I'm constantly hitting this problem but finally had a moment to throw a minimal scene together to illustrate. I must have something simple wrong.

If I have a bunch of points in an Instance Node, and I animate them, I can see them animating fine while inside the Instance node itself. Jump up out of it, and choose an object to instance, and the animation no longer updates the viewport. All my instances display OK, but they never update their positions onscreen unless I toggle the Instance Node's display flag.

Try it: open the file, and play the animation: nothing happens. Toggling the node's display flag makes it update properly (even while playing!).

Dive into the Instance Node to see what it's supposed to look like - it'll animate fine.

And it renders fine - just doesn't work interactively in the viewport.

Am I missing a setting? Or does it work fine for you?

h / 16.5.571

I think instance node is not appropriate for that you want to do. You need to use a copy node like the hip.
For me the instance node is a good idea to render object copy on particle.

You can pack your object if you optimize.

Trouble is, this is a simplified file - I'm really trying to instance volumes and lights and what-have-you. But this is enough to show the problem.

If I could just copy-to-points, I would

Seems like this is worthy of an RFE unless anyone can spot anything stoopid I've done…

I think what's bothering me is that workarounds are certainly possible (eg do all your point generation and a previewable copy-to-points in another node, then obj merge it into the Instance Node) but that they shouldn't be necessary.

Feels like a bug. Toggling a Display flag shouldn't be the only way to update the viewport.

I'd appreciate it if anyone can tell me if they have the same issue so I can RFE it without wasting SideFX's time - I'd hate to find it's just some setting I've got wrong

howiem
I'd appreciate it if anyone can tell me if they have the same issue so I can RFE it without wasting SideFX's time - I'd hate to find it's just some setting I've got wrong

I have the same issue! I was googling for a solution and came across this.