Instancing, what is it?

flashback

I think I understand what instancing is, but not quite sure and have no idea how to use it in DS4.5.
Any quick links to tut's or videos?

Richard Haseltine

Instancing creates a live duplicate of an item - it gets most of its properties from the original and so uses much less memory than that, but ti can be repositioned in the scene. It's useful if you want multiples of the same item without bringing your system to its knees. A geometry shell is similar, but unlike an instance it can have different material properties.

flashback

Thank you, do you know if Daz has any videos on instancing? And while I'm at it, just what the heck is a geometry shell?!

Puntomaus

The geometry shell is a copy of an item in your scene. You select the item you want to copy and then go to Create - New Geometry shell and select an option, ie *copy selected item* and hit ok. The copy is not posable but has all material zones of the original. It loads semi transparent so you have to set opacity back to 100.

ETA: how embarrassing ... the instancing thingie is right above the geometry shell thingie in the Create menue and I didn't see it. LOL