How to render models many times

[PixelPaladinParticipant]

As far as I understand it, when I want to see an object on the screen three times I have to load it into my scene three times or copy it so that it is in the scene three times (at least in the ducks-test it is done that way). Is there a more dynamic way to render objects? Something like: load a model and then draw it in multiple locations (like drawing images into a mojo canvas).

What I want to do is something like a tile based game world where the camera looks downwards (comparable to the old Zelda games), but instead of 2d tile graphics I want to use 3d models as tiles. There must be a better way than copy them for ten thousand times to have the complete game world in my scene

[PakzParticipant]

Not to sure but I imagine the lighting alone would require the models to be present in memory. Things like physics and collision probably needs that also, 3d is a whole different beast.

[Simon ArmstrongParticipant]

I suspect the underlying mesh is not copied so models are more like primitives and not as slow as you think. Have you tried seeing how many ducks you can render?

[PixelPaladinParticipant]

@pakz: I don’t think, that lighting would need that information, but you are right, physics definitely does need it. Rendering models independent from the scene could not use mojo’s physics.

@Simon Armstrong: »Have you tried seeing how many ducks you can render?« No, but it would not work with the concepts that I had in mind earlier. I think the best way is to load segments of the game world and then free them when they are too far away. Well, sometimes I fail to see the simple solutions … maybe I was too obsessed by the idea of rendering everything on the fly.

Thank you both for your help!

[Author]

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