Blender Asset Browser: all you need to know (and then some!)

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Blender 3 introduced the "Asset Browser" which allows you to create your personalized library of assets. Assets can be Objects, Collections of Objects, Materials, and even Geometry Nodes setups.
This video contains a quick start guide which will show you how to set up your own Asset Library in a couple of minutes. But the video also goes much deeper and shows how to create an asset of each type, what problems may arise and how to solve them, etc.
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0:00 What is the Asset Browser
0:42 Asset Browser Quick Start Guide
5:17 Interface Overview
6:06 Asset Catalogs
7:17 Preview Size, Search & Filters
8:06 Collection Assets
11:10 Asset Browser Settings (N-Panel)
12:24 Automatic Thumbnails
13:43 Custom Thumbnails
14:55 Rigged Assets (simple)
16:17 Append VS Link
19:32 Rigged Assets (Complex)
22:13 Material Assets
24:24 HDRI Assets
26:30 Geometry Nodes Assets
28:40 Animation Assets
29:24 Pose Assets
30:06 Drag-and-Drop Alignment
30:43 Assets Folder Structure
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[@PoseidonProductions]

Really glad I found your channel, you explain the "WHY" in your actions that's so many people just assume us novices should know. You have saved me hours of searching the internet for obscure blender questions. thank you sir

[@kullenberg]

Great tutorial, but the way the asset browser works is just insane. That you can't save assets by dragging and dropping is crazy enough, but that you can not freely arrange already SAVED assets into different folders is mind blowing.

[@CGDive]

You can freely arrange already saved assets into different folders. I am not sure why you think you can't. Did I say anything to that effect in the video?

[@grilldj]

I think the OP means categorize the assets by folder. Having to open the original blend file for hundreds of materials just to organize them is insanity.

[@simonzhang3D]

Nothing to do with the Assets Libraby but i just have to say that you have the absolute best way of explaining blender stuff on whole KZbin. Like for real.

[@CGDive]

Thank you, Simon!

[@archlyn1]

I've gone through several Asset Browser tutorials, and without a doubt this one is easily the most lucid and thorough of the bunch. So very appreciated!

[@CGDive]

Thank you, Ed!

[@binyaminbass]

In true CGDive fashion. Not gonna lie, I'm a fan.

[@CGDive]

@@binyaminbass Thanks mate!

[@kevinlewellen1037]

Thank you! This is a very informative and useful explanation of the asset browser!

[@_s_s_world_]

you have a talent to explain things and to teach. great video as always

[@Shattered3582]

i wish i knew about this before. i have seen a few blender tutorials about this subject, yet none of them explain how to set them up. now it isn't hard to find out by yourself, but i know how picky these things can be and one small mistake when setting things up can lead to it not working. i am so glad you explained from the beginning

[@soirema]

10:00 OMG I saw an empty and Ithoguht its broken, thanks a ton man!!!

[@CGDive]

Yeah, that can be confusing. Glad the video was useful!

[@samuelpope7798]

Best tutorials on KZbin!

[@patrickanderson5927]

Thanks for this. I was looking for a good tutorial for the asset browser today and this one is the best, ust what I needed!

[@quexao42]

Perfect vid, went over everything I could would or should want to know about.

[@mariegrasmeier9499]

Love it ❤ Found it a couple of hours too late after I messed around with importing collections and not finding out how to separate the objects. Thank you so much for sharing this!

[@CGDive]

Glad I could help!

[@JonathanNg-ir7tx]

Quick and straight to points ❤thank youuu

[@Mamika_AFK]

Awesome explanation! I finally understand the difference between append and link, and the asset library in general! Thank u so much, great as always! 😄 Can't wait for the pose library tut! God Bless you! 🙌

[@CGDive]

Oh nice, glad I could help :)

[@alexmajorov2506]

Awesome tutorial!

[@MargauxMuriel]

Really helpful, and very straightforward, easy to understand. Thank you!

[@CGDive]

Great to hear!

[@blenderblender792]

Todor you have saved my sanity many times. I will consider a Patreon. But first, I've been stressed out by Blender. Long story short it took me a month to find and destroy this bug I got from an addon, just when I was using Blender to enjoy making animation in a stressful time in my life. Like wanting to take a drive to relax and instead was in the rain changing a tire. As we all know, roadside service does come with Blender.

[@PSYB3RMOTH]

this is the best tutorial on this

[@seesignal1709]

Always best from CG dive❤❤

[@CGDive]

Thanks ✌️

[@JorgeBurrezo]

AMAZING video ! Congratulations !!

