All language subtitles for 02_04_asset_library

- [Zach] In this video, let's have a look

on how to set up and
use the Asset Browser.

The Asset Browser works quite simple.

In one blend file, we create our assets

and mark them to be recognized as assets.

Then, in any other blend file,

we can connect to the asset blend file,

and re use the objects,
collections, materials

and so on and so forth.

This can of course save us a lot of time

since we can build up an Asset Library,

which we then can reuse
in our other projects.

And now let's have a
look on how to set it up.

At the state of recording this video here,

the current, stable Blender
2.9 version does not include

the Asset Browser.

In order to use this, you have
to use a Blender 3.0 build,

which is currently in Alpha.

However, if you watch this video later on,

Blender 3.0 might be stable already

and then you can just
download the stable version.

So in blender 3.0 Alpha,

you can find the Asset Browser down here,

just click on this button on
any of these editors here,

and then here in the Data category,

you can click on this Asset Browser.

So this works by default,

however, if you want to
make use of all features,

press F4 and click on Preferences

to open up the Preferences,

go to Interface and make sure

that Developer Extras is enabled,

then you can see this
Experimental tab appears,

and here, make sure

that the Extended Asset Browser is enabled

so we can use all current features.

So here I have the Cubic
World preset file open

with some basic Cubic World assets.

Here, I don't want to show
you how to create these,

this we will learn during the course.

However, here, I want to show you

how to work with the Asset Browser.

I have the Asset Browser opened
down here, as you can see,

and right now we are working
in this specific file here

since Current File is selected.

That means all the assets
which we are adding right now

in this file will be listed down here.

And the workflow is super simple,

you simply go to the object,
for example, this wooden box,

right-click on it and
click on Mark as Asset,

then when the All category
is selected over here,

we can see it,

we can also add the
rock here, for example,

and we can even add full collections.

For example, the tent consists

out of many different
objects, as you can see here,

so we can also right-click
on the tent collection

and click on Mark as Asset.

However, if you add a collection,

we don't get this nice
preview image down here,

but we can add our own preview image.

How this works, I will
show you in a second.

Then the character also
consists out of two objects,

the rig and the mesh,

so let's also add the
collection over here.

Besides objects and collections,
we can also add materials.

So let's, for example, click on the tent,

then over here, we have the tent material,

simply right-click on this
and click on Mark as Asset.

Then this will appear down here, as well,

and if you want to remove an asset,

you can either click on the original one

and click on Clear Asset,

or you can also right-click down here

and click on Clear Asset,
then this will be removed.

However, in this case,

let's add these and let's
also add one material.

Then, keep in mind right now,

since we're working in the same file,

when I remove an object over here,

the asset will be removed
down here, as well.

Let's undo this,

because right now we are linking
the objects from this scene

to the Asset Browser.

Now let's hide all these objects here,

select the Scene Collection

so that all the new objects will be added

to the Scene Collection,

and now we can just drag and
drop objects into our scene,

and as you can see,

it's even snapping to the
surface of other objects,

which is super cool.

So the same thing also
works for materials,

we can simply drag and drop
the materials onto our objects.

However, there is one special thing,

let's remove all this stuff here,

because when we add an
asset which is a collection,

we can't select the individual objects

from the original object,

so this one is just an
instance of the collection.

So if I unhide the original tent,

if I now do any changes over here,

this will be linked over to the instance

which I dragged from the Asset Browser.

However, if you want to make
this a real editable object

and split this into the original objects,

simply press Control + A

and click on Make Instances Real.

Now you can see we have
all the individual objects,

we can go to Edit Mode,
make changes over here

as we know it.

So both ways are useful.

If you want to quickly place
the same object in your scene

without dealing with hundreds of objects,

the instance is of course fantastic,

but if you want to make changes

and make them look individual,

then you have to convert
them into real objects.

And by the way,

collections are indicated
by this books icon here,

which you can see on all the elements

which are marked as an asset.

Same over here for the
rocks material here,

it's also visible.

So then we can do a
little bit more down here,

we can of course search
for different assets

if we have a lot,

we can search for rocks to show this,

we have different filters

so we can only show different elements,

and as you can see,

we can basically add everything
as an asset down here.

And when you click this
button, this sidebar appears,

or you simply press N, and
here you can, for example,

rename your assets.

Maybe the rocks should be rock material.

And down here, right now,

you can see, for whatever reason,

the preview is not showing up anymore,

so we can simply refresh the preview.

However, as mentioned for some elements

like the collections,

currently, there are no real previews.

However, you can create a quick screenshot

or a render of your object,

save it somewhere on your disk

and then click on this folder icon,

then navigate to the folder
where you have saved this,

and here I have, for example,
this character_male image,

and then you can click
on Load Custom Preview,

and then this will show up over here,

which makes look much nicer.

So then, to better organize your assets,

you can also add catalogs
by clicking on this plus,

let's call it Characters,

and maybe let's create a
new one which we call Props,

and maybe one for Materials.

Simply double-click on
the name to edit the name.

When we click on Unassigned,

we can see all the assets
which are not assigned

to a specific catalog,

and when we click on All,
we can see all assets.

Now let's simply drag and drop them

into the different catalogs.

This one is a material
and this one is the tent,

and now when we click through
the different catalogs,

we can see the different assets.

So just so that you know,

these catalogs will be saved externally,

besides your blend file in a txt file.

So this, you have to move
along with your blend file

in order to keep having
access to these catalogs.

