Instance object

An instance object is a duplicate of another object, but does not contain any geometry itself. The advantage is obvious - imagine a street with 40 streetlights. Unfortunately, only after duplicating the lamps do you realize that the lighting is too bright - what now? click on the light source 40 times, readjust the brightness, click OK - only to realize that the lighting is too yellow? Instead, you only need to create instances of the entire lamp (because complete hierarchies can be instantiated!). If you then change the parameters of the original light source, all instance light sources are adjusted.

Instances hardly increase the size of the saved scene file. However, when you load the scene, CINEMA 4D must also load the instances and thus copies of the original object completely into memory.

By the way, you can understand this very well with the help of the Object Manager: Objects / Project Information command

Instances adopt all parameters of the original object. If you deform the original object with a deformation object, the instances are also deformed. If you edit it with the modeling tools, these changes are transferred to the instances. Material properties are also adopted. Only position, rotation and size are independent, otherwise instances would be pointless.

If the instance can no longer find the original, linked object, the icon turns red. This allows you to find dysfunctional instances more quickly.

NoteIt is also possible to create further instances from existing instances. For reasons of clarity, however, instances should only point directly to objects (not instances).
Incidentally, it is not possible to instantiate deformers or generators and have these instances affect other objects. However, the results (e.g. a cube deformed by a bending deformer) generated by these objects can be instantiated.

Note 2:With the Cloner object of the MoGraph functionality, there is a 'duplication' functionality that goes far beyond the instance object mentioned here.

Note on rendering with Redshift Instances are automatically recognized by Redshift and rendered with the same advantages. Light sources and Redshift volume objects are excluded from instantiation. These are converted into normal copies of the originals during rendering.

Example

Instances are also well suited - based on an original object - for placement in other objects, e.g. in a volume generator. There they can be used several times, even modified by a volume filter, for example. In the following scene, instances of a single text object are cleverly used multiple times within different volume generators.