[@CGDive]

Thanks a lot!

[@ArfatXeon]

I was struggling to figure out how to localise collection assets. Thank you very much! I hope they make working with assets easier

[@user-ey2kq5pe4i]

Very helpful video!

[@eviehartman2895]

Oh my god, THANK YOU. I was losing my mind for about an hour over the completely unintuitive way it works and how other tutorials, even beginner ones, blithely skip right over this. I appreciate how clear you made this!

[@RyanKingArt]

Great tutorial! 👍‍

[@CGDive]

Thank you Ryan. I enjoy your tutorials too!

[@4tiramisu420]

great video!! really helped me out :)

[@ninomancuso7021]

great tutorial man, thanks for explaining that

[@IrocZIV]

Was just wondering how this feature worked, thanks.

[@user-ig3gm5ie7d]

Loved it's crazy just unbelievable

[@direk2g]

A great tutorial, really well explained. It's a fairly counterintuitive and long winded process but you've made it very clear. Should be super rewarding after building up a decent asset library. So many hours wasted previously searching for files lol. Many thanks!!

[@CGDive]

You're very welcome!

[@leerpret3950]

Fantastic tutorial! Very useful for game dev and level prototyping.

[@CGDive]

Glad you think so!

[@sam_pyrtuh]

Thank you so much for this tutorial it really help me while working on a commercial projects.

[@CGDive]

Nice!

[@nuke2625]

This dude has the most detailed set of tutorials on his channel you almost covered all questions i had even the ones i might not face right now, but will, thanx a lot.

[@CGDive]

Thanks mate!

[@GlitchmanVGM]

Amazing video!! You're one of the best Blender teachers I've ever seen on KZbin! This will help me so much! 😊

[@CGDive]

Thanks mate!

[@princechaudhary2255]

The way u explain is amazing

[@no-one3795]

Great tutorial! Previously I use a geometry node workaround method to import rig assets. But now I finally found out that you can just disable the instance option.

[@CGDive]

Glad I could help!

[@Morphinometr]

Yes, a very well hidden feature!

[@StevenDiLeo]

oh man.. at 11:00 you saved me.. I've been trying to migrate my rigs with asset browser, and all I needed was to uncheck that beautiful little instance button. thank you. liked!

[@TheRealJerseyJoe]

Nice one mate !

[@CGDive]

Thanks!

[@Patxi__]

Thank you!

[@user-gy1oc7wu7f]

Thanks a lot for this video, helped a ton with getting started with this. The fact that I can save HDRis was very useful in particular. Thank you!

[@CGDive]

You're welcome!

[@josephrussell1419]

Enlightening tutorial thank you

[@CGDive]

Glad it was helpful!

[@toonanimationstudio]

Very informative video

[@user-ev5ur7fw4t]

VERY HELPFUL THANKS.

[@Shadbolt001]

Thank you so much, I was having a really hard time using complex rigs as assets. I never noticed that menu to uncheck instance.

[@CGDive]

Glad it helped!

[@yuvaraj8492]

Thank you.

[@CGDive]

You're welcome!

[@hotsauce7124]

Thank you

[@hemanthsatyendravilluri4799]

It's really a great tutorial! Very well explained! You cleared most of my doubts! I have one thing can u pls say how to mark particle systems as asset? I made a wool felt material using two particle system for same object? How can I mark as an asset?

[@frenzymedia7869]

Rig Master :)

[@activemotionpictures]

15:08 - I cannot crl+c, ctrl+v - Do I need to setup something else? Amazing masterclass about the current Asset Browser! Great video!

[@CGDive]

Copy paste objects doesn't work? That sucks, I consider it almost essential functionality in Blender. What's your OS? It has always worked for me on Windows. When you press ctrl+C do you see "Copied 1 selected object" in the Status Bar (bottom of the interface)? Also if you copy and paste an object inside the same scene, does anything happen?

[@othoapproto9603]

!WARNING! Stop looking for any other Asset Browser tutorial. This is by far the best one! I still HATE AB but this answer many of the problem I had with AB, thanks for a wonderful tut!

[@thecut2199]

Yes

[@ranjmahnz]

I cannot tell you how thankful i am for this tutorial... you have done an amazing job, thankyou!! Any chance of a video explaining how to export .fbx files with textures? I run into confusion when it comes to external data pack/unpack and your way of explaining things is what i need.

[@CGDive]

I haven't heard of .sbx so probably not. What is it? Is it a typo of fbx by any chance?

