Append or Mark as Asset

Support Basics & Interface
1

I’m still pretty new to Blender…
When you get a geometry node setup (like snow that adds to the mesh not just shader) and you want it to be added to the things you create in another file,
do you mark it as an asset - if so, having some struggles with this
or
do you append the file - and also having troubles with this…

Maybe the better question is how do you know what approach to take for adding things to your default blender setup. Shaders and basic objects are pretty easy - mark as asset. Once geometry nodes are involved or even some complex shaders, I’m totally at a loss.

2

#Higgsas just added a collection of geometry nodes in another thread. If downloaded, how do I use them or add them to my collection?

3

Hello,

There is no perfect answer, and I don’t use asset browser that much yet…
The old school way is to have all these ‘assets’ files well organised on your drive and append them when needed.

If it’s something that you use quite often (shader or geo-nodes) , probably asset browser is the way to go…
If it’s very occasional, I probably wouldn’t want these assets to show up every time in my asset browser library…

With geo nodes you have different purpose for things :
Something like an advanced array , that works like the array modifier but allow you to rotate/scale individual parts of the array, and add more options. As it’s a generic tool that you can use regularly, having it in the asset browser make a lot of sense.

Something like this : https://www.blendernation.com/2022/02/13/geometry-nodes-stylised-rope-bridge-game-asset/ is probably too specific unless you’re working on a project that use this asset often, having it in your library just for the project can be useful but not permanently IMO.
It’s more a parametric asset.

The snow setup you’re talking about falls a bit between these two categories…
It’s a generic tool that can apply to many different objects, but how many time a year you make some snowy scenes, maybe it’s better not to store it in the asset browser, but keeping it at hand in a well organised folder for your X-mas projects…

That how I’d like to work, but maybe someone else will add stuff as much as he can in the asset browser and use the tag system to find asset with a search.

Hope that makes sense and help you a bit, in the end you’ll have to find yourself the way of working you enjoy the most !