Keep 'instancing' persistant, without being cancelled out by 'converting to editable poly'

[jibijib]

Instance copy is good, but it is cancelled out by "converting to editable poly", leaving the mesh you are working on unique. I think the only way to unlink the object for it's instanced objects is to click on 'make unique'.

[dswahn]

I agree that keeping instances when using Convert To Editable Poly can be useful, however I also use it to deliberately make large sets of instances unique. Since there is currently no Make Unique shortcut available (you will need to script it yourself) using Convert To Editable Poly is sometimes the quickest way to make objects unique if you don't care about the modifier stack.

The way you convert multiple instances to Editable Poly while keeping the instancing is to select one of them, apply a Turn To Poly modifier, right-click on the modifier and choose Collapse To.

This will preserve the instancing between the objects.

Not a one-click solution, but this is how you do it without custom scripts.

[jibijib]

Thanks for that - it's the reason I never use an otherwise useful tool.

Sometimes I've been working on something like a wheel made up of an array of 16 objects, only to realise the the one I was working on has made itself unique.