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I am working on a Blender model of an atom. The atom is made up of the following

  • Two icospheres with instancing configured and two spheres parented to create the protons and neutrons (the red and blue spheres in the images)
  • Three curve circles, with one sphere on each acting as the electrons (the green spheres in the images). These have a follow path constraint with an animation path created to make them move round the circles.

If I try and join all of the items it messes up the protons, neutrons, and electrons. See the video below for how it works: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oQ862opaj-dQETOPkowl1fh5nEyqZjj-/view?usp=sharing

See the image below for what happens when I try joining the objects: enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This sounds like the XY Problem. Why are you trying to join all these into one object to begin with? You won't be able to profit from instancing and path-based animation. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 20 at 18:49
  • $\begingroup$ I want to append it to another file then use an array modifier and a curve modifier to make multiple atoms in a circle round another object. If there is another way to do this whilst keeping the animation working I would like to hear it. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 20 at 19:05
  • $\begingroup$ You can put all your spheres in a collection, then instance your collection, either with the old instancing system, or wit geonodes? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 20 at 19:58
  • $\begingroup$ I have them all in a collection, how would I then do the instance for the collection, I want about 10 of them round a circle? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 21 at 6:13

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Sorry for the slow reply, I had completely forgotten about this post as I had solved the issue, and my email notifications don't appear to be working. I have resolved the issue by putting it all into a collection, then creating a circle and using geometry nodes (pictured below) to do the rest. enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ ok that's the geonode version of what i suggested ;) $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 24 at 19:21
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah I know, I was able to find a tutorial to explain it so I could figure it out. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26 at 18:13
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It's doable with geonodes but here is the old school way: Put your atoms and its curves into a collection:

enter image description here

Disable the collection in the Outliner, create your big object (here Suzanne) and the curve for the orbit around it, drag and drop the collection into the scene to create an instance, give it a Follow Path constraint with the new curve as target:

enter image description here

Animate (of course you can add as many collection instances as you want):

enter image description here

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