Blender Asset Browser - FULL Tutorial

[@Brandon-3D]

Get more Blender tips and tutorials delivered directly to your inbox at: brandonsdrawings.com/subscribe Thank You for watching!

[@0xBlackSwan_xyz]

I'm on blender 4.1 now and just wanted to thank you. This is STILL the best tutorial I've found.

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you! I keep thinking I need to update it but when I look at it, very little has changed. Appreciate you taking the time to leave the kind words!

[@ClausBohm-v9f]

Thanks for letting us know it works in 4.1

[@othoapproto9603]

Thanks for this much-needed clarification of AB. Great job in the choice of information its order and the delivery. No stupid splash, just straight to the point, no background music, Clear voice audio at an articulate speed of talking, Simple examples that concentrate on the subject NOT trying to show off personal work, No vain video insert of you in the corner of the video. Also much appreciated is the warning that this is still a BETA and things may change. I so wish vloggers would edit their libs and delete the out-of-date videos. It's like keeping a broken tool, it's only in the way and could harm if used.

[@Brandon-3D]

Man, thank you for taking the time to give that much feedback. It is very appreciated and motivating. Thank you!

[@josiassmatamoros1361]

Nice

[@precisechaos2144]

I have literally sat here for like 20 minutes trying to figure this out and by 3:50 you already answered my question and I'm up and running. Thanks man

[@Brandon-3D]

That’s awesome. Happy to help, thank you for watching!!

[@precisechaos2144]

@@Brandon-3D I was looking through your other videos to watch once I take a break from modeling this car and I had an idea of creating "coloring book pages" aka line art modifier like one of your videos shows :). Looks like there's a lot of content here for me to catch up on!

[@TechnoNoodle]

Linking is not at all useless! When you link an object, you can apply a library override, to allow you to pose a character rig for example. So when you do changes in the original character file, it will be updated on the linked object, the changes will be applied but the pose or animation will remain! so it is super usefull for animators/ riggers to change rigs or models easily without loosing all the animation in the different scenes.

[@Brandon-3D]

Hey, I’m sorry about that. You’re not the first to point that out. That makes sense but I was unfamiliar with the process. Thank you for pointing it out. I’ve pinned the following comment to the top of this video: “I made a comment at the end that linking objects into your scene “seems useless” as opposed to appending. Several have pointed out that using a library override makes this a very USEFUl tool. I learn something everyday. Sorry about that!”

[@TechnoNoodle]

@@Brandon-3D its still a great Video and it gave me a good insight into the 3d asset Browser c: and I appreciate the pinned comment, after all its all about learnning, Not just for the viewers!

[@myztazynizta]

PLEASE point me to a comprehensive tutorial that covers everything about library overrides. 99% of the time I cannot get them to work and if they do seem to work, the override is not saved and when I open the file again days later NOTHING I did with overrides got saved! NOTHING! It's absolutely useless without a GOOD tutorial explaining exactly HOW to use it and HOW it works and WHY it works like that. I have yet to find a good tutorial. I've been using blender for over 3 years now and still have no clue.

[@AndyEngelkemier]

@@myztazynizta Unfortunately, even if you find a good one Now, it won't be correct later. Be very careful with library overrides. I'm not entirely sure they should have made it into the regular releases. Every time they are mentioned it sounds like the blender developers are still trying to figure out how they should work. You can override the instance. On my first test with library override it worked great. But then my scene was Incredibly slow and I couldn't understand why. I eventually linked it back to controlling an animation with a custom paramiter. It was just rotating a bone 90 degrees from a number on a dummy going from 0-1 to make animation easy. But then the framerate went from nearly 60fps to about .5fps. I got rid of that and it went back to 60. But then I did something else and something similar happened. And you can also selectively create overrides to different portions. For instance the first override just unlocks all of the objects so you can now move them around. But then you can override the data for the objects as well, and not sure what that does to file size or if there is really much of a benefit at all. And then you can override the materials. And well, basically you can override anything that is considered data. But it's realy difficult to keep track of. I ended up just abandoning library overrides in my animation because I kept getting issues that I couldn't explain. Eventually I just used proxies because I really only needed to animate objects by moving, and rotating them. But that also means I needed to reparent the proxies in the same way, which is annoying but at least my file was fast. I had found several that told you about it, but just like Most of what you find on youtube for blender, you'll notice that almost no one actually knows everything about what they are talking about. Luckily, people like Brandon here at least note what they got wrong or missed. People like CG Essentials, and Default Cube, just share the information they found without actually learning enough about it so in turn they aren't teaching You anything other than which buttons to push if your case lines up exactly with theirs. For example: why are the people here offset in this video? Oh because the object is offset. But was it mentioned in the video? Nope. So is it because the object comes in with it's position related to the world origin, or is it that the objects came into blender all positioned as-is with all of their origins at the world origin? I saw another one with legos and they didn't seem to know or care that their objects all rotated onto their side when they added them to the asset library, and also scale looked wrong. So you add an object, it'll reset position, rotation, scale? That's my guess until I try things out myself, but people always tend to skip that stuff, and it really seems that it's because often they don't know....making something like library overrides Very difficult to create a video on because the only way you'll create a useful video on it is to actually fully understand what's happening under the hood......which isn't actually finished yet.