[@ranjmahnz]

ah yes.... that was a definite typo - i will correct that @@CGDive

[@CGDive]

@@ranjmahnz And what is the problem with fbx textures? I think they are usually applied incorrectly but they do get imported.

[@ranjmahnz]

@@CGDive i have a problem with embedding and exporting textures when saving my .FBX file. I think it has to do with the data packing/unpacking and which folder the saved texture is in but i cannot figure out how to correct it

[@CGDive]

@@ranjmahnz In the FBX Export settings try setting the Path Mode to Copy and then enable the Embed Textures button next to it. I am not an expert but I believe that will embed any textures related to your export meshes. (Note: I could be wrong :) ).

[@garymcderp1146]

Awesome video, but I have a question. How do I save an object to the asset browser with the material I made for it being linked to it as well, so I wouldn’t have to have 2 separate assets as in one asset for the mesh, and one asset for material. The downloadable asset libraries like the Cube Diorama are shown in the asset browser with their respective materials, and when you drag and drop them into the scene they already have their material set up. If you can help that would be wonderful.

[@chrisairey543]

Great explanation 👏👏👏. If I can ask, I get that if you have an asset in a file, mark it as an asset and do save as into your own folder you can use it again, but I'd I had worked on a large scene and then think I want to save an asset to use again, I wouldn't want to save a large scene file to ve able to use one item I want again, is there a way or even an addon that allows you to save just that one item from a scene without the longwinded way of putting that item into a new 'clean' scene and then saving that? Hope that makes sense.

[@ivanejpg]

another great explanation, im struggling with setting a default catalog structure into the starter scene, so i dont have to write the whole hierarchy each time i want to add a new asset, idk why they are not saved normally

[@CGDive]

Not sure I understand the problem. I certainly don't have a solution.

[@ivanejpg]

@@CGDive i don't fully get it either, when i open a new scene i get some of the catalogs i have created before, and sometimes i get none of them, so i have to write them again in the current file, thanks for checking though!

[@abhijeetranjan3020]

very well explained but i have a question. I have thousands of pbr material which are image textures. is there a way to add them in asset browser without manually doing the node setup for each material?

[@Shattered3582]

i am still not able to link a mesh with an armature as an asset

[@cutescarydolls]

23:18 set material preview

[@chrystianyaxche5381]

overwhelmingly complicated for something that on the outside looks so simple (it's certainly not simple in programming). I wonder if it's a matter of style or Blender's inside joke, looking for the longest way to do something.

[@phalhappy8612]

how do you organize texture sets for asset browser?

[@CGDive]

I am not sure what textures "sets" are but textures/images are not currently treated as assets.

[@simonzhang3D]

Yo cant, you can only mark Materials that contain textures as assets

[@neoc904]

many thanks on asset browser. however, I have a problem to create a catalog with such menus all inactive, even I place the blender_assets.cats.txt at the asset root folder that catalogues show up but still not editable. any help on this?

[@HerraHazar]

I have a bunch of stuff in my user library , so I made some folders in the asset browser to organize, but i cannot drag any of the assets into each folder, what am I doing wrong?

[@CGDive]

I remember something like that. I think you are probably not in the file where the asset is created.

[@Y_J-sx1tq]

The assets( mesh with materials ) preview show only gray in asset browser, do you have the way to solve it in 4.1?

[@emilysalander2207]

Where can I find the "Add Collection" window to uncheck "Instance"? I had it there first when I added a collection, but now it's called "Add Collection Instance" and there's no Instance box anymore. Any idea why?

[@StevenDiLeo]

My drivers disappear when brought in/from the asset library. Any ideas how to keep my drivers on my controllers?

[@CGDive]

Not sure about that, sorry!

[@StevenDiLeo]

figured it out! had to uncheck instanced upon dragging in the asset :)@@CGDive

[@uac9000]

Very helpful and detailed tutorial, thank you. I am having a problem though. When I drag a collection asset onto my scene, the "Add Collection" pop up window is grayed out, and nothing I do seems to fix that. Is there any particular reason why this is happening?

[@CGDive]

I haven't had this problem so I am not sure :/

[@uac9000]

@@CGDive Okay, ty though. I can poke around my settings or ask others to see if they've run into the same issue.

[@0fficez0mbie]

@@uac9000 I've just encountered this problem too. I get the error message "Data-block does not support asset operations - must be a Material, Object, Pose Action, Node Group or World". I'm going to try upgrading my version, but if you see this and you ever found a solution I would love to hear it...

