What does the Index parameter do in Transfer Names?
An object may be placed inside several collections simultaneously, when copying to/from collections Blender may pick the wrong one by default. Since these are not saved in any particular order the one picked may seem arbitrary to you. Cycling through the Index will allow you to pick which one to copy the name to. These are pre-sorted alphabetically for more predictable results.
Where can I find the Duplicate Collection Hierarchy operator?
Duplicate Collection Hierarchy operator can be accessed from the
collection context menu by right-clicking any collection other than a
Scene Collection in the Outliner.
What is the different between Duplicate Collection Hierarchy operator and other exsting collection duplication operators?
Duplicate Collection Hierarchy operator only duplicates the
collection hierarchy and its objects. That means for every sub
collection of the right-clicked collection a new collection is created,
and its objects are linked only.That means no new objects are
created, the existing ones are linked to the new collections while
simultaneously being kept in any original ones.If you notice with existing operators new objects are created, notice the ".001" sufix.With this operator the objects are the same notice no suffixes were added.The
objects are still the same as the original collection, if you move them
they move in both collections, and no new objects were added to your
scene.
With this operator the objects are the same notice no suffixes were added.
The objects are still the same as the original collection, if you move them they move in both collections, and no new objects were added to your scene.
Create Collection created lots of undesirable collections
Collections for instancing may contain many objects, since they are
often comprised of a multitude of "parts" which combined form the
complete desired "assembly" to be instanced.
Since a
collection is created for each separate object that is selected and
centers are automatically set from coordinates of selected objects, it
is a good practice to only select one object per desired instancing
collection.
This object would ideally be the "main
body" or "parent" representing the instance. Having all components
selected would lead to undesirable parasitic collections being created
for each individual part, and risk Instance Offset centers being
misplaced from secondary elements.
But the whole
point of instances is having multiple objects anyway, this would defeat
the hole purpose. How would I include several objects in said collection
then?
Ideally these secondary objects would be
parented to this "main body" of the collection, and left unselected for
the addon to deal with automatically.
Behavior is
controlled by the Child parameter, as explained in the documentation,
children object can automatically be either linked, appended, or
ignored. You can also manually link them later with Ctrl + L Make Links > Collections.
If you already have a parent/child hierarchy correctly setup there is also a Parents
option that allows the addon to sift through all selected objects and
only create collections for the top parents in the relationship, while
still assigning all childs to the respective parent collection.
What is the difference between Set Collection Instance Offset from the menu and the Properties Window?
Setting Collection Instance Offset from the menu is the main full featured operator.From
the properties window is a courtesy subset of functionality added for
convenience. It only works for a single object at a time, and doesn't
allow per-axis discrete control, or using the cursor simultaneously.It can still save some steps of placing the cursor at an object before setting offset.
Why do some names still get disambiguation numbers even though I have the Strip option active?
The
Strip
option tries to remove the numbering from name, but if this results in
datablocks with the same name Blender will add them again automatically
to prevent collisions. Like say you are copying names from materials,
and you have selected multiple objects with the same material. This
would result in different objects ending up with the same name like 'Oak
Wood', so unless there is something else distinguishing their names
(like say using some concatenation method) Blender prevents ambiguous
names automatically.