Master the new Asset Browser in Blender 3.0
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- One of Blenders most long awaited new features is here! With the new Asset Browser you can organize your assets for easy drag and drop scene creation, materialing, and much more.
0:00 Intro
1:20 Basics of the asset browser
3:04 Disclaimer about the asset browser
5:14 How I organize my files
8:09 Setting up Library target directories
9:03 How AB works
11:55 Prepare assets before adding to asset libraries
13:30 Fix origin points of multiple objects
15:24 Rename multiple objects at once
16:23 Turn things in to assets
16:51 Organize assets in to catalogues
18:47 Various features of the Asset Browser
20:08 A few hopeful features for the future
22:19 Use materials in the asset browser
23:28 Setup a PBR material for multiple image maps
29:54 Material alpha
30:36 Material displacement
30:53 Make the material an asset!
31:05 Use a material asset as a template for a new material
32:26 Fix pink material previews
33:24 Organize assets in to catalogues / how I organize my materials
My Ultimate Metal shader blendermarket.com/products/ul...
Spacehead's creations www.blendswap.com/profile/300...
Jsplacement procedural texture generator windmillart.net/?p=jsplacement
Free texture maps ambientcg.com/list
Scifi corridor used in thumbnail and example skfb.ly/orVJy - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
The only one I could find giving examples of how to organize! Very sweet, thx! :D
Glad to help! I LOVE being organized! With the amount of files I make and collect I have to be.
Great video for lots of reasons. Just the batch renaming tip at 15:10 alone is gold!
Isn't it!? Haha thanks.
Hey Daniel, excellent tutorial, I was looking for a tutorial for the asset browser, but I've learned so many other things as well. I appreciate showing your file organisation, tips on organising work are pretty rare. Thank you!
Thank you so much! I always try to cram in a bunch of other helpful tips in to my topical videos. Glad to hear you benefitted from this. Can't wait to see what Blender does next with the asset browser, what features would you like to see added or changed?
Awesome tutorial, thank you Daniel for your time and effort sharing it with us.
I love sharing knowledge! What should I cover next?
Great video, very useful advice and I am a super organized person and this is making me all very happy
Very useful tutorial, Thanks.
thanks for your tutorials ! happy new year to all of you.
Thanks!
Thank you very much, your video's is well explained and helped me in a world of so much info in blender that must make sense.Thanks!
Dude, I like your style. Keep on not taking yourself too seriously, it’s a good look.
Haha it's the only way to get through life! Laugh at yourself and hope it makes someone else laugh too. Thanks.
Very helpful, thank you!
Great work! tnks
Thanks. I hope they continue to advance the asset browser to more features and useability.
Thank you
Super Thanks for Tutorials!,
Thanks for watching
Thank you. You helped me a lot.
So glad to hear that! What topics would you like to see covered in the future?
Great tutorial, thank you very much for putting in all that effort to make it. It was a very helpful overview, with some good detail. Making tutorials about potentially complex subjects is not easy; people should remember that.
Btw, your issues with node wrangler: YES!! It obviously *still* doesn't work properly. I have had exactly the same problem with it on all the recent Blender versions I have used. Every time it brings in the colour map twice, and ignores the metalness map completely, so you have to go in and edit it manually, & bring in the correct map and set to 'non-color' data. It is really annoying, because it gets everything else right. This seems like such a basic problem, a persistent coding error, it certainly doesn't seem to be caused by incorrectly or ambiguously named maps, as others have suggested. Can they fix this?
Anyway, I think the whole blender scene/ecosystem is getting really exciting, I think it's safe to say the whole thing has reached critical mass now, with so much support from the wider tech industry. It seems inevitable, to me, that it will progress rapidly, and offer ever more to its users.
What a great time to be using Blender! And... thank you for all of your interesting and valuable tutorials.
Edit: I've just watched this again and it is soo helpful. You mentioned in a response to someone else that blender can see files in subfolders in your nominated root directories, that is also very helpful to know - organisation rules!!
Thank you so much for the detailed comment! Us content creators love feedback like this. I agree with the excitement on Blenders upgrades. This time next year I bet it will be much better still.
Very useful
Batch rename.... thank you, sir!
It's great isn't it? I use it all the time when making or importing kit bashes for my library.
