Instance a rigged mesh I am trying to create a reusable rigged mesh, specifficly a toggle switch.
What I want to achieve is multiple switches that can be posed and animated separately but that share mesh data so I can go back and make changes.
My current set up is the toggle switch in a separate scene in the same blend file being brought into the scene as a collection instance. The only way to pose this that I have found is to change it in the instanced collection, which changes every instance together.
I have also tried putting the collection in a separate .blend, linking the collection in and adding a proxy to it's armature. Though it created an unnecessary amount of overhead (extra file, having to create the proxy) it did work for the first instance, however when I tried to repeat the process to add a second instance both got stuck in the default pose. I have found multiple older posts saying that the way to fix this is to create a duplicate of the source .blend for each instance, however this does not solve my problem because I still can't make changes to the mesh and have my all my instances updated.
One idea I have had is to somehow be able create a collection instance and have the rig be controlled using custom properties on the instancer, however I am yet to find a way to set that up.
This seems like such an obvious thing to be able to do that I feel sure I am missing some basic facet of reusing meshes.
I have found that when I create a collection instance of a collection containing a single mesh linked to an armature and make instances real it creates a duplicate armature and a new object linked to the original mesh, allowing the mesh to be animated separatly from other copies while being updated together.
To clarify:
Add your armature and rig to a collection
Create a Collection Instance of that collection (Shift+a &gt; Collection Instance)
Make the instances real (Ctrl+a &gt; Make Instances Real)