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Instancing is a deeply powerful workflow that we can use in TouchDesigner. It’s similar to workflows in other 3D applications (cloning in Cinema 3D or instances in Blender), that allow for multiple copies of the same geometry. In TouchDesigner, instances are copies of a piece of geometry that are manipulated on the GPU rather than the CPU, and allow for a wide gamut of creative expression.
There are many advanced workflows that use instances, but when getting started it’s valuable to first understand the basic principles of how instances work. Instancing can be enabled by turning on the Instancing parameter on the Instance page of the Geometry Component. After enabling instancing, there are a number of different attributes that can be manipulated for each instance.
One key consideration is that attributes for instances are separated into multiple pages. The first page of parameters focuses on translation, rotation, and scaling. The second page, Instance 2, exposes parameters for setting rotation through other vector mathematics (for example, rotate to vector), color, and texture sampling.
Each block of attributes can either come from the default instance operator, or from an operator unique to that section, e.g. the Translate OP in the Instance 1 page. The drop down menu for each attribute allows for the selection of the source data, which could be a channel (channels are used for both CHOP and TOP sources), a SOP attribute, or a column.