Can you merge instances?

[chicagobob123]

I read this  thread

and looked at this example. 

https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2EGQ6C#1

I am getting what styxxx explained. The browser is blowing up. 

What I am doing is looks like this 

                 l1, l2 and l3 are arrays of instanced meshes. 

                var newsidenumbers;

                var sidenumberarray =[];

                   ml1=BABYLON.Mesh.MergeMeshes(l1);       
                   ml2=BABYLON.Mesh.MergeMeshes(l2);
                   ml3=BABYLON.Mesh.MergeMeshes(l3);
                   newsidenumbers=BABYLON.Mesh.MergeMeshes([ml1,ml2,ml3]);
                   newsidenumbers.makeGeometryUnique();
                   sidenumberarray.push(newsidenumbers); // column and numbers 1,2,3
                   l1 = l2 = l3 = ml1 = ml2 = ml3 = null;

Later I want to do this. newsidenumbers=BABYLON.Mesh.MergeMeshes(sidenumberarray);

and instance it. Basically make one and repurpose for performance. 

 

 

[Wingnut]

Hi CB!  http://www.html5gamedevs.com/search/?&q=merge instances&type=forums_topic&nodes=16,28,29,30,31

According to the 4th post (Dad72) and 6th post (Deltakosh)... instances cannot be merged.  Sorry.

I'm not real knowledgeable as-to WHY... but... I believe it is because instances carry no geometry data of their own.  They must reference their master's geometry.

Instances are lightweight because of this feature.  Party on. 

[chicagobob123]

Always love an answer.  While I waited I determined to do more optimizations. I cloned some base objects made them unique and then instanced that which worked very well. The performance was great and load time improvement was about 500%.  Went from 40 some seconds down to ~7 seconds. So it was worth the redo. 

What I work on is so dry and uninteresting but it does push the boundaries of things.  

And here for me its Friday/Payday and Saint Pats weekend. So the Party is ON