Importing scenes with multiple objects that share the same geometry? (To design levels in a different app)

:information_source: Attention Topic was automatically imported from the old Question2Answer platform.
:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By Ray Alez

Hi! I’m relatively new to godot, I’m having trouble building large levels inside of the godot editor, so I would like to use a different app(Houdini or Blender) to create levels and then import them into godot.

The problem is that if I place an asset into the scene multiple times(let’s say I create 100 identical trees), the level will be imported into godot as one big chunk of geometry, duplicating the geometry information for each of the trees.

I would like to be able to take advantage of instancing, create a level such that each of the trees reuses the same mesh, and maintain that relationship when I import the level into godot, to avoid wasting resources.

Would that be possible? (any creative idea or workaround is welcome)