"ok, we all know that having pre-defined items (object and materials) is not really “blenderish”
but not having a “visual” library tool seems to be like not having add–mesh–cube because you can
always get it combining raw vertexes, edges and faces.
maybe having a good wood, rubber, concrete, glass, plastic ready to use as a base, could be really useful.
who really cares if the gus-cookie-material made blender newbies will end up all the same; they will have time to grow, as we did (hopefully)."
this is very roughly the meaning of the first post of bullx on kino italian blenderheads forum,
calling for a method to organize a good materials library and a visual tool to enrich and push the usability of the “append” mechanism
http://www.kino3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3564
well, after the first “rush hour” we ended up with a script, still in early sytage of development,
that could be used like a “proof of concept”.
the library is a directory structure where are located blend files with objects and materials, and their associated thumbnail images
then the script is like the blender image browser: select the image and get the item.
Library is still in development.
I’m python guy wannabe, not a material or modeling wizard: so on the site there is my test library, where
none of the content is mine, an not more.
But the format is really trivial and open: take the blend, make a shot, put in the directory - you just made a library entry
Details are explained in the included pdf (english and italian, of course)
Any comment about this stuff is welcomed,
surely bug reports and hints on code,
but especially evaluation if this kind of approach could be considered valuable and,
last but not least, to call for cooperation, in the development of both script and library (if it deserves to).
sample materials, candidate for library, kept together by bullx:
http://www.idstudio.it/bullx/blender/visualappend/
Script+test DB:
http://uaraus.altervista.org/helper.html
look for library loader 0.0.8 or higher
