I’m new in asset browser and want to clear correct workflow for adding new pieces in user library.
Do I have to save all projects there I want to mark new asset?
For example I’m working on big project, I want mark some asset in the project, do I have to save whole heavy project file in asset library for only 1 asset?
In my dreams I can send asset from current file to my library, only asset that I marked not whole project.
My question as well. It seems you save the assets when you save your blend file. But that doesn’t make sense. I want to build an asset library that will open with any blender file, not just one. Under pref>File Paths Asset lib you can set the location of the assets lib. But how do you save it then?
I added an object and a material to the All category, then saved the startup file, closed blender, and when I reopened it the assets were there. But I hope that’s not the procedure.
Another discovery - When I edit a saved object to the browser you can’t update in the browser. Also, If you delete an object from the viewport that its also deleted from the browser. This is a great example of I have no idea how this works and it’s a beta.
Yes, thanks, Ozgur1, there are many addons, But I want native to blender. Personally, I like PyClone by Andy Peel. If AB is still funky come 12/1/21 I will go back to PyClone. The thing is I have hundreds of assets and don’t want to spend all my time setting up a lib only to do it again and again.
You can add the path to any folder on your computer as a library folder. You don’t have to use the 1 default location.
Is that blend file you’re working in the same file that is the home/origin of the asset? If so then you are deleting the asset itself. If you make a new file and link or append the asset then it will always exist in the browser because it’s referencing the original file where the asset “lives”. What can be confusing sometimes is when you add an asset to your new file, it appears as an asset in that file itself. If you happen to save your file in a library folder you’ll see 2 different copies of the same/similar asset because of that.
The asset browser system at this stage doesn’t do much automatically. It’s up to the user to organize their files and categories manually. You can’t “send” an asset from the current file over to an isolated new file within the library folder. Will probably be a long time before they start working on something like that.
qach_p, Wow this is wonderful information and really helps me better understand AB. Thanks for taking the time to lay this out. I have tried many 3rd party Asset Managers and only know I really want to have an AB/AM in my workflow.
Question, what’s your confidence level that BF will do a better job than others?
Better to ask someone who has made an asset management addon and ask them what roadblocks and headaches they encountered in the code. I’d imagine work on the official asset browser will add/fix some things that allow those addons to be better. The asset browser “should” have better drag and drop features than the 2 I’ve tried (blenderkit.com and https://blendermarket.com/products/the-asset-library) but I honestly do not expect it to be any better than the-asset-library in the short term except for the fact that it’s its own editor and not shoved into the side panel of the 3d viewport. If they don’t reintroduce support for collections as assets and better preview image generation soon I’m probably going to stick with The Asset Library addon for a long time.
I tend to make collection instances out of collection instances out of collection instances out of collection instances out of collection instances out of collections. So not having support for collections as assets until hopefully 3.1 is very annoying.
Thank you guys for figuring it out, now I get it.
Maybe it will be good idea find alternative asset browser for now
qach_q, i’m glad you brought this up. I just tried AB today and quickly realized AB does not support the following workflow:
Sure, I could save the current blend file to any number of folders i can configure in user preferences (File Paths > Asset Libraries), but if this blend file gets to be large, the performance of AB suffers because it has to read that large file any time you pick it from the dropdown in AB.
I’m guess the reason you can’t directly write to a user library is
a) there can be multiple blend files in the chosen File Path of the Asset Library in User Preferences. how would blender know which one to write to? Wondering why that section in UserPref was folder rather than file.
b) it’s probably harder to write (objects, materials etc) to a blend file than it is the read from it. Probably why it wasn’t developed to handle this functionality. that’s just speculation though, i’ll be careful on that one.