[@0fficez0mbie]

Quick update in case anyone else has this problem: I updated from 3.1 to 3.6 and the problem was fixed.

[@NakumDivyesh]

In rigify a little bit a problem when append the rigifiy rig layers are missing can you solve it ( N pannel rig layers)

[@CGDive]

You probably have to run a script which should have been appended along with your rig. Watch this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIqxoGR-qqmnqJo

[@NakumDivyesh]

I know this solution i am thinking other solution because every time append the rig you go to text editor and run script I think blender improve this thing in future update also thankyou for the reply and your tutorials always a helpful Thanks for all tutorials ♥️

[@chenariana3482]

Could we change the axis of the scene camera to generate different view of the asset thumbnail?

[@CGDive]

Not sure what you mean, to be honest.

[@chenariana3482]

@@CGDive The preview image of the asset(thumbnail) are auto generate from the scene camera, I mean could we rotate the scene camera's axis instead of rotating the models axis to regenerate the thumbnails? sry i am a beginner and just start learning Blender.

[@CGDive]

@@chenariana3482 ah, no. There is no control over the auto generated thumbnails.

[@chenariana3482]

​@@CGDive Thanks for the reply

[@GoSpatik-7h]

Hello CG where can I get these assets please help

[@CGDive]

What assets? :)

[@89kessi]

blender should really simplify this. Like, thats just ridiculous that i was able to learn blender completely from zero but i just cant comprehend this asset manager thing. why make it so complicated? gosh.. i just want to save assets to reuse them and have them organized like i want. whats the thing with "this file, not this file, other file" why do we need to deal with this? just create something easy so i can just drop the asset there and pull it from any other file. this is supposed to ease on our work but now it just makes my life times harder just in trying to figure it out. jizz..

[@iceseic]

can you have too much material assets in library and slowed down Blender?

[@CGDive]

Good question. I am not sure but I believe that it won't affect the performance, especially when the browser is not open.

[@bernarddore5209]

Hello Todor Before starting many thanks for everything. I have got a problem. Trying to do poses for lip-sync with Rhubarb. It seems In asset browser you should be in current file. I do the several necessary poses which goes to the main library. First when I try to grab them in my “.blend” file it does not work. Secondly when I copy them into my personal library, I find them but I fail to load them in a new “.blend”? Can you help me? Have a very good day. Bernard.

[@CGDive]

Hi Bernard. Wish I could help but I am not even sure what you are trying to do :) E.g. what is "Rhubarb" and is it even relevant to the question? :) For poses, you need to enable the Pose library. I am planning to cover that soon!

[@bernarddore5209]

@@CGDive Good day to you Todor: I am strongly interested on finding a way to solve one automatic lip-sync method without any success until now. Rhubarb is an old but good software as automatic lip-sync and you need to fed it with 9 poses of the necessary visemes for it. Let say that my main question is: When you are ready to define a pose into the Asset Browser it seems that you have to do it in the Current File? If you ask for loading it into your pre-planned library it does work!?? Where can I send you screen capture? Regards Bernard.

[@AishaSelime]

ı cant export any material which ı made from an assets when ı try to export glb format..Even ı checked "pack all resources " selection too.

[@CGDive]

I am not sure how this is related to the asset library.

[@dandobrowolski5818]

Why can't I just select an object place it in the asset browser and then open up a new blend file, open the asset browser, find my asset with its textures, and load it without having to jump through a bunch of hoops and hurdles? Am I asking too much?

[@CGDive]

I guess you are :P

[@Srijyothi-rp3pw]

Dear sir auto pro I have purchased with 10 usd but it's not working

[@CGDive]

Auto-Rig Pro costs more than $10, I think. Where did you buy it?

[@DesignsbyDonBrown]

I'm getting doubles of everything. Any ideas how to fix this?

[@CGDive]

Waht are doubles?

[@DesignsbyDonBrown]

@@CGDive More than one of anything in the list. I fixed it.

[@CGDive]

@@DesignsbyDonBrown How did you fix it? People ask for help all the time but few take a minute to share something that could be useful to others.

[@DesignsbyDonBrown]

@@CGDive I had copied the same 2 files into the folder twice. I just had to delete 2 of them.

[@CGDive]

@@DesignsbyDonBrown Nice!

[@Aria__x]

boss

[@luciox2919]

why didnt blender make a simple asset browser? why all the schmucka munka ??

[@CGDive]

all the what? :)

[@DjTasteless]

agree to @archlyn1 - finally looking through! 100 thx!

[@damianrix7861]

Thank you!