Does dupicating objects instance them? Tweet

[lukaskawalec]

One of the best things about Octane standalone compared to applications like Blender is the ability to instance objects, so you could make a forest of trees with almost the same memory usage as just one tree.

So my question is just that: When you duplicate objects in Unreal engine, does this instance them for Octane?

[ChrisHekman]

Yes and no. For static geometry there is no data duplication in Octane for Unreal.
Unreal instances and foliage are converted using octane scatter nodes. Which is octanes version of instancing.
Duplicate objects such as two staticmeshcomponents using the same mesh, will also share the same mesh data in octane, which is also a kind of instancing.

Animated meshes such as skeletonmesh and geometry caches will be duplicated when two components use the same underlying animated mesh.

I hope that clears it up for you.

[lukaskawalec]

It does perfectly. Thanks!