Boolean modifier with complex object (hole punching) makes blender go on its knees I am creating a hole pattern in this flattened cube using an object to subtract it with (boolean modifier) consisting of a lot of cylinders.



The cylinders uses two array modifiers, one that iterates in one width and one in another, creating a matrix of objects.

153 seconds after I added the boolean modifier, I got control back.
(When I have been running a similar scene on a macbook pro, blender crashed).

Applying the modifier takes the same amount of time. When the cylinders has been removed, the scene seems to be workable. Manipulating it will not cause wait time.

Is there an alternative method of achieving a hole pattern like this?

People have talked about faking the pattern with a shader.
Is that the way to do it? How would I do that?
I think you need to try out a specific add-on for your task. I have seen one called Box Cutter and its demoed on youtube, it probably has better code to handle the boolean operations than standard blender, lets hope.