@@DanielGrovePhoto is amazing. I always organise things and that's been quite a pain at time. You have saved me literally hours of work with that little (huge) tip!
FANTASTIC!!
Thanks! have you begun using the asset browser on your own yet?
@@DanielGrovePhoto Little by little.....I have created a LOT of assets over the years. So, I've been trickling stuff into it.
@@ErikStitt I bet! Im excited to see what they improve in it next year. Maybe faster loading and sorting filters
@@DanielGrovePhoto That would be pretty cool, actually.
Thanks! I’m doing general tidy up w my asset browser. Your mindset was what I needed to see. I’m excited but a little worried about become an asset hoarder. Like people who never delete photographs
Haha you're talking to a photographer here with backups going back to 2008! But I agree only keep what you'll actually use.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You're welcome x3! How'd you find this and what would you like me to cover next?
@@DanielGrovePhoto I was searching youtube for the Asset Browser. Im still noob so ill have my hands full browsing the videos you have. Glad i found it, love your teaching style!
Great organization video, it's things like this that give a good foundation to start. PS re K-Cycles X, would be great to see you do a video on it's setting and capabilities for interior renders :)
Thanks I may but there's not much to it it's just faster! My render times were 3-5 times faster
I'll definitely be doing a video soon about my favorite add-ons free and paid and I will mention this one although it is a separate build of blender
@@DanielGrovePhoto my K-Cycles X renders always take the exact same time to render as regular Cycles x :(
I wonder what could be wrong with the software
Hey Daniel, really great video. soooo clear. Do you have a recommended folder structure ? It would make a nice template!!
Sure I have a folder (library) for each main thing - Kitbash, shaders, PBR, sketchfab, megascans, and my products I sell online. In those folders are further organizing folders like for each type of PBR material (metal, scifi, wood etc.) or for each type of kitbash / 3dscan. Thankfully Blenders asset browser looks in subfolders for assets so you can be very organized.
That was truly awesome. I learned working in C4D (actually went to school for it) but never got to solidify working in 3D because of, well....the price of the program and the many other things I was doing to be a good entrepreneur. Now I have found a guy who wants me to do a 3D project and for the first time Blender seem to have many, many of the features I was used to.
In IT I am a workflow specialist in a creative Branch so my first needs even when I was learning to be a '3D Producer' using C4D was to get to understand ALL elements of the program in order to understand how to organize the workflow(s). So here I am, halfway into preparing for this possible new client, getting my s*** together realizing this is going to take up my time and here you are.
I was just looking to see if I could lose my assets used from the browser when saving my project and moving the project to another computer. I still don't have a definite answer to my quest, and we all know whose mother assumption is. BUT! I got so many great answers to be well-prepared to create, it is f***** amazing. When I start making money, I will buy you a coffee. That's for sure.
Thanks for watching and writing! That sounds exciting and it's great to do what you live again. Glad you found answers here! Check out my other videos as well. Would a portable hdd with assets on it be a viable option for you?
@@DanielGrovePhoto Right now synchronizing my HDD with the Blender folder is one way of doing it. As I am reading your reply I realize there is not even an option "save project with assets" that I have found. But to an IT guy the external HDD is very oldschool. For sure I am not aiming for the next creative cloud solution either. At this point though it makes me wonder how good or bad a process of relinking would be. Yet...another software developer problem. Not really yuor thing nor mine.
By the way. I found something this morning you might like (or already have discovered by now), "Import Collections in Blender's Asset Browser (Blender 3.0 Tutorial)" th-cam.com/video/YFX8Fzg5CYY/w-d-xo.html. Neat trick as a work-around.
@@thomasontimeshipearthtafka6030 If your HD letters and directories are setup the same you won't need to relink anything if you open the Blend file on another computer. Assuming they of course have the same assets on both system drives. And I'll check that out! Collections were asset-able then they removed it then they added it back in 3.3 finally. Very handy for groups of things or complex assets that you wish to retain separated pieces which I prefer.
@@DanielGrovePhoto I use it for the environment you show in this video to test materials as an environment model template with HDRI & lights! It's in my Asset Library. Haha...I had a really great day finding your video in the morning.
