# render instances vs multi instances

**URL:** <https://forums.chaos.com/t/render-instances-vs-multi-instances/114812>\
**Category:** Issues\
**Created:** [April 26, 2023, 1:16pm UTC](https://forums.chaos.com/t/render-instances-vs-multi-instances/114812 "2023-04-26T13:16:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tomschmid](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/chaosprd/user_avatar/forums.chaos.com/tomschmid/32/1506_2.png) [@tomschmid](https://forums.chaos.com/u/tomschmid)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 1:16pm UTC](https://forums.chaos.com/t/render-instances-vs-multi-instances/114812/1 "2023-04-26T13:16:57Z")

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> [@last update issues](https://forums.chaos.com/t/last-update-issues/109879/7):
>
> hello to all thanks for the update on my doubts  
> @deyan.hadzhiev thanks for clarifying all my doubts.  
> Regarding your points:  
> - about instances and render instances and multi instances, i understand but again and thinking on V-ray3.7 (because it was my render engine since about 2007(15 years)) 😉 they work super fast and starts always instantly I must say that was more or less the same as today’s multi instances system… Again i know V-ray 5 is completely different from 3.xxx but maybe worth to speak with @stefan or even Maxon to see if there is a way to “paint” manually clones … Unfortunately Multi instances only works with Mograph or other scatter plugins and you can not control manually the position of the elements… and that’s why we use a lot of render instances or instances to place manually where we want… :S Again, and I don’t want to make this kind of comparisons but is the render engine more similar to V-ray and now that is a Chaos product, Corona dealing with instances and render instances very well

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pump for this..  
render instances are still much slower then multi instances. Why is that? And can it be fixed (same speed for both)

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**Author:** ![deyan.hadzhiev](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/chaosprd/user_avatar/forums.chaos.com/deyan.hadzhiev/32/24676_2.png) [@deyan.hadzhiev](https://forums.chaos.com/u/deyan.hadzhiev)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 2:15pm UTC](https://forums.chaos.com/t/render-instances-vs-multi-instances/114812/2 "2023-04-26T14:15:00Z")

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Hi @tomschmid , as I briefly explained in the original post - there is a reason there are three types of instancing in the Cloner object and Maxon still keep all three types.

I’ll try to give a little more in-depth details.

Generally the “Instance” mode is most flexible and allows complex per-instance modification and customization. But its biggest downside is that it effectively creates a copy for each instance.  
The “multi-instance” mode is the fastest, because it stores the per-instance data (transformation, color, etc) in a compact layout in the memory, so accessing it is really fast. Its downside is that some per-instance customizations are not possible and having this in hierarchies is not robust.  
The “render-instance” mode is something in the middle of the two - it preserves memory by simply referencing an object, but it does not store its data in the compact layout of the multi-instance mode. So this makes it faster than the standard instance, but still slower to process than the multi-instance.

So to answer your question whether it can be fixed - there will _always_ be speed differences between the two, mostly because of the way the instances are represented internally in Cinema 4D (as I explained above). While we may try to improve our logic for processing this data, it is highly unlikely that equal speeds will ever be achieved.

So as a general **hint** on instancing - use multi-instances whenever possible and when no complex per-instance modifications are necessary and the cloner is not part of a complex hierarchy.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tomschmid](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/chaosprd/user_avatar/forums.chaos.com/tomschmid/32/1506_2.png) [@tomschmid](https://forums.chaos.com/u/tomschmid)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 8:42pm UTC](https://forums.chaos.com/t/render-instances-vs-multi-instances/114812/3 "2023-04-26T20:42:01Z")

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thanks for your detailed explanation. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no function to convert manually positioned render-instances into multi-instances. Only possible when automatic scattered.

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**Author:** ![deyan.hadzhiev](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/chaosprd/user_avatar/forums.chaos.com/deyan.hadzhiev/32/24676_2.png) [@deyan.hadzhiev](https://forums.chaos.com/u/deyan.hadzhiev)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://forums.chaos.com/t/render-instances-vs-multi-instances/114812/4 "2023-04-26T22:28:05Z")

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I’m not sure there is something for conversion of existing instances, but you can surely fine tune the scatter object (as shown in this Cinema 4D tutorial: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyGfpnSgd8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyGfpnSgd8c) ). And the scatter object is also generating objects equivalent to multi-instances from Cloner (meaning that it should have comparable performance).  
Edit: Just wanted to add that in order to actually use the Scatter object as **multi-instances** it should be kept as **parametric** object. If it is **made editable** , Cinema 4D converts the objects to **single render instances** , in order to allow per-instance modifications and the optimization from multi-instance usage is **lost**.