For a long time, I have been thinking about better ways to integrate new assets faster in your Blender scene. No searching through complex and (often) messy folder structures, importing, setting up the material - and then doing this for every new scene we do, because we forgot where we saved the assets. That’s why @core-process and I came up with the idea of Asset Ninja, a hopefully better and faster way to work with your assets.
Think of it as an equivalent to Quixel Bridge, but for multiple asset libraries, a place with all the assets in your hand. You can browse through the libraries, select your asset and then send it directly to blender - everything is set up automatically.
Although our software is still in beta, we have already collaborated with the awesome libraries texturehaven.com and hdrihaven.com, kudos to @gregzaal and Rob Tuytel for that! You can already use AssetNinja, to browse and load all of the great CC0 HDRIs and Textures into Blender.
We’re also supporting Cinema 4D and Maya so far, so if you’re working in different programs, you can access the assets as well.
Now this project is still in a very early stage, but I’m posting this here to get more ideas and opinions on this. We’d love to hear what you think, so feel free to test it.
@JoelEapen ok, we tested Fedora 31 and Ubuntu 19.10 at the moment. Ubuntu 18.04 will not work at the moment, as we need to use a Linux version with an older libc version to increase the compatibility. I will ping you, once we changed our Linux build system.
Great start, I would love to see adding custom file types support. This way users would be able to manage their fonts, tutorials (video file types), zip files, pure reference files, substance painter material files etc. Connecter currently has this and I can basically manage everything possible related to 3d with one single software.
Thanks for the effort. May I ask if there is a timeline for adding assets that is custom/locally made? Correct me if I"m wrong, currently, it only supports online assets.
Hi @bentraje, you are right. Right now, Asset Ninja is kind of a CC0 Bridge. Local asset management is a highly requested feature, and we are currently laying the groundwork for the missing pieces so we can implement something like this. If you feel the same regarding that feature, please describe your understanding of local asset management in the #your-ideas channel at our Discord server (https://discord.gg/NgMpAX5). It will help us to develop a sound concept and move this topic forward! I cannot promise a timeline yet.
