MultiMesh

Inherits: Resource < RefCounted < Object

Provides high-performance drawing of a mesh multiple times using GPU instancing.

Description

MultiMesh provides low-level mesh instancing. Drawing thousands of MeshInstance3D nodes can be slow, since each object is submitted to the GPU then drawn individually.

MultiMesh is much faster as it can draw thousands of instances with a single draw call, resulting in less API overhead.

As a drawback, if the instances are too far away from each other, performance may be reduced as every single instance will always render (they are spatially indexed as one, for the whole object).

Since instances may have any behavior, the AABB used for visibility must be provided by the user.

Note: A MultiMesh is a single object, therefore the same maximum lights per object restriction applies. This means, that once the maximum lights are consumed by one or more instances, the rest of the MultiMesh instances will not receive any lighting.

Note: Blend Shapes will be ignored if used in a MultiMesh.

Tutorials

• Using MultiMeshInstance

• Optimization using MultiMeshes

• Animating thousands of fish with MultiMeshInstance

Properties

PackedFloat32Array	buffer	PackedFloat32Array()
PackedColorArray	color_array
PackedColorArray	custom_data_array
int	instance_count	0
Mesh	mesh
PackedVector2Array	transform_2d_array
PackedVector3Array	transform_array
TransformFormat	transform_format	0
bool	use_colors	false
bool	use_custom_data	false
int	visible_instance_count	-1

Methods

AABB	get_aabb ( ) const
Color	get_instance_color ( int instance ) const
Color	get_instance_custom_data ( int instance ) const
Transform3D	get_instance_transform ( int instance ) const
Transform2D	get_instance_transform_2d ( int instance ) const
void	set_instance_color ( int instance, Color color )
void	set_instance_custom_data ( int instance, Color custom_data )
void	set_instance_transform ( int instance, Transform3D transform )
void	set_instance_transform_2d ( int instance, Transform2D transform )

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Enumerations

enum TransformFormat:

TransformFormat TRANSFORM_2D = 0

Use this when using 2D transforms.

TransformFormat TRANSFORM_3D = 1

Use this when using 3D transforms.

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Property Descriptions

PackedFloat32Array buffer = PackedFloat32Array()

• void set_buffer ( PackedFloat32Array value )

• PackedFloat32Array get_buffer ( )

There is currently no description for this property. Please help us by contributing one!

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PackedColorArray color_array

See set_instance_color.

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PackedColorArray custom_data_array

See set_instance_custom_data.

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int instance_count = 0

• void set_instance_count ( int value )

• int get_instance_count ( )

Number of instances that will get drawn. This clears and (re)sizes the buffers. Setting data format or flags afterwards will have no effect.

By default, all instances are drawn but you can limit this with visible_instance_count.

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Mesh mesh

• void set_mesh (