Place Instances on Points and Realize Them in Blender Geometry Nodes

What will you learn in this guide?

One way to repeat the same geometry in a scene with Geometry Nodes is to create instances that reference the source geometry, rather than generating every copy as independent object data. This approach can be useful for placing modules along a façade, repeated furniture in an interior, or trees in a landscape. The examples here apply the documented behavior of the nodes to architectural and visualization workflows.

This guide covers how the Instance on Points node places instances on points, how selection and transform values control that placement, and when instances can be converted into real geometry with Realize Instances. It also looks at nested instances and the potential performance impact of realizing them.

Requirements

• Geometry Nodes must be used in Blender. The online manual pages referenced here do not specify a particular version number.

• Instance on Points requires geometry input containing a point domain. The manual includes meshes, point clouds, and curve control points in this category.

• Connect the geometry to be duplicated to the node’s Instance input. The source can be a single piece of geometry or contain multiple instances.

• Realize Instances is not required to create instances. Consider using it when each instance needs to undergo separate geometry operations.

The source documentation does not specify account, payment, or hardware requirements. The steps below are therefore limited to the documented inputs and outputs of the nodes.

Step by step: placing instances on points

1. Provide the placement points

Connect geometry containing the points where you want the copies to appear to the Points input of Instance on Points. The points’ positions determine where the resulting instances appear in the scene. The point domain can belong to a mesh, point cloud, or curve control points.

If the input geometry already contains instances, the node can also add geometry to points within that structure. This creates layered, or nested, instances. In this scenario, the final placement is determined by more than the transform and scale values supplied to the node; the parent instance’s transform also affects the result.

2. Specify the geometry to repeat

Connect the geometry you want to place to the Instance input. The node creates instances referencing this geometry at the selected points. According to the source manual, instances are a fast way to use the same geometry many times in a scene without duplicating the underlying data.

If the Instance input contains geometry with multiple instances, enable Pick Instances to select an item from the list rather than using the entire source structure. The manual points to using this option with the Collection Info Node. When Pick Instances is enabled, Instance Index determines which item is used.

3. Set which points to use and how instances look

Use Selection when you don’t want to use the entire point set: points with a true value are used, while the rest are excluded from placement. This lets you limit placement based on the properties of the input geometry rather than creating instances on every point. Point attributes can also be used in the instance domain of the generated instances.

Rotation sets the Euler rotation for each instance, while Scale sets its size. Rotation data can come from the output of nodes such as Distribute Points on Faces or Curve to Points. The manual also mentions Align Rotation to Vector Node for converting a direction vector into rotation data.

4. Select different items from the source list

If the source geometry contains a list of instances, enable Pick Instances and use Instance Index to specify which item should go on each point. If a point has an ID attribute, the node uses it for this selection; if there is no ID, it uses the point’s position in the list. If the value falls outside the valid range for the number of items in the list, selection continues from the opposite end of the list.

If an unexpected source item appears, first check whether Pick Instances is enabled and review the Instance Index value. In setups with multiple source items, selection depends not only on the point’s position but also on the geometry corresponding to that index.

5. Convert instances to geometry if needed

Connect the output of Instance on Points to a Realize Instances node to convert references into actual geometry data. This allows the converted objects to be changed independently. While they remain instances, changes applied to copies sharing the same geometry remain shared.

Selection in Realize Instances determines which top-level instances are included in the conversion. For nested structures, Depth sets how many levels down the conversion proceeds. Use Realize All to convert every level; this bypasses the Depth limit. The node also has a Preserve Normals option to maintain the visible face orientation of mirrored mesh instances.

It may not be the right approach to add this node automatically to all repeated geometry. The manual notes that converting many complex geometry instances to real geometry can significantly degrade performance. If there is no need to edit every copy separately, keeping the instance structure and considering conversion only where needed is a more controlled approach.

Common mistakes

• Realizing too early: Converting complex, heavily repeated geometry into real geometry can increase the performance cost. Work with instances first, and consider realizing them only when separate operations are needed.

• Overlooking parent transforms in nested structures: The appearance of new instances can depend on transforms inherited from parent instances, in addition to their own Rotation and Scale values.

• Not checking Pick Instances: When this option is enabled, Instance Index selects an item from the source list. If an ID exists, it is used for the default selection; otherwise, the point index is used.

• Treating Realize All and Depth as independent settings: When Realize All is enabled, all nested instance levels are converted, and Depth does not impose a limit.

• Assuming source order stays fixed when geometry is joined: When multiple geometry inputs are joined, the index order of geometry items used by instances may change. The instance indices themselves stay in order, but the order of geometry and material indices may not.

Next steps in architectural and archviz workflows

For repeated elements such as façade modules, interior furniture, or landscape assets, Instance on Points can place the same source in many locations. The point geometry determines placement, Selection controls which points are used, and Rotation and Scale set the instances’ orientation and size. If you need to select different source items, also check the behavior of Pick Instances and Instance Index.

Realize Instances can be added to the workflow when an element needs to be changed separately from the others. However, it is important to monitor the performance impact in scenes with many complex instances. As the sources do not provide hardware requirements, licensing costs, or a Blender version number, compatibility and performance should be evaluated separately in your project environment.

Sources and license

This tutorial is adapted into Turkish from the “Instance on Points Node” and “Realize Instances Node” pages in Blender’s official online manual. Both pages are published under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. The technical explanations have been paraphrased based on the information in those documents, and the architectural and visualization examples have been added to provide practical context.