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I'm using a Blender script to create a huge number of duplicates of an object, and Blender keeps crashing. I did a search online for a solution and apparently you can reuse the mesh in some way if the copies are identical, to save some computing power? But I have no idea how to do that. Please shed some light, thanks in advance

blendernoob
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    Hi and welcome. It's not about the power, it's about your memory usage. Have a look into linked duplicates: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/editing/duplicate_linked.html There are also numerous Q&A's here already: https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?q=linked+duplicate Also, I'd recommend share your code. – brockmann Jul 29 '21 at 09:36
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    https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30737/add-a-group-instance-with-python https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1389/convert-large-particle-systems-to-one-object-efficiently https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/101299/render-100k-objects-each-with-independent-color-and-scale-through-time/101362#101362 – Duarte Farrajota Ramos Jul 29 '21 at 09:37
  • you can select all the objects that are supposed to be identical, shift select the one that has the mesh you want to copy at last, and press Ctrl L (Make Links) > Object Data – moonboots Jul 29 '21 at 09:39

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With respect to your comment: "apparently you can reuse the mesh in some way if the copies are identical, to save some computing power", perhaps you're referring to the usage of alt + D as to the usual shift + D when duplicating meshes.

Using alt + D means that the duplicated mesh inherits its data from the original which can reduce memory consumption and greatly improve performance. However, it also means that if you make changes to one mesh, then the changes will apply to all duplicates, which can be pretty computationally intensive. As such I recommend that you nail down the details of the original mesh first. You can unlink the meshes as well, but again this can cause a bit of a lag.

James
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