Maya Instancing/Editing Multiple Objects at Once

Awe

Hello there, 

In my scene I have modeled a screw/bolt and placed it all over my scene, without using the duplicate special instance. Now I need to make a change to that objects geometry, but it already has been placed too many times to hand fix every single one. Is there any way that I could apply a "duplicate special" effect to the already existing models so that I may modify one, and all the rest follow?

Thank you for your time and help. 

poopipe

No, but It will be pretty straightforward to write a script to place instances at the transforms of the objects you have created. 

You'll find something pretty easily  if you Google for it. 

fstrube

Yes, I would also go for a quick python script.. Something like this would do it I think:

#selected your hero screw and then the srews you want to instance. 
#Then run this script in the scripteditor python tab.

import maya.cmds as cmds

sel = cmds.ls(selection=True)

for each in sel[1:]:

    instanceScrew = cmds.instance(sel[0], leaf=True )

    cmds.matchTransform(instanceScrew, each)

    cmds.delete(each)