Can blender handle multiple (60ish) decent-sized scenes in one project file?

Support Basics & Interface
1

basically what the title says. I know that if i make one enormous scene it slows things down. but if i have the same scene that’s not too big (66 objects with 220,000 faces), copied like 60 times in blender, how does blender read that? would it bog it down as if it were one scene of 220,000 faces x 60? or does it look at it on a scene by scene basis?

This is for a 2 minutes music video where I have lots of animation going the whole time and lots of camera angles, so my work flow sort of depends on the animations matching the music, and if i have everything in one project file, it sort of helps keep things “organized?”

Basically I’m thinking, do an animation, copy the scene and then continue the next animation on a separate scene, that way i’m saving basically every animation and it’s respective camera angle in it’s own little scene, and i won’t have to worry about that animation ever getting messed up.

Edit: i tested it out just to see what would happen. I did 50+ full copy scenes. I’m not noticing any bogging down in the view port and the animations are playing back at the same frame-rate as before. only thing i noticed was that now in the bottom i’m using 11GB of ram vs. 300MB. Blender also took a little longer to close the file… I didn’t save the file so i don’t know how long it would take to actually open the file up.

Can anybody offer any insight/explanation? I wasn’t expecting it to work so… well.

2

try with group instancing !

but that is a lot of objects and not certain blender won’t get sluggish!

happy bl

1 Like
3

Using linked files would be the ticket, I would think. That way, you can build your scenes, individually, then add them together as you need.

Based on what you said, though, the method you’ve stated seems solid enough. Saving in increments would be of assistance, too, I bet.

1 Like
4

depends also which version bl you use
that should work well in 2.79

for 2.8 there might be an equivalent but not certain how this can be done with collection

happy bl

1 Like
5

Thanks for all the replies! @RickyBlender I’d never used group instancing so that was cool to learn about. However:

  • I’m having a “problem” with group instancing - the duplicate inherits the animation from the original and is only editable in the original instance

  • linked files doesn’t let me enter pose mode to edit the armature’s animations (which is how linked files are intended to work, if I’m not mistaken).

The problem in both cases is the animation data being linked in an un-editable way

So, basically the advantage I’m getting out of a “full scene copy” is

  1. keep all data in the same project file (sort of an advantage)
  2. I can edit the the copied scene and I don’t have to worry about messing up prior instance of the animation.

I’m starting to question if it’s really worth making full copies in the same project though, when I can really just save in increments, as @UnCommonGrafx said, and it essentially achieves the same thing.

The idea initially came from wanting to organize the whole video together in one project in the VSE using scene strips, but I’m starting to just give up on that idea. Instead I’m just rendering out the clips and putting them into resolve. The downside is i have to sort of commit to a final render of the clip.

6

it also depends on total size for your animation

i mean 60 X scenes
how much verts counts

if it goes in the 10 millions of verts blender will become un responsive
so kind of a problem to work with !

at least with group instancing the master file has almost zero verts
but your right you cannot change the mesh in the master file
only move scale or rotate objects

may be other people can give other ideas here

happy bl

1 Like
7

For the animation have a look at the new override system in Blender 2.90+

For rigs it’s the only way to have multiple (same) rigs linked in one scene, and being able to animate them all separate. Be sure to have all data/collections set up properly, or you will have issues later after linking.

1 Like