In Blender 3.4 you have those alpha settings for material available when Cycles is enabled but they are located under Viewport display rollup of material properties.
yes! They finally added them there, yay! I guess they've heard my complaining over the years on here.
excellent tutorial.
I'm wondering if you have any hints on how to add your spaceship addon into the asset browser.
thanks for your great work
Sure! Put the blend file in a library directory. Open the blend file and mark all meshes and materials as assets. Save and close. Open a new blend file and they should be in your asset browser in the correct library.
Why I can't put 1k likes? I am one step forward with this tutorial now, thank you sir! ❤
Why thank you! Check it my other blender videos in my blender Playlist.
About building up a material library: lets say you are in the blend file where you have some materials marked as assets. You also have one applied to your objects. If I want to bring another material asset from other library and mark it as an asset in the current file what is the best way to proceed. If I just drag and drop it into the scene on my object that already has an material asset applied I got all sorts of weird stuff like the material name doesn't update but keeps the old one, in the shader editor some maps from the older material are plugged in etc.
If you drag an asset from the asset browser into a project that material is still marked as an asset I believe so if you save that blend file and now has a material as an asset in the blend file. As for your problem of having materials mixed up I don't know what's going on there. I've never experienced that myself. When I drag a material on top of the old material name it always replaces it completely.
Super helpful tutorial.
Question I have:
What is the relationship between the file locations of the source file of the asset and the catalog that refers to it ? Do they have to be in the same folder location?
How did you organize your asset lib folder locations vs source file locations?
Library directories are at the top and are set in preferences. You can have multiple libraries. Mine are Kitbash, Sketchfab, Shaders, Megascans, and Products (my own).
Catalogues are within Libraries and can contain assets from different Blend files. All Blend files within a Library must be in the same folder but if a Blend file is within a sub folder it can also be seen by Blender. So my "kitbash" library points to D:/Blender/Kitbash and within it are a bunch of different blend files for kitbashes and kitbash3D products. As long as a Blend file in there has marked assets Blender will see it and show it's assets within my Kitbash library. From there I put things in Catalogues for specific kitbash sets and types.
I have begun building a PBR shader blend file and a procedural shader blend file both within my D/Blender/Shaders folder which is also a library targeted in my preferences. In those blend files I have begun collecting, importing, and building useful materials I use as assets.
Does that answer your question?
@@DanielGrovePhoto Yes perfect. The blend file itself containing the marked asset is the source and library is pointing to a directory. The catalogs within a library are then simply an organizing mechanism in Blender and they don't have subdirectory equivalents in the file system. Got it!
great tutorial many thanks. I would like to know if you were to add multiple assets into a new folder, will it take up memory as individually duplicated pieces or is the file still lightweight and works like copying instances?
What do you mean by "in to a new folder"? Do you mean organizing it in the asset browser? If so then no it does not duplicate the data or increase file sizes. Remember the asset browser simply looks at blend files with marked assets in them. So the catalogue system is just a way to sort and organize links to the original assets that reside in their source blend files. It seems you can't have a single asset in multiple catalogues within the same library though which is disappointing.
You can use instancing there's an option for append or not in the asset browser it's near the top and center of it its a drop down.
Thanks, great share. Do you happen to know if assets get 1) copied or 2) linked when brought into scene?
There's a drop down I forgot to cover right along the top of the asset browser that let's you choose. It has append and another option.
@@DanielGrovePhoto - cool, thanks
Gawwwd yes thank you!
I've watched a bunch of these videos to fill in any gaps I may have had and none of them covered a lot of the inbetween tips I do here. You are welcome! I had fun making this.
NEED CLARITY pls🤔 @ 17:30 How is it that you have the Current File selected in the Asset Browser that shows several other catalogs and subcats as well, yet, in your 3d viewport, you only have the assets (batch) you are assigning to the Space Greebles cat/subcat and no others that are in the other cats. Where are the other assets like Buildings & Kitbash Parts? A bit confused with that part. Hope my question is clear. Thanks Daniel.
Other catalogues are visible because this Blend file is within a folder that is chosen in preferences to be a Library (master folder that contains other Blend files each with their own catalogues to organize their own parts). This one is in the Kitbash library folder. Even though I'm in "current file" it shows the catalogues I've made in other Blend files because they all are within the Kitbash folder on my harddrive. Does that answer your question?
