Instanced modifiers

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1

Any support planned for this? I couldn’t find anything when I searched…

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The “link modifiers” via “control + l” is terribly misleading, because you only copy the values once, they’re not linked (or instanced) at all.

Is it possible to use drivers as a workaround for this currently?

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2

I suppose that nobody will go to change that until everything nodes.

3

I think node-based modifiers will probably let you share nodes, just like you can do with Node Groups for Materials today.

4

Is that this thing:

https://download.blender.org/institute/nodes-design/object_nodes.html

And that is actually happening? For 2.80 or 2.89? :slight_smile: Is there a timeline and other place to read more about it?

(And in the meantime, anyone know how to add a driver variable to at least partially get around that, like now?)

5

Certainly not for 2.80. And it most likely won’t end up exactly like that document, because JacquesLucke is now in charge of the project, and there will be some differences in the approach.

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6

Thank you for the information!

And here’s apparently how you add a common driver variable to a modifier setting, and oh my god is it convoluted and I’m still not 100% sure how it works even after watching this video:

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7

It’s important to keep the ability for objects to use the same mesh with different modifiers. Often in animation I use multiple versions of a mesh with different modifiers (for effects and simulations especially).
I think Everything Nodes is the solution on the horizon. In the meantime, it’s easy to get the effect with a few lines of Python code after you make some changes.
Try this:

for ob in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    for m in modifiers:
        if (m.name == "Desired Modifier"):
            m.someProperty = "desiredValue"

of course the modifiers need to have the same name for this to work.
I usually keep a text document open with scripts to copy and paste into the console-it saves a lot of time.

You could also do something like this in the last line:
m.someProperty = bpy.context.active_object.modifiers["Desired Modifier"].someProperty
to copy the property from what you have selected.

8

Instanced modifiers would be a huge timesaver for professional work, especially when other software have had this feature since forever.
Hope this gets some love soon.