This is a very good new option in Composer:
However, again the UX falls short when it comes to the most natural interaction, which is drag and drop:
When can we expect this to be fixed (together hopefully with checking for duplicates)?
So some good news and bad news. Yes you can enable instancing but it does not work the same way as traditional instancing in for example 3dsmax. It is nothing to do with modeling or material instancing. It only helps the GPU optimize memory, by referencing one master geometry asset to several other copies to save on gpu memory. The problem is this word “instancing” is being mis-understood.
So I would start by turning this OFF. Then you can drag materials to anything you want anytime.
If you wanted to keep instancing ON, then I need to explain this message box. As it poorly states, you cannot apply a material to an instanced or referenced geometry. You will have to find the “master” reference of that bar inside the scene. So for example it looks like there are 3 seats in the boat. ONE of them is the original “master” seat. The other two are assigned as instanceable references, because you selected that option in the import dialogue box. That is great, and it saves gpu memory, BUT, it means you have to only apply materials to the master copy. You can tell by the ICONS next the geometry. If it has that special arrow icon, it is an instanced copy. If it has NO icon next to it, it is the master version. That is where you need to apply your material.
And in addition, you will need to move that dragged material mdl file, from the /root/Looks folder into the sub folder of that geometry stack, so the other chairs can find it “locally”.
This last part of having to move the material out of the root looks folder into the local sub folder is being fixed as we speak and will not be required in the next release. (hopefully)
Personally I would keep the instancing option OFF for now.
The imported CAD data will be used in both Blender and 3D Studio Max, so instancing is pretty much a showstopper requirement, not just because of UX.
From this previous answer and the one above I get the feeling that the engineers are running the show over at Nvidia. That’s fine if you just want engineers using your software, but if you want artists and designers to use it as well, you need to think more about UX.
1 Like
Well either way, I would turn off Instancing for now. It does not affect you using the other kind of traditional instancing in your modeling applications. Again, the two of not related. I will seek some additional clarification.