[@not_yet_implemented]

Sweet

[@MikkoRantalainen]

Superb introduction to Asset Browser! 11:03 Nicely shows why you should create your assert library with correct dimensions so you don't need to manually scale items and people when you drag assets from the library to your scene.

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you Mikko!!

[@rontarrant]

This is the third asset browser tutorial I've watched and it's the first that really explained it well. Thanks.

[@Brandon-3D]

You are welcome! And thank you for taking the time to say that. I really appreciate it!

[@rontarrant]

@@Brandon-3D Something else... Is it possible to have a single asset library that spans multiple files? For instance, I have 22 rigged characters I've been dragging around since version 2.5 and putting them all into a single file would make it huge, slow, and cumbersome. I'd like to have them all accessible from a single library named (something like) Characters so I can go to one place to pick which characters go into a scene. Is that possible?

[@Brandon-3D]

@@rontarrant yes that’s exactly the benefit of the browser. Just save each character file somewhere under the library path. But….right now for some reason collections and parenting hierarchies don’t seem to be available as assets. This is the biggest complaint by most right now.

[@rontarrant]

@@Brandon-3D So.... not much point until it's fixed. Thanks.

[@925_nomad]

this is the most comprehensive guide on asset browser that exist on the internet , thank you !

[@Brandon-3D]

Man that’s cool to hear, thank you so much!!

[@joelwalden5504]

This video was an enormous help, thank you for making it so comprehensive and thorough. The part where you explain how you can only alter the data and catalog information while you're inside the specific file was particularly helpful. Thanks for taking the time to make the video!👍

[@Brandon-3D]

Happy to help. Thank you for taking the time to leave such a kind comment. Take care!!

[@TheAllin1der]

That was excellent. I watched a few tutorials on Asset browser but you felt like you actually sat down and said THIS is why THIS works like THAT.

[@BG_Andy]

Great video. Although the fact that you can't add assets on-the-fly is a big letdown. Always having to copy the asset to the designated file before and then tag them as an asset is not very time-efficient.

[@Warmbrak]

That is very true, but at the same time it forces one to be more organised when compiling asset libraries. I have "lost" objects in files that I can't seem to find, even though I am very structured when it comes to organising my files and backups. Being able to flag any object as an asset anywhere can easily lead to libraries getting broken etc. when source files are moved (either on purpose or by accident) if you forget that they are contributing to a library. My biggest issue right now is that only a single mesh object can be made an asset. I would like to create a single asset from a group of objects but it just creates separate assets right now which is not ideal. That means if you want to create a chess board for instances with all the pieces as an asset you have to join all the parts into one object otherwise you end up with assets for the board and every separate chess piece.

[@BG_Andy]

@@Warmbrak I use a plugin called Asset Management. This solves the situation very well. I was assuming that the Blender asset browser was working similarly. But it's more of an asset library creator. This is nice for creating asset packages to distribute, but useless for creating libraries for your daily workflow. I'll stick with the plugin for now.

[@not_yet_implemented]

+1 for explaining how to save to catalog organisation in the library

[@Brandon-3D]

Glad that was helpful. Thank you for watching and for taking the time to leave the kind words!

[@PeterHeiri]

How to get to the Current File of an Asset to change the name? At 8:10 when he talk about that you only can change the Asset, when you are in its current file. He should mention that if you are not in the current file, you see in the Asset description, behind Source: the Path to that File. Behind it you can click on the shown Tool Icon to open direct this file. Then you can change this Asset there and close the file again. Thanks for this amazing good Tutorial. It's the best I found for understanding the Asset Browser!

[@robertYoutub]

The Linked Option, is my game changer. So cool for references or in teamwork

[@Brandon-3D]

Good point. Thank you!

[@alejmc]

Totally, pretty much like ‘xRef’ feature of 3dsmax for those that have used it. Hadn’t realized that Blender didn’t have anything like this? Could the Scene Collections or similar work like that or is it really only via the upcoming Asset Browser? (Excuse the question if it’s a dummy one, Blender total noob over here).

