To set collection offset for Asset collection you can add empty under asset collection where you want collection offset to be. That way you don't have to duplicate any other object and you don't need to delete or remove any object. You won't notice empty because blender will add another empty for collection instance.
Lots of great information here well beyond what the title suggests. I have been struggling with a physics project of an imploding building due to the number of objects in the scene. Can't wait to try out some of your tips to see if I can speed things up. Thank you for sharing.
This is so helpful I missed groups in blender and used it all the time in Max…this is a bit more tedious to set up but still a great work around…the add on looks much better👍 thanks 🙏
Another fantastic video, Kris! This was one of the most useful Blender videos I've ever seen. I was somewhat familiar with Alt-D and a bit of instances, but this really clarified a lot. As always, iMeshh's assets are the best out there, bar none.
Ah amazing! I'm glad you like it! I want to do a few more videos like this going over some concepts which some people may kind of understand, but not fully
Great tutorial! And to answer the question at last, for me, I use the "set object origin" method to control the instance offset. In detail, you can set up your collection of colelction ready, and then deside your offset point(/instance origin point) by moving the 3D cursor to it. When adding the collection instance, with the instance selected, just go to object - set origin to 3D cursor. You'll find all the newly added instances will follow the point you want! :)
The Quick Instance add-on will let you name the instances on creation, in the context menu that pops up in the lower left (or f9 if you clicked off of it)
I didn't even consider that you can have unique modifiers on instanced duplicates. Adding a displacement (or geo nodes) modifier using a random seed will give a whole range of variation!
I've become addicted to using linked Dupes, and especially Instances. I'm working on creating HUGE standing sets for use in sci-fi animations. This sci-fi spacecraft carrier has six 500ft diameter [152.4m] pressure hulls strung along a 50ft x 1400ft [15.24m x 426.72m] torus like pearls on a necklace. This whole arrangement spins to provide a substitute for gravity. The "Transfer Torus" connecting the six spheres allows for the movement of personal, (as well individual spacecraft and other large equipment), between the six "Launch/Recovery pressure hulls". And here is where I ran into a vexing problem, that being, the enormous difference in shear scale between the people walking around in these sets, and the size of the curves visible in nearby walls and the like. Because the size of the radii of these curves are so large, these curves are subtle. Without using very dense meshes they always look like a bunch of straight sections glued together. (which of course is what they actually are, i.e. faces & edges). Even restricting the extent of the geometry of the dense meshes making these curves to only what can be seen by a camera in any one shot this problem still leads to some very large file sizes. Then, when you start to add people, chairs and tables, all the stuff on tables, controls, lights, cables, pipes, vents, fire extinguishers, and the occasional rat... Well, I suppose I can't be blamed for thinking a lot more than twice about adding any new geometry to a scene when a linked Dupe or Instance will do. As much as I've been using both linked Dupes and Instances I still learned a few things I didn't know before watching this video. Thanks for posting this iMeshh
i've used collection instance but didn't know how to move the reference so got frustrated and stopped LOL THANK YOU! also as a 3d max user i've been looking for a way to easily move the pivot offset easily haha solved 2 of my issues in 1
Haha no problem! It annoyed me so much trying to work it out (i don't think it's very intuitive) and when i found the solution i just knew I needed to tell everyone lol
It won't use any more vram to scale and rotate because than when you just translate because the GPU is just storing an array of transform vectors (4x4 matrices) in both cases.
A question for this that I have is what if you have an object you want to duplicate but you want to have there be a slight difference each time like maybe there's a flower on 1 that isn't there on another and you want it to keep changing or there's this trick you can do with materials to make them change color each time it's duplicated I find that trick only works with shift d because it's creating a new instance of that object... I'm aware geometry nodes might work but in the case where you can't use geometry nodes (maybe it's interacted with or maybe you want it positioned in a specific place) what would be a good way to do this?
How did you get no noise in your render. Do you have to render them for extra long @ double the size & be super patient? Do you use de-noising or an insane amount of samples? or both?
Thanks mate for your video... I learned the trick about location of instances . Thanks a lot. I have a question for you: in terms of ram and vram impact during rendering, is it more convenient to use instances or linked copies? Thanks Yuri
Yeah, well actually I got carried away and made all my plants individual collection instances (using the new quick collection plugin which was too much fun). But Alt+D would have worked fine too :)
Btw, I'm trying to use asset collections in asset browser, but when the collection is placed on a Newport it does not drop on the mouse position but offsets to source coordinate. Tried to use your instance offset by cursor but still no joy. Any advice?
@@imeshh it's crazy I render much less well than you (even if I manage to get results that aren't too bad) but from what I've already been able to do, I would have needed more than 20 GB, if not more , I regularly saturate the RAM (32go), even by optimizing the models and the scene, and even sometimes the VRAM (6go), and I am very far from your renderings between the complexity of the meshes, their variety, the size of the tetures... and your scene is super rich, I would have even thought that you had needed 64go
One thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem to work in the lastest version of blender without you adding in a new instance every time. If you duplicate an existing instance it treats it like a normal object that affects memory, so you have to sit there and shift + A every instance, I'm not sure if I've broken something or something like that 🥱