Very good video and useful advice. I am curious though, if you know a way to save aaall the assets in ONE place. I would like to have only one folder on my ssd where all the assets are saved (organised in catalogs there). Is that possible ?
Yes! Heres an overview:
[Master folder name] - registered in the File Paths in preferences
>[Sketchfab folder] - contains Blend files with marked assets, blend files can further be organized in sub folders
>[Materials folder] - contains Blend files with marked assets, blend files can further be organized in sub folders
>[Kitbash folder] - contains Blend files with marked assets, blend files can further be organized in sub folders
When you begin marking assets in each Blend file make catalogs (catalogs don't represent real folders they are only in Blender) and make a catalog with the same name as each master sub folder (sketchfab, maerials, kitbash) for example. You can further make catalogs under those for better organization.
Make sense?
@@DanielGrovePhoto thanks for answering so fast :) makes sense. sounds like a lot of organising ahah do you recommend creating all assets in one blend file? Then I would have only one assets library location... makes finding stuff easier no?
@@nilsfauvain9473 no I'd separate them in to separate blend files. Blend files get big and problematic. I do one blend file per material type and one for each major asset group type.
what kind of lighting and hdri setup you use to create the setup for pbr materials? Asking this because of the thumbnail previews in the asset browser. Yours look very nice and you seem to use the one autogenerated and not custom images or Im wrong?
I'm using the auto generated ones so I don't think HDRI is used in those.
@@DanielGrovePhoto using just a sun lamp? no HDRIs? pls share the settings
@@orphydiancg7759 yes but I think the asset browser does some kind of internal render or default setup. I don't think your scene actually influences the thumbnail generation. Would be easy to test though if you have time.
When a new stable version of Blender comes out what will happen with all of this work?
is the plane and the cube subdivided same as the sphere? to use the displacement map you need lots of geometry.
Can't recall if I did subdivision in this video or not but yes you'd need to subdivide them a few times and then let the subdiv modifier do the rest.
around 11:35 How could you add all those stuff in catalogs since you seem to have a bunch of different blend files inside Kitbash folder on your drive and as far as I know you can only move them to catalogs if you are in one of that file? Do you happened to have a blend file called Kitbash?
That is correct in order to organize things into catalogs you have to have that blend file open and save the changes that you just made. It is annoying and I hope Linda will fix that in the future. I do not have a kit bash blend file no I have a blend file for each kit or product I've bought or thing I've made or set of pieces I've collected. They are all inside of the kid bash folder which happens to coincide with the kit bash library in blender.
@@DanielGrovePhoto so all the assets from all the blend files will show in the Kitbash library because that is also the main folder, and you get a huge mess of unsorted stuff, not taking into account the separate files where they came from and where they are marked as assets.
@@orphydiancg7759 yes haha a huge mess but that's why after you mark as asset in the Outliner you need to organize them in to catalogues to avoid the mess. Any assets that don't have a catalog will be in the Unassigned section at the bottom of the library. Just remember - "A little work now for a lot of fun/efficiency later".
@@DanielGrovePhoto had any problems when the same asset is present twice in both a catalog and in the unassigned? I think this happens I'd your assets are spread between several blend files and your library is the Folder containing all these blend files.
Blendswap site seems to not have an SSL certificate anymore and you get the Your connection isn't private warning. Where to get the free kitbash from the user Spacehead then?
so if you want to build up a library named kitbash you name and save a blend file named like that and everytime you want to add something there you need to open this file, import the objects and mark them as assets then save the changes to the file. Do you need to keep all the stuff into the scene if you later on want to repeat the process?
Yes but they don't need to be in the same blend file. I have blenders settings looking at my "kit bash" folder and in there are many blends and sub folders with blends. They all show up in the kitbash library inside there are catalogues made for each blend file. You can only do that organization while in that blend file which is annoying.
Scenes don't matter. Also with Blender 3.3 now collections can be an asset and node groups finally yay! You could have a collection asset contain 100+ kit ash pieces if that's how you like to build. Drop the collection asset in your scene and all the pieces will be in your scene.
@@DanielGrovePhoto I get to wrap my head about organizing models later. Now with collections things got even more confusing.
