Big Stadium Big Problem
 

Hey guys and gals, looking for some advice. I want to build a stadium type deal. Pretty big, maybe like nascar size?

Anyhow, obviously I only need to model one seat for the stadium, and I can duplicate that and what not. What I was really wondering, is if there is a way I can duplicate it, as a proxy or an instance or something like that? In otherwords in a way that it wont slow down my system to a crawl. I think with particles, you can make one model and then you do an instance and it wont kill your system.

What's the best way to go about this? I hope I made sense, thank you!!

duplicate with special, and make it an instance

I may be mistaken, but won't instances also push the poly count up and slow down the system as well?

You can try using proxies, check out the help files on referencing files.

No you're not mistaken, Instances do push up the poly count, it'll be the same as if you'd duplicated normally, Instances just mean if you make adjustments to one it'll carry through to all of them.

Nah they dont, they appear to have their own shape node but they are linked to the original, but they do have their own transform node allowing them to be moved.

There a lot lighter than actual geo as there only a pointer to the original object

Oh right, my mistake then, when doing the spaceship comp Mike said something along the lines of what I posted, must have interpreted his comment wrong.
But they do push up the poly count don't they? It goes up some amount when duplicate special, thought it was by the same amount as normal duplicate.