Instancing works great for a group of marching soldiers at midrange or long distance, for example. Close range wouldn't work, you'd immediately see that they're all identical.

A really smart instancing algorithm can introduce variations per instance. Even better, if the geometry can be made procedurally, you can vary some input parameters per instance. Vue uses this for ecosystems of plants and rocks - those are instance of procedural geometries, and each rock/plant in an ecosystem is slightly different.

Vue 6 Infinte has both instancing AND sub-D. Then again, it's significantly more expensive than Poser...

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery   My freestuff