Copy Node or Clone Component

I'm not sure if this makes sense but here goes.

I was working on a filter loaded with lots of little objects built from shapes and I realized that a lot of them could be built from parts of the same objects - for example I used a several ellipses as the base objects to build shells, a shrimp, sea urchins, plants and so on. I have connections going in every direction trying to reuse some of these shapes assuming that will be faster but it ends up being a crazy mess to work with.

Why not create a Copy or Clone Component that would allow you to take the result of a particular node, and copy or clone (instantiate?) it as the starting point of another. Doesn't instantiation have the benefit of being 'lighter' since you only have to store the object data once and 'mirror' it to the clones? Plus you could update the original node that the clone is based on and update the paired clones. The copy idea is similar except modifying one would not affect the others.

This way if you identify a basic shape that could form the basis of a several fish, plants, eel and other objects you could build the common shape, then add clone components which would be the same as that one, but add color, scale, offset and other details after to differentiate them. You would not need a connector to these either, just some color or symbol that indicated the node, and the clones were related so you could greatly clean up the connections.

I guess it's good for giant filters with giant structures but many of the filters here aren't very large and it rarely becomes huge. The current ability to just split outputs already works well, just mildly confusing if the single node produces 5 or 6 outputs.

The groups feature allows for instancing so I think part of the request's been covered. It's just not specifically covered as described.

instancing so I think part of the request's been covered. It's just not specifically covered as described.





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Aion Kinah