Changing group instances...

#1

Hello.

Maybe the title isn’t the most apropriate but…Here’s my problem…

I’m trying to do something similar to changing a block definition in autocad.

The real case is that I have several diferent species of trees in a scene each with several variations. in all there are more than 4000 trees

I made a group for each diferent tree because trunk, branches and leaves are diferent objects and instanced it arround.

The problem is when I need to change a tree normaly I want to replace its intire geometry not just adjust some points. I guess I can attach the new geometry to each object and them remove the old element in order to keep the node but I was hopping for a simpler way.

Another thing thats confusing me (and thats why I have separate objects for branches and leaves) is how to simplify the trees in the viewports.

The trunk, branches and leaves objects are in separate layers and I just hide all layers except the trunk and render with the “render hidden objects” option

Is there a better way? I also need to have hidden geometry that I don’t want to render.

Well…any tips would be apreciated.

Thanks :slight_smile:

#2

Hello again.

I’m doing some experiences with xref objects but I can’t manage to get what I thought was a simple task…something like autocad xrefs.
One problem is that if I add new objects to the source file they don’t appear in the xref instances. Another problem is when I scale the source file objects…they don’t get updated in the instances!??
Well…the bottom line is that I miss the old autocad method…Have a xref (or block for that matter) and whatever is in that file is what I want to be inserted in the target file.
Is that so hard to do in 3dstudio!??

Thanks

#3

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