From BlenderWiki

[edit] DupliFaces

DupliFaces is the capability to replicate an object on each face of a parent object. One of the best ways to explain this is through an example illustration.

Lets start by examining the base for the story of DupliFaces. To use DupliFaces there must be two objects, one of which will be the parent of the other. In the diagram we have a cube called “A” that is a parent of the sphere labeled “B”.

Next in the Object context (F7) → Anim settings panel, click on the DupliFaces button, which executes this effect. What happens is that the sphere which is a child of the cube is duplicated once for each face of the cube.

Generically, DupliFaces reproduces the child(ren) object(s) of a parent as many times as there are faces on this parent. The location, orientation and scale of the duplicated child(ren) matches that of the faces of the parent.

What is actually rendered is not exactly what is seen in the 3D view. The parent object is hidden from rendering and hence serves merely as a template. In addition, the original child(ren) object(s) is(are) also hidden so that only the duplicated instances of the object(s) are shown. In our example, the cube is not present in the render and neither is the original sphere which would otherwise have been in the centre of the six surrounding sphere corresponding to the six faces of the cube.

By default, the scaling of the duplicated objects maintains the scaling of the original child object. In the Anim settings panel there is a button called Scale that becomes visible when DupliFaces is selected. Pressing this button causes the duplicated objects to take on the scaling factor of the faces from which they were generated.

Contents 1 DupliFaces