Link to collection - not understanding it

I understand (mostly) linked duplicates from the previous video Duplicating and Instancing, but I do not understand link to collection.

Say I have the default cube in the default collection. I then made a new collection called Linked. I linked the cube in the default collection to the linked collection. I now see the cube in both collections, and see object properties has 2 users, but there is still only one cube to manipulate?



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  • Omar Domenech replied

    Yes it is always one cube, just that it is located in two collections. It's just like having one kid and two rooms, he can be in one room (collection one) or he can go to the other room (collection two). Just that in Blender it happens that the kid can be in room one and two at the same time. Your cube can live in both collections at once.

    This is handy when you have to do some scene organization and you need one asset to be in more than one collection because you have to keep turning one collection on and off but you don't want that object to be hidden, or something like that. There's lots of situations.

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  • winthrop replied

    Better to think of it in terms of "Membership" in a "Set".  An object can be a "member" of more than one information set.

    To use the kid analogy from above, one kid (object) can be a member of three clubs (Blender Collections).
    His name appears on the roll call of each club, but he is still only one kid.

    As Omar said, once you grasp that, it's a very useful and powerful concept.

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  • Dwayne Savage(dillenbata3) replied
    An example of using collection linking is when You build a set. So you have 4 walls and the set pieces of a living room. You're doing a shot facing the entrance. You'd have one wall removed where the camera is and any objects that aren't normally seen from this angle. That's collection 1. Then you have a shot where the entrance is behind the camera. This will have the 2 side walls, the missing wall, and most of the same pieces. This would be collection 2. As you can see this makes it quicker to switch. Instead of having to turn on/off walls and then pieces that aren't seen. There are other uses like collection instancing, and particle systems, view layers, etc. 
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  • Jim DeAngelis(Jim118) replied

    Thanks to all for your terrific responses - it's much clearer to me now, and I see how it can be very useful!

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