Original subtitles

With Blender 5.0, we got a new and

improved array modifier that uses

geometry nodes. It has some enhanced

features to make our lives a lot easier,

and in this Blender tutorial, we will go

over every setting on the new array

modifier in Blender. My name is Brandon,

let's get started. With an object

selected, when we go to the modifiers

property tab and press add modifier, we

can now find the array modifier. That's

the new one. And we also see array

legacy, which is the old one. So, don't

worry if you still want to use the old

one, choose the legacy. Let's look at

the new one, though. When we add this

modifier, the modifier actually adds

this enormous geometry node setup to the

object. That's an insane amount of

nodes, I can't even understand it. But

this is all under the hood, and we don't

have to worry about any of it. We

control everything in the modifier

properties just like before. The first

thing we notice is that by default, the

modifier makes three of our objects in a

straight line, and it adds this colorful

gizmo to the middle of it. This gizmo is

another way of controlling the settings

of the modifier, which can be pretty

useful. Over in the modifier settings,

the first important thing is the shape.

The new array modifier has four

different modes it can operate in: line,

circle, curve, and transform. Each do

their own thing. And if we select some,

we can see each have different settings.

We'll cover them all, starting with the

line.

So, the line shape arrays our object in

a line. The count is simply how many

times the object will repeat. That means

how many instances of the object there

will be. Each of these instances of the

object are offset from each other, and

there are three ways they can be told

how far apart to offset. Relative is

relative to the size of the object.

Offset is a fixed distance between each

object. And endpoint is how far we want

all of the objects to be spread out,

meaning how far away from the beginning

of the array do we want the end of the

array to be. With all of these selected,

we can control the offset or translation

with the nine sets of controls here. To

offset the location along any axis, play

with the three offset settings.

To have the objects rotate along an

axis, play with the rotation settings.

Notice each instance of the object

rotates more from the rotation of the

last instance.

And the same thing works with scale.

This realize instances checkbox is a bit

technical, but when it's checked, each

copy of the object will act like its own

object. And this might be necessary if

you're using other modifiers or doing

other things to this object. So, for the

most part, just keep it checked.

Unchecking it will use less memory,

though.

I'm going to reset a lot of these

settings, and then we go back to look at

the randomize settings, which are

probably my favorite new thing with this

array modifier. If you're still here,

please hit that like button. It means

the world to me. Thank you so much. This

randomize setting is available on all of

the shape options. When we check it on

and expand the settings, we can do a

whole bunch of randomizing. First, we

can choose an amount to randomize the

offsetting along each of the three axes.

So, all the copies don't have to be in a

perfectly straight line. There's a

different slider for each axis.

Same thing with rotation. We can have

the objects randomly rotate so they're

facing slightly different directions.

This is so useful for spreading things

out in a more natural way with the array

modifier. I love it. The scale can be

randomized, too. And under scale axes,

the uniform option will give us one

slider to scale the objects uniformly on

all axes. Or we can choose to scale by

axis, and then we have three sliders to

randomly scale along each individual

axis. Hope that makes sense. I kind of

wish this uniform option was in more

places in Blender. I really like it. The

flipping settings, it will completely

flip a certain percentage of the copies

along any of the three axes. For

example, if I want to flip 50% of the

copies along the Z axis, I just set the

Z setting to 0.5, and it does this. The

exclude first checkbox will mean the

randomization does not affect the first

object in the array.

And exclude last will mean the

randomization will not affect the last

object in the array. I could see this

being useful, glad they thought of it.

And the seed slider allows us to choose

different variations of the

randomization if we don't like what we

get with the first try.

When I started using the modifier, I was

kind of mad because I didn't think this

seed value was an option, but it's

hidden way down here. The merge setting

is for if we have geometry from the

array. We can have vertices merged

together if they fall within a certain

distance that we set right here. This

seems really useful when you're doing

the circle array and we'll get to that

next.

The circle shape. Okay, so let's look at

the second shape for the new array

modifier and that is circle. This will

of course array the objects in a circle.

This used to take a lot of steps before

this modifier, so I'm happy to see it's

a lot easier now. So by default, all of

our objects are in a very tiny circle.

I'll jump down and increase the radius

of the circle to spread them out. That's

what the radius setting does.

The count method has count and distance.

With count, we choose how many objects

are in the array. With distance, we

choose an angle and it's kind of hard to

explain, but like 90° will place four

because each one's at the 90° angle. 45

will double that and as the angle gets

smaller, the count will increase.

The axis chooses which axis the circle

is oriented around.

This circle segment setting is cool. The

full setting is what we see now with the

array creating a full circle.

The arc setting gives us a sweep angle

that we can adjust if we wanted an arch

or partial circle rather than a 360°

circle.

Pretty cool. Notice the gizmo changes to

give us different controls in the

settings. I don't really use gimbals and

gizmos or whatever they're called a lot,

but they are another way to control

things, including the sweep angle.

The radius we already covered, and this

realize instances is the same as with

the line shape.

A line rotation is checked by default,

and means all objects rotations will

align toward the center of the circle.

If we uncheck this box, they'll all stay

facing their original direction.

And expanding this lets us control which

axis they rotate on.

We once again have the same randomize

settings, which is so awesome, and we

have the merge geometry option just like

before.

That's it for the circle. Let's check

out the next shape, and that is curve.

And when it's chosen, everything

disappears.

That's because this shape uses a curve

in our scene to array the objects, and

we don't have a curve chosen.

I'll quickly add a Bezier curve, scale

it up, and I'll go back to the Suzanne

model.

To select the curve, we go to this box

and choose which curve in our scene we

want to use.

Now the objects are arrayed along the

curve. The beauty of this is we can go

into the curve in edit mode and make the

changes we want. The array will stay

along the curve as we change it.

Back to the curve array settings. The

count method can be a fixed amount of

points along the curve, or a specified

distance between the objects.

So if the curve got longer, more copies

will be made.

And if it gets shorter, fewer will be

made.

The per curve setting I can only assume

is for use when there's more than one

curve. I haven't really experienced that

yet. I always hate when I can't at least

attempt to explain something, but this

relative space setting, I have no idea.

Sorry.

Realize instances, align rotation,

randomize, and merge we've already

covered, and they are available with the

curve array.

Now, let's go to the last array shape.

Hopefully, you've hit that like button

and become a subscriber by now. Thank

you again. The last shape is transform.

And transform behaves very much like our

first shape line did. We can do most of

the same things by adjusting the

sliders.

But with transform, we can choose object

for the transform reference. And this is

pretty much the object offset option

that was in the legacy array modifier.

If we select object, we can then select

another object in our scene. I'll use

this cube as an example.

And this object will control the

offsets. If we move the object, rotate

the object,

scale the object, it affects our array.

As far as I can tell, that's pretty much

the only reason to use the transform

shape. And that was pretty much every

setting in Blender 5.0's new and

improved array modifier. It uses

geometry nodes to do cool stuff

efficiently. Give the video a like, and

please please help me to get to that

100,000 subscriber mark, so I can get

that really cool plaque from YouTube.

Thank you. Take care. Stay creative.

Bye.