So one little note I
want to give to you here

to avoid future confusion,

if I now add this character,

which again is just an instance,

you can see it over here,
Add Collection Instance,

you can see that the origin
now is somewhere shifted

and not directly underneath here.

When you convert this into
real objects with Control + A,

this isn't important at all,

because this is just an empty
which you then can delete,

and then you have the original object.

However, if you add this here

and you want to leave this as an instance,

in order to fix this,

you have to move the original object back

to the center here,

because the instances

of collections will always use
the scene center as origin,

so just so that you know.

So, but having assets of the same file

in the same file might
be useful sometimes,

but this is not the real use
case of the Asset Browser.

So and to show you how to set it up

that we can use an Asset
Library blend file,

and use the assets which are stored there

in other blend files.

For that, I attached the
assets file for this course

down below in the Download
section for this lesson here,

so let's open this up and
have a quick look inside.

Let's go to File, Open, and
when you downloaded this,

navigate to the folder where
you saved the cw_assets file,

and click on Open.

So down here in the current file,

you can see we have a bunch
of assets, some characters,

props, nature elements, particle systems,

some basic elements for modeling,

and they are placed up here in
these different collections,

so here you can find all the
different original objects.

So and this file, we now
want to link to other files.

For that, let's again open up a file,

and here I just open up the
cw_workspaces_basic_scene,

which is also attached to this lesson

or to the previous lesson.

Click on Open, and now we
have this basic scene set up,

but we don't have access
to the assets here,

and in order to change this, press F4

and click on Preferences.

Here, click on File Paths,

and down here, we find
the Asset Libraries.

So we have a default Asset Library,

here you can see the file paths,

and there you could store all
your blend files with assets,

and then you can click
down here on Default

and always see the asset blend files,

which are stored inside here.

However, I want to create
a special Asset Library

for Cubic World, so
let's click on this plus,

then navigate to the folder

where you saved the cw_assets.blend file,

and since we don't add blend files

but a whole folder to
these Asset Libraries,

we can't see the blend files.

You can disable the filter,

then you can see the
cw_assets.blend file in here,

and here is also the
blender_assets_categories.txt file

for the catalogs,

however, if you now have also
other blend files in here

where you marked assets,

then these will also appear
inside the Asset Library.

So if you really want
to have just the assets

from one blend file,

then make sure you just
have this one blend file

in this folder.

Then click on Add Asset Library,

and let's call this Cubic Worlds.

And that's it, this will
be saved automatically now,

that means every time you open Blender,

you will have this Asset Library,

and you don't always
have to reconnect this.

And now all we need to do is, down here,

change from Current File to Cubic Worlds.

And now we connected this blend
file here to the other one,

and we can drag and drop all the assets

from the other blend file
into this new scene here.

However, before we do this, take care,

by default, this Append Reuse
Data is selected over here,

and this can lead to confusion,

because if I now add an object
and do any changes here,

for example, something like this,

and now add this object again,

it will look exactly the
same as the edited version,

because now all these objects
are linked with each other.

If I make a change on one object,

this will also affect the other ones.

However, the way we work

with these assets is a bit different,

so I would recommend to
switch this to Append,

that means we always create a new copy

of the original object.

That means if I change anything
on one of these objects here

and drag and drop in a new one,

we will grab the original one here.

Yeah, and this is the way we will work

with the Asset Browser,

so most of the time we just drag one

of these two default cubes into our scene

where the origin is a bit differently.

But yeah, we will learn more
about this a little bit later.

So, and by the way,

if you now open up the other
blend file with the assets,

add new assets and save this blend file,

you can click on Refresh,

and then all the new assets
will also appear over here.

So what if you don't want to
work with the Asset Browser

or you're using an older version,
Blender 2.9, for example,

where you don't have access
to the Asset Browser,

you can still copy and paste the files

from the Asset Library
into your blend file.

So let's open up the assets blend file,

then let's unhide the props
here, maybe grab a tree,

or let's grab two objects here,

press Control + C to copy this,

and then open up your project file

and simply select the right collection

and press Control + V
to paste these objects.

Let's undo this, and
there's another cool trick.

Here, I now have one instance of Blender,

and I now open up a second
instance of Blender,

so these are now two
different Blender instances,

and now here I can open up my assets,

and then I can simply
leave this open here,

copy the object with Control + C

and then select this
window here, Control + V,

and paste this.

So this is also a quick way to add objects

from the Asset Library into your scene

without using the Asset Browser.

I'm not sure if you can
have multiple instances open

on Linux or on Mac,

however, on Windows, this is working.

Otherwise, you have to open
up first the asset file,

copy it, then open up your
project and paste it over there.

Yeah, and this is how you can work with

and without the Asset Browser.

And since the Asset Browser
is constantly developing,

it might look a bit
different in the future

when you're using later
versions of Blender,

but the basic functionality

of dragging and dropping your objects

into your scene will always be the same,

that I'm pretty sure.

And this is a basic functionality

which we also will use
throughout this course,

and you will also see
that, inside the course,

the Asset Browser already
looks a bit different

because this one here is
already an updated version

of this video here,

because the Asset Browser
has changed already.

However, all you really
have to take care of is

that you switch to Append over here,

and then it works exactly as
I showed you in this video,

although it looks a bit
different in the other videos.

Yeah, and that's it
about the Asset Browser,

and now let's continue learning

about the coloring
workflow in Cubic Worlds.