I have serious problems when I build complex machines from instances of collections.
Consider e.g. wheels/tracks of a Tank: Each wheel is instance of a wheel template which is a collection of individual meshes (rim, axel, disk, damper ... )
This instance is multiplied 12x (6 wheels on each side), and then transformed by translation (offset between wheels in the track) and scaling x=-1.0 to get mirror symmetry (left track, right track)
But If I move the whole thing everything breaks appart, as each instance moves in different direction according to different pose of its origin.
Before I was working with "Softimage XSI" and there were many tools to solve this
- Global / Local and COG mode of transforms (using different coordinate system)
- Tools to modify origin of collection without moving the meshes inside the collection
I cannot find such tools in Blender 2.8