Mesh Instancer

There are a few ways to get a Mesh displayed in a scene. The primary method is to create an Actor with a mesh, which gives you full functionality to manipulate your mesh. Geoms are the opposite end of the scale. They let you statically insert your Mesh into the scene in a very performant way, but they cannot be moved or manipulated.

However, sometimes you need some middle-ground, and that's where MeshInstancer comes in. A MeshInstancer is a stage node that itself can be moved and manipulated, but allows you to instantiate a mesh multiple times in a way that's fast, and uses much less memory than individual Actors. There are drawbacks though:

• MeshInstances can't be moved after instantiation, although they can be removed, or have their visibility toggled.
• Individual MeshInstances aren't part of the Stage hierarchy.
• MeshInstances can't have behaviours (although the parent MeshInstancer can).
• MeshInstancer doesn't currently support levels of detail like Actors do.
• MeshInstances currently don't support mesh animations.
• MeshInstances don't currently support material slots.

MeshInstancers are great for things like foliage, trees, or rocks - where you want to instantiate the same mesh many times.