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I'm trying to split a big .blend into several smaller ones, so that several people can work on different parts.

I split it into 5 smaller .blend (~= 200MB and > 1000 objects each), and I created an empty one (container.blend) that links to each scene.

The problem is : each scene is completely separate. From my "Container Scene", I can't get to make the 5 others visible. Only one is active, only one is visible :

enter image description here

When I render ContainerScene, I want Scene_62XXMECH-1 to be rendered, too.

Is there a button I missed ? Should I add all 7000 objects separately in the container scene ? Is there another way ?

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Scenes in blender are like separate environments, each one is visible independently and renders it's own output, while you can have linked objects that can be moved in each scene at the same time.

One way of combining multiple scenes is to composite them together.

Most likely I think you want to import all of the objects from the other files into your container scene, not the scene itself. Your container scene can contain many imported objects from many different files. When you import objects from another file you can select all of the objects (press A in the file browser) in one file and import them in one go.

A common method used when linking files is to assign a group to a number of objects and import the group into your container scene. Each group will then show up as one item visible in your container scene. With objects to be animated, this often includes an armature in the group. You can then make a proxy of the armature to allow animating it in the new file while the mesh can only be altered in the original file.

There is an addon called Edit Linked Library that makes it easy to switch between files containing linked objects.

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  • $\begingroup$ Groups seem perfect, but for some reason when I link an external group into my container scene, it's empty. The <kbd>A</kbd> trick works, though, thanks heaps ! I tried using <kbd>Shift</kbd> to no avail. $\endgroup$
    – Calvin1602
    May 13, 2014 at 7:54
  • $\begingroup$ When you are selecting the group to import there is an option called Instance Groups that will create it straight away, if that isn't turned on at the time then you can manually add a copy of a group from the add menu under group Instance. $\endgroup$
    – sambler
    May 13, 2014 at 8:27
  • $\begingroup$ Hum, for some reason groups just started working (the Instance Groups option was always checked). Maybe a missing quit-reopen. $\endgroup$
    – Calvin1602
    May 13, 2014 at 10:00

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