So in the first image, certain meshes are somehow “instanced” so that editing one mesh affects the others. Anybody know how this is done?
Then, the view mode is changed to isolate one of them and he is able to free draw boxes to select an area (as well as the back faces) and extrude etc. Totally lost here as well.
Finally, when exiting this isolated view mode, all his edits have applied to all connected meshes.
If anyone has the time to explain these steps to me I would be incredibly grateful!
When you duplicate an object with ALT+D (versus SHFT+D) it creates a “linked” object that copies what you do with each one. This even works in isolation mode. Use SHFT+D to duplicate an object separate from the copy.
Do you know how I am able to draw custom boxes onto the mesh and extrude that way? It’s like the rectangular select tool but it selects all the way through the mesh and creates cuts to extrude where you selected. (pictures 2 and 3 in the imgur link)
To clarify a little – linking is a very key concept in Blender. Blender’s conceptual world is made up of “data blocks,” such as “objects” and (separately …) “object data” (or: “obData”). And there can be more than one “link” to the same data block, from the same blend-file or a different one. Each link makes a separate so-called instance which, behind the scenes, refers to exactly the same piece of underlying data. Any change to that data is immediately reflected in each and every visible instance, because all of them are referencing the same data.
One place where you see this idea being used extensively is to allow props, actors, and sets to be defined in just one place, then used in many others. Changes to the underlying data will be instantly reflected in every other linked instance … in this and in every other file. You can also build “a field of flowers” based on just one flower.