[@robertYoutub]

@@alejmc most of the things have different names in Blender. Append means Merge. Linked means instanced or in that case X-Ref. Indifferent to other tools Blender has often just one option so. For example, you can't import a full blender scene, you only can merge the elements in another scene, which will also be causing some disorder in your outliner. So Linking another blender file is like XRef Objects. There is also a feature to X-Ref a scene, its in the render settings. Background scene file. In the end you get there, its just all a bit different.

[@moonthurst]

Finally we have an integrated file browser. I do hope that with future version they make it more user friendly ( it seems a bit complicated for now or is it just me!!?) specially and strangely compared to other Files browser add-on ($) on the BMP

[@guohengchin]

Thanks for the concise, yet detailed tutorial on Blender's new asset browser feature. This helped me get started with the new feature in just 10 minutes!

[@AnimatedHealthcare]

A really solid video - covers all the key technical points in perfect amount of detail. Best video on this subject I've come across. Great stuff!

[@GetGoodwithVince]

What a great video! Without watching this I know I would have just dragged my files into the designated asset library folder. Then I would have been very frustrated when I didn't see the items in my asset browser! This was a great primer for this long awaited feature for Blender. Thanks!

[@Brandon-3D]

Hey thanks for taking the time to comment. Means a lot! Thank you!

[@realxrust]

Thanks a lot, such detailed tutorials are rare, this is gold. And you have a cool voice and intonation, it’s a pleasure to listen to you!

[@windworldwide8840]

usefull tip ! : with asset file open, ... drag drop an other file with assets, ... append this file, ... navigate to the materials ... select all (or the ones you want to add to your library) ... sort them ... save the blender file ... and you're done !

[@scpk2246]

WOW! STRAIGTH FORWARD TUTS! DIDN'T WASTE LARGE AMOUNT OF SALIVA! KUDOS! instant subscriber here

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you so much! Yes, I get frustrated with the extra talking so many people feel need to be in tutorials. Take care!

[@TafariMosi]

Nice. I love KZbin’s recommended videos. Thanks for creating this. Now I understand

[@Brandon-3D]

Yes. KZbin is amazing! So is Blender! Very glad you found it and thank you for watching!

[@samualwilliamson1187]

I made a folder called "My A$$" in case someone starts snooping around on my computer. Oh, and replace the $ with an S. You're welcome.

[@carloseduardodesouza9245]

You have the easiest tutorial to understand I found on the subject thank you very much

[@Brandon-3D]

Man, thank you so much for the kind words. Motivates me to keep going. Thank you!

[@chubbec]

Btw, if you're getting grey or viewport coloured Previews in your Asset Browser and you want them textured/coloured - select the Viewport Shading dropdown in Solid mode, then select Texture instead of Material. If you head to Shading tab, you will find that the colour will be based on whatever node you last selected (so select your Base Colour node) - very weird but this solution solves it on a Refresh!

[@Brandon-3D]

Thanks so much for sharing!!

[@davidwhyte4582]

Excellent tutorial many thanks - clear, direct, no music distracting not spoken too fast, lots of depth and clarity fantastic thank you very much

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you so much for the kind words and feedback!! Glad to help!

[@19CarlosGomez64]

Thanks a lot!! Assets browser is a powerful new Blender's feature and this tutorial makes it very easy to understand how it works.

[@AndImages]

Thank you one of the clearest explanations I have seen so far...

[@georgios.marinoudis]

Best Asset Browser tutorial. Thank you. Blender though needs to fix some complicated tasks. It would be very simple if you right click an object and choose what you like to save as an asset. (material, model, texture, etc)

[@Brandon-3D]

Agreed. But thank you!!

[@jeffellis1149]

Thankyou. Excellent tutorial that didn't assume I knew anything about it. Your instructions were clear, concise and well thought out and with a total lack of "go ahead and" (my pet hate because it means nothing) that seems to have infected so many tutorials. Brilliant! Subscribed.

[@Brandon-3D]

Glad to hear you liked it. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. Means a lot!

[@AleksandarPopovic]

Finally I have knowledge about mystery calling assets library, thank you!

[@shawngrignon4020]

Blenders asset browser is very tedious imo. Got halfway through organizing all my assets and materials into catalogs, just to have all the catalogs disappear out of nowhere and all my stuff moved back to unassigned. Now i have to go into every individual project just to make new catalogs. 2 hours wasted, and doesn’t feel worth it to do it again. Saving materials was the big lure for me, but there are better add ons out there, lily surface scraper seemed pretty good for a while. Glad to see the blender team working on this, but it needs a lot of work at the moment. Thanks for your tips!