@@orphydiancg7759 I've got another video on the asset browser and one on organizing my folders on harddrives. Check those out they may help
As a veteran programmer, I love the Python scripting ability and how you can make add-ons that add new buttons and commands. I find ways to apply it all the time. If anyone wants some scripts let me know.
Can anyone help me,,,,anything I drop a material from my asset to my scene,it turns it purple 🙁
Asset library still in development stage , i am using connector software its best asset manager
Can we use Collection like assets, I try that, but when place asset I can't edit it.. Any suggestion ? Thanks
No collections are not yet asset capable. They were for a little while before 3 was official but I believe they'll bring it back. Also no groups are not yet able to be turned into assets either but I hope that will change soon
So, if I want all my models to be in a folder called models, and my materials to be in a folder called materials, do I have to save the .blends to each seperate folder on my PC?
You'll have to go to each blend file and mark the appropriate meshes and materials as assets. Then point the asset browser settings to that master folder.
@@DanielGrovePhoto Thanks for the reply. I've got it sorted out! I've saved a .blend called models in my models folder, and inside there I'm going to keep all my untextured models, in different collections for stuff like, low poly, high poly, interiors and exteriors exteriors. You've inspired me to be more structured and organised so I'm even making the collections in the scene! Thanks so much.
You kind of blaze past actually implementing your existing file structure. I pointed file path to my existing organised directories, but then nothing happens in Asset Browser, manual says it scans folders and subfolders, but it doesn't yield any results.
Did the blend files in your library directory /sub folders have marked assets in them?
@@DanielGrovePhoto huh, my follow-up comment doesn't show.
Yeah, you need to go through every single blend file within those folders and mark assets in each. I found it in another tutorial, but this is a critical part that you just kind of skipped over, given the emphasis you put on well organised folders... So I probably have a full day's work to implement the Asset Browser properly with my existing model and material library.
@@MichaelLesterClockwork oh sorry about that! I'm sure I said you have to mark assets in the blend files for the browser to see them and that the files must be in the library directories or it won't show up.
Now I have to clean my keyboard cause my head exploded... The first step get 3 TB's worth of files organized hints on how to do it?
If you master the Asset Manager, could you tell me why some of my assets are without textures/shaders?
They look fine in the Blend file, but are only grey when imported into a new blend file from the asset manager.
It seems that material previews for meshes is not entirely functioning yet for the AB. Like I said this is its first version. With 3.1-3.9 im hoping we'll see lots of improvements, fixes, and additions.
@@DanielGrovePhoto
No. No.
It is not the preview that is missing although it is grey. It is the shaders/colours on the model once it is placed inside a new instance of Blender.
@@TraitorFelon.14.3 So once adding an asset from the browser to your blender scene it loses the original material nodes you made before marking it as an asset?
@@DanielGrovePhoto
FOUND IT!
It seems that the BDSF shader need to be part of a NodeGroup, AND in that NodeGroup needs to be a TextureNode.
It doesn’t have to be connected, but it has to contain a link to a file.
So creating a picture file in an appropriate colour or texture and then make sure to make the material an asset as well is the way to go.
I have this way managed to have colourized icons in the Asset Management Window.
@@DanielGrovePhoto
And to be precise. My import from Asset Management improved as soon as I removed Blender 3.0 and re-installed it.
The previews were still grey but am now fixed with a Texture Node in the NodeGroup.
Thanks for the rundown. You mention a guy "spacehead" for some kitbash and greeble elements, and you mention a link in the description, but nothing points to that Sketchfab account?
Oh I forgot that one link. Thanks for the heads up. Will add it soon.
www.blendswap.com/profile/3007/blends
@@DanielGrovePhoto oh it was Blendswap! My bad, Thanks Daniel!
Can anyone help me...anytime I drop a material from my asset browser to my scene,it turns it purple
That color is because an image texture in that material is missing. Go in to the shader editor and make sure the image texture it's trying to load can be located.
@@DanielGrovePhoto after I was done saving all my assets, I thought it was necessary to keep the download files so I deleted
Can you please give me tips on how to properly keep the files of my asset so I don’t delete them...this the 3rd I’m tryna to create an asset
After some days it just disappears after I empty my recycle bin I don’t really know which files to save or delete
I’m saying this cause I don’t have my drive space
Thank you..!🙏🏽
@@gad4199 the assets in your library "live" in their original blend files. I call them source files. So you need to keep those blend files and keep them organized in to folders that are appropriately named. I have a folder (asset library) for shaders (blend files), one for sketchfab downloads, one for scifi stuff, another for megascans files. Once added to your asset library you still need to keep the blend file the asset lives in.
