Documentation / Node reference / geo nodes

geo/Extrude

Gives a surface thickness by pushing a copy of it away and walling in the gap.

Topology

Copies the input, moves the copy along the point normals (NORMAL) or along a fixed vector (DIRECTION), and joins the two with a wall built on every open edge. The three toggles pick which of those three pieces you keep: all of them gives a closed shell, sides alone gives a ribbon, top alone is just a translation.

Only OPEN edges grow a wall, so a closed mesh has none and is simply moved. Triangle and quad meshes both extrude, and a quad mesh stays a quad mesh.

inset tapers the extrusion inwards, whether you keep the top face or only the sides. Feed it a mesh through geo/Facet with splitAllFaces and each face becomes its own panel with a tapered rim, since every face then owns its points. On a mesh with shared points the same setting insets the outline of the surface and leaves the interior alone.

Parameters

Name Type What it does
mode UInt8 NORMAL · DIRECTION NORMAL pushes each point along its own normal, which thickens a curved surface evenly. DIRECTION pushes every point the same way, which is what a flat plate or a straight pull wants.
direction Vector3 DIRECTION mode only: the vector the copy travels along. It is normalized, so its length does not matter, distance sets that.
distance Float How far the copy travels. Negative pulls it the other way.
inset Float Tapers the extrusion inwards by this distance, measured perpendicular to each edge, so the inset edges stay parallel to the ones they came from. Negative widens it instead. With no top face the sides taper to the same rim, so turning the top off changes what is drawn and not where the wall ends. A corner is never pushed past its own face, so a large value stops at a sliver rather than turning the face inside out.
top Bool Keeps the moved copy of the input.
bottom Bool Keeps the input itself, wound the other way so it faces outwards.
sides Bool Builds the wall joining the two on every open edge.
computeNormals Bool Recomputes the normals from the shape that comes out. Off keeps the input's, which describe the input and not the extrusion: the bottom is wound the other way and the walls face outwards. Follow the node with geo/facet if you want the rim to stay a hard edge.
allocator UInt8 TEMP · POOL · FLAT_POOL Which allocator backs the scratch buffers: a pool/flat-pool clears at end of cook, temp at end of frame.

See also

This page is generated from the engine, so it describes the release you can download. The same text is in the editor's Help panel next to the node itself.