Storing files (like textures, images, etc.)

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hello all. I’m a new Blender user and have one quite basic question. Does Blender not allow me to store a file on an external drive? I put some textures and images on an external drive, and was going to pull them into Blender when needed, but when I clicked on Open image, I only saw the drives on my PC.

Since I look to gather a lot of textures and images over time as I continue to use Blender, I didn’t want to take up more hard drive space with all the extra stuff.

Thanks.

2

If your OS file browser can see the files, then Blender can too, unless it’s corrupted in some way. I just tried it with Blender 2.79 & a thumb drive, works fine for me.

3

i use network drives, flash drives, and hard drives. all work fine. just dont pack the files into the blend if you are worried about space.

4

Thanks for the information. I can see local drives like the USB stick and card reader that are directly attached to my PC, but I am unable to see a hard drive attached to my router, which is where I wanted to store the pics and textures. I put the same picture on a USB stick and on that external drive attached to the router, but I inside Blender I could only pick the USB drive. How can I make Blender see beyond the local PC?

5

If you have mapped your router’s drive to your local PC, Blender should see it. If not, here’s a page I found via Google:
https://its.broad.msu.edu/documentation/network-drive-7/

6

Thank you sabba. That solved the problem. I have Windows 8, so I looked up how to do network drive mapping for it. I followed those instructions and now Blender sees my network drive.

Thanks again.