How to apply random noise texture to instances?

Question

What I had in mind was to use Geometry Nodes to take a sphere and apply a noise texture to distort the surface into an odd shape, then distribute that sphere as many instances on a surface. (Distribute points on faces [Poisson]; Instances on points). Only, I wanted each instance to use a different noise pattern, so they would all look a little different from one another. So far I haven't figured out how to do that; the instances all look exactly the same.

I suppose I could create 2 or 3 or 4 or however many different noise-distorted spheres into a collection and then use the collection as the source of the instances, applying random rotation and scale to disguise the fact that they were all just replicas of the same limited number of shapes. But anyone looking close would be able to see the replications.

Is there a way to apply a different distortion to each instance? So far I haven't been able to figure out a way to do that.

Answer 1

Create your noise nodes. Right click to make a group.

Then create your objects and distribute them on another object. At the end of the distribution realize the instances, (you don't want instances, you want realized objects so they can all be different.)

Plug them into the noise nodes to add distortion. You can do this more than once, and add subdivisions so that you're getting more levels of detail. Here is the result.

I'm summarizing and simplifying, as there are other entries on this problem. I'll link to some research:

Self-generating random shapes with Geometry Nodes in 3.0

How can I get a new random seed for every object using the same geometry nodes?

Geometry Nodes - Generating geometry per instance

How can I instantiate a procedural node group with different parameters?