Instancing/copying best practice

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi everyone,

 While I'm not new to 3D, I am quite new to Blender. I used to use Cinema 4D which I was very comfortable with and created some pretty complex things in.

 Currently I'm building an interior scene in Blender. This requires modeling furniture and placing copies around the room. Rather than copying/pasting I made each kind of furniture into a group and created instances of those groups. Is this the best way of doing it?

 In Cinema 4D I could create a piece of furniture in a separate file which could then be linked to my main scene. If I changed the 3D model in its own file, the 3D model would be updated in all projects it was used in. Does Blender have a feature like this? Is it bad practice to keep a copy of each piece of furniture in its own layer in Blender? Is this what layers are for?

 I appreciate any help that anyone can give me!
2

Is this the best way of doing it?
It is one perfectly accepatable way of adding duplicate objects. You can also create linked duplicates (Alt+D) instead of normal duplicates (Shift+D)

In Cinema 4D I could create a piece of furniture in a separate file which could then be linked to my main scene. If I changed the 3D model in its own file, the 3D model would be updated in all projects it was used in. Does Blender have a feature like this? Is it bad practice to keep a copy of each piece of furniture in its own layer in Blender?
Linking https://www.blender.org/manual/data_system/linked_libraries.html?highlight=linking

Is this what layers are for?
https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/3dview/object/properties/relations/layers.html?highlight=layers

3

Thanks! Really appreciate the help. :slight_smile:

In Blender is there a generally agreed-upon best practice for when to link? I think storing reusable furniture in their own files sounds like a good idea however maybe that approach is considered cumbersome by most seasoned Blender users? I realize this is probably more of a matter of opinion than fact, but I’m interested in hearing what anyone has to say about this, even if your opinions are conflicting.