@@gad4199 watch this maybe it will help. th-cam.com/video/U4l0bCFhh54/w-d-xo.html
@@DanielGrovePhoto that’s is what is done here...I don’t delete them but some it seems not to recorgize where the image files are...and also cauld it be I don’t download them in .blend format???
This was well presented but people watching an asset browser tutorial probably don't need an absolute basics material setup tutorial, which this took a hard turn into for like 8 mins...!
Thanks and you might be right but you may also be surprised what basic things some Blender users don't know or have been doing wrong for years. I kind of did it for reference but also to show how to make a fully featured material setup that can be used for any texture map set one may get in the future. There's always fast forwarding!
@@DanielGrovePhoto there is always fast forwarding but for the best experience for your audience then I'd suggest making that a separate video called 'basic material setup mistakes', or preface that section of this video with chapter markers and a clear indication of what's to come. I found this generally super helpful but if I was frustrated by that one element then I suspect others may be too - but thanks for posting this, I've subscribed :)
How do you artists get so much done with drag-and-drop? I've tried so many times, but it does nothing but slow me down. 😞 I _always_ have to tweak a model or material in each scene I'm working on, so I have to keep switching to the original files to tweak, and then move back to my layout file. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It's horrible. And overrides don't work 90% of the time. Do y'all just not care about the details looking good? I hate being negative but it's just such a pain to use an asset-based workflow in Blender.
Most serious artists don't use kitbash I suspect. But it really depends on what you're making and how good your assets are. I like that I don't have to make everything from scratch and that's time saved even if I need to fine tune it a bit afterward. Kit bashing is most useful for materials and node setups so you're not doing the same work each time you need something specific. Also why are you going to the source file to tweak something for a project? You can modify an asset once it's placed in a new project. That won't modify the original though maybe that's what you're referring to.
Unfortunately this is more of a package creator than an asset library for daily use. For that reason it's of no real use to me as I'm not creating asset packages. For now the Asset Management addon still is the best option for adding assets on-the-fly.
What features is it missing that would make it useful to you?
@@DanielGrovePhoto It's less a "feature" but more about how the infrastructure of the libraries is set up right now. It all centered around asset bundles which are great for creating libraries to distribute or sell, but are not useful for maintaining a "work library" for daily use. So let's say that I've created a material in a project that I'm working on, which I like and want to use all the time. Right now I can't just drag it into the asset browser and add it to my "catalog" for future use. I have to open the material asset file that contains the material assets first, then import that said material from the project that I'm working on, then add it to the asset browser from there. This is way too unpractical for a daily use. I can do that in the Asset Management addon without any problem. It's also easy to create groups and sub-groups there without having to worry about any files that I would have to create. Plus, the addon also renders material previews properly, which the build-in asset browser does not at the moment.
Not working.
Which part? If you want help give more details on what you've done and are experiencing if a particular part of the video is difficult or unclear let me know the time stamp.
Heavy, boring to add images to each preset, the auto render is horrible, it seems unfinished, hostage to blender files, bad asset idea, I use asset browser in Max, C4D, MODO, LW, Maya and none of them have this lack of logic , an asset browser must always be associated with the directory, which means that it can always be edited from the windows explorer and that doesn't happen in this blender asset crap and another important detail is that the files saved in the asset browser should never be the object of the blender, because otherwise the asset is hostage to the blender files, blender is a good program but it has many errors from hand to hand, I believe that blender users are happy with this asset because they probably never had an asset before and they believe that this is a good resource, but no. It's actually a very bad resource, especially for me as an ArchViz user. I'm still only at 500 objects and whenever I try to open my asset it takes forever to open and when it opens it takes another forever to read each of the catalogs. It's super annoying. obviously there are also good things but these criticisms I made are about what I think makes the asset a good asset.
This asset browser is the worst I've ever seen in my entire life...
Haha there is definitely a ton of room for improvement. What features would you like to see added or changed?
Sorry I saw your enst comment too late. Thanks for explaining.