systems during live production. The steepness of the geometry node learning curve was not entirely predictable and it was impossible for me to determine earlier in the week how long it would take me to understand its systems and so I was unable to plan for it. From now on, any new or unfamiliar technical system should be thrown into a throw-away test file in pre-production before becoming part of a critical production pipeline.