Does anyone know how to exports geometry node instances as real instances in fbx file ?
Add a Realize Instances node… export… no apply neccessary…
It’s not working, When I import the fbx back to Blender all the instances is a single merged mesh object.
Should I set something special in fbx exporter ?
instANCES.blend (1.0 MB)
Same happens when I try USD export and then import with instances checked in in the options. No instances really. Evrything turns into single big mesh.
And I somehow managed to did it before. in some 2.9 version maybe
Missing
Some of the following features are missing because they are not supported by the FBX format, others may be added later.
- Object instancing – exported objects do not share data, instanced objects will each be written with their own data.
From the manual, looks like this is not supported by Blender currently.
So it’s not working basicaly? No way to export instanced objects into a game for example?
Fbx? alembic? USD?
PS. Well, it still works for non Geonodes instances . With "make instances real " command
But when I do it for geonodes it just makes a copy and that’s all
USD and Alembic seem to have instance handling in their exporters.
It maybe handy to name the software you are trying to export to…Unity? Houdini? Unreal?
I’ve added a geonodes tag to this post, so maybe this will get some more views from the community.
In fact i need the instances to be imported to 3Dmax scene. Unreal would be ok either. I tried alembic and USD . It’s not working with geonodes instances there too.
So far I see only way is to do small quads in geonodes and put old instances on top of them . But it’s a hell of a pain in an a…
This is a bug that exists for quite a while
I might be wrong but think that I had it working in one of the previous versions .
or perhaps it was Sverchok I am not sure
Yeah, thinking also i did that already long time ago. Must have been broken by one of the many changes since that.
It works with collection instances. 
If you instance a collection/s and use Ctrl A – make instances real, you will get separate copies of the instances (the original object with the GN modifier will still exist as well)
The new “real instances” still share the mesh data of the original collection objects, so they are instances.
If you then select the new instances, export them in fbx and import them to a new file they are still instances. I was actually surprised it worked!
Edit: I changed the first pic.
Edit 2: Sorry Ctrl A not Atlt A!
From your file I changed the GN setup to instance a cube that is in collection2, I got rid of the realize instance node.
Then I did Ctrl A “make instances real”, selected the new instances and exported them to fbx.
Here is the fbx containing instances. 
instances2.fbx (17.8 KB)
Thank you very much DNorman
You can also use object instancing for this; collection instancing isn’t necessary.
Sure, but imagine having a scatter system with 200k of the same plant you surely do not want to use realize instances bc then you would end up with a massive amount of vertices. In most cases you want to preserve the instance structure.
I would just export the scatter points with their orientation and scale and then recreate the instancing in the other software.
I can imagine a lot but i tend to stick to what people are telling me… if i would have known about this context i may have thought about it in a different way. You know ? One does not have enought time to imagine any possible use case before trying to help 
Anyway: interesting find @DNorman