[@Brandon-3D]

You know, I just ran into that disappearing catalog issue myself. I’ve never had that happen before. Yeah it needs some work still…🤦‍♂️

[@NicoleHam]

I could literally cry, thank you so much for this explainer

[@Brandon-3D]

Lol. No need to cry! Happy to help!

[@BLENDER_CLUB]

Best tutorial on asset browsew i've seen for awhile ! Thanks for great b3d content !

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you!!! Glad to hear it was helpful!

[@SaS-Music]

Thanks. I just watched this...but accidentally left playback at 0.75 from a previous video. I thought, what a chilled dude...😆 Then I realised my error. I appreciate your help.

[@Brandon-3D]

Lol. I’m picturing myself at .75 speed would be pretty chill. Take care!!

[@danwskii]

This video is a work of art! If I had to guess your profession, I'd bet a good amount on it being teaching and if I'm wrong, you're definitely cut out for that! Thanks a ton and I cannot wait to waste an entire day messing with the AB tomorrow!

[@RyanKingArt]

Great tutorial!!

[@Argyll9846]

It's good to have a clear explanation of how an asset library is created and how to create catalogues as so many demo videos on KZbin totally miss the mark when it comes to this important function.

[@linkdeous3928]

great vid, leaving this for both bookmarking this video and also to help with the algorythm, thank you so much !

[@robbiegilley8714]

Wow I am just learning ,and this is so much fun

[@wagasani4199]

OMG THANK YOU! I was trying to start a catalog for materials and could not get it.

[@Brandon-3D]

You are welcome! Glad it helped!

[@thegreekfiles]

Thanks a bunch, couldn't figure out how to set materials as assets but now I do lol

[@DSStall]

Oh wow, this is a game-changer. Great tutorial!

[@Brandon-3D]

Yes, it has room for improvement for sure but it’s a great start. Thank you!

[@TheGuardianofAzarath]

Thanks for this, i spent a few hours earlier tonight trying to figure out how to properly use this thing, trying to add two highly detailed human models to a already existing library i downloaded from blender’s website, but couldn’t figure out how to properly organise everything in the catalogues.

[@edwinblackman7037]

Great tutorial! Been waiting for the AB for some time. Could you do a tutorial or quick tiop on how to correct the orientation of the asset preview? Find that they come in with z axis in odd directions.

[@philmprod]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You've literally explained everything well. Do this with everything else on Blender

[@BlenderRookie]

That answered my questions about it. It's been out for 3 years and just now getting around to it. I have a lot of organizing to do. Thanks for the info...

[@jamescombridgeart]

Keep it up Brandon! This is probably the most consice and easy to follow vid on the subject I've found so far :) I always got stuck on the concept of 'current file' vs 'user library' and I think this cleared it up :)

[@Brandon-3D]

Awesome to hear. Thank you!!

[@kingsridge]

True!

[@jdhart8747]

Thanks, Brandon. Well organized and a good intro to the browser!

[@Brandon-3D]

Thanks man, hope it helps a little!

[@MarkTierney]

Cheers Brandon, straight to the point video.

[@3dgreenhorn]

Great video, easy to understand 👍

[@socrates112]

Brilliant tutorial, Brandon. This is amazing. Off to create a catalog.

[@Brandon-3D]

Awesome. Thank you so much!

[@SkSafowan]

Great Video, keep up man !

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you!

[@allenpeggy1214]

this is so much useful than append, THX

[@mrmoneybagz]

This looks just like the Unreal Engine 5 Content Browser. I love it!!! Blender keeps getting better with every new release.

[@MrPokra]

you can move linked objects - you have to create collection instance for it. Addon group pro makes it much easier

[@irfanhossainbhuiyanstudent3757]

I didn't try it but i think in link asset you can use library override,thus you can move the object but can't edit the mesh.

[@Brandon-3D]

I knew there was probably a way to move them, could not figure it out. But I think you’re right. Thank you!

[@SanOcelotl]

Perfectly explained thanks

[@Brandon-3D]

You are welcome and thank you!!

[@frodox10]

Very nice video mate, nice job!

[@Brandon-3D]

Hey Chris, thanks a lot! Love to hear the feedback!

[@olie6821]

very clear and easy talking, Thank you Man !

[@digitalife8719]

So clear and helpful! Thank you!

[@Brandon-3D]

Awesome, thank you so much!!!

[@simongarrettmusic]

Thanks Brandon, great video - just the essentials

[@Flu3nTYT]

Than u sooooooooooo much i couldn't figure it out till this tutorial :)

[@Brandon-3D]

You are welcome! Glad to hear people finding it helpful!

