Is there a way to create instances rather than copies from Blender's new Asset Manager?

Support Basics & Interface
1

I’ve been playing with the Blender 3.0 Beta and quite liking the new asset browser. One workflow I tried was

  • creating a mesh
  • marking it as an asset
  • dragging the asset from the asset browser to my scene
  • editing my original mesh

I was hoping that when I edited my original asset, it would update the copy I made from the asset library too, but that did not happen. Is there a way to create instances of assets instead of just copies?

2

Look at header of Asset Browser, by default, it is set to Append (Reuse Data).
That means that object created is local and all objects created from same asset will be instances using same datablock.
Append means that each object, created from same asset, has a single-user datablock.
What you ask for is Link : object’s datablock is linked from original file. You have to create a library override to modify its position in scene file.

3

Not sure what header you’re referring to. Do you mean Blender’s source code? How would I create a library override with the asset browser?

4

Header means the horizontal bar of the editor that is displaying the menus.

You can’t create a library override from the asset browser.
You have to link the object in the scene. Then, you can create a library override from Object menu > Relations > Make Library Override or from right click menu in Outliiner > ID Data > Make Library Override Hierarchy (to be able to modify more than just position in scene file).