[@heveycreations4197]

Good tutorial, straight to the point.

[@MWSculpts]

Thanks Brandon for the thorough and clear explanation 👏

[@Brandon-3D]

You're welcome. Thank you! Just checked out your channel, very cool stuff. I'd love to get into 3D printing some day. Take care!

[@PettyCold]

Merry 3.0 day!

[@apemant]

Thanks, good explanaition! But I expected more from Blender, something like that you could mark assets and then send (copy) the assets to a designated assets folder so they are not actually used from the file they originally were created in. Seems like you have to do quite a lot of work to set it up as it is now.

[@Brandon-3D]

Yes. I’m hoping it becomes more user friendly. But at least it’s free. Thanks for taking the time to comment!

[@erickmarin228]

Nice video man! Straight to the point. Thanks for sharing

[@Brandon-3D]

Thanks Erick, that was my goal!

[@BenleGentil]

Thanks, I could never figure out how catalogs worked!

[@Mincher]

Great rundown! Thanks!

[@Brandon-3D]

Very welcome. Thanks for the feedback!

[@Bakir00]

sent here by Max Hay, Great effort man

[@Brandon-3D]

Hey man, thank you! Max is an amazing artist and you totally made my day! Did he mention this channel in a video? Any chance you remember which one? That's super cool and thank you for letting me know!

[@Bakir00]

@@Brandon-3D yeah man, he linked your video in his (realistic water) tutorial, great video as well tbh :)

[@Mukhtar_SH]

Thanks for this wonderful tutorial!

[@yezzzsir]

This is so great! Thanks for the tutorial on it, real easy to follow & understand.

[@Brandon-3D]

You are welcome. Thank you!

[@joshuamotx]

Thanks so much for this in depth tutorial

[@electroayman]

This sub was earned. Great content, very informative, thank you.

[@Brandon-3D]

Man, thank you so much!

[@joshscott7401]

Very very helpful! Thank you!

[@Brandon-3D]

Great to hear, thank you!

[@D_isco_D_ancer]

Yes, it did help. Thanks for the video.

[@Brandon-3D]

Awesome. Thank you!

[@Tamer_Gomaa]

Thanks for detailed explanation 👍🏼

[@Brandon-3D]

You are welcome!!

[@bmar896]

Well put together and explained properly. Thank you, Brandon.

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you so much!

[@Neomega7]

Thanks for explaining all this! It really helps.

[@Brandon-3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@jakeperl5857]

Thank you! Very clear and to the point...just what I needed!

[@Brandon-3D]

Very welcome! Thanks for taking the time for feedback!

[@naturalniezaprojektowane5026]

really great video! 🤩

[@Brandon-3D]

Hey, thank you so much!

[@jeremydenison5956]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[@Brandon-3D]

Awesome to hear. Thank you Jeremy!

[@grantebel]

Great job on this. Very understandable and clearly done. Thanks!

[@Brandon-3D]

Awesome. Thank you for taking the time to say so. Means a lot!

[@anidanic]

This is great tutorial! and life changing discovery for me. Thank you very much @BrandonsDrawings!

[@2011manbeast]

Love this video. Subbed!

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you!!

[@vinodbirudula7724]

Cool Explanation

[@1cedragon]

Excellent video! Concise and to the point. I had been putting off learning about the asset browser, but it's actually a really powerful and easy to use tool :)

[@shriwastavshoryas]

Thank You Bro !! I personally liked the throughness of tutorial. Looking forwar to see more video.. And also you got +1 sub now 😂😂

[@jasonjohnson7859]

Thanks. Very helpful. Has any one figured out how to mark a collection as an asset?

[@vezonialithium4474]

only way I found worked so far is to add the collection as an instance when doing "shift + a -> collection instance -> (your collection)" and mark that as an asset. when ya drag it into the scene, itll show up twice cause it carried the collection and the instance, so ya would have to delete the instance afterward everytime ya use it ;3

[@Eugene_Brick]

Great explanation, but... I there a way to make an asset from rigged character, for example? I tried, but all I got is armature or mesh separately.

[@Brandon-3D]

Sort of, there’s a workaround explained here… kzbin.info/www/bejne/j3e7aXmwnJp2j7s

[@Eugene_Brick]

@@Brandon-3D Thank you! This is very helpful.

[@Mightydoggo]

So it would make sense to use the main folder for your projects also as the asset browser´s source.

[@Dougie3DTechnologies]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. This has helped!

[@kaptains241]

Merci beaucoup, je débute et je suis ravi de trouver vos tutoriels ! I wrote it in Fench so that you know where I come from. 😉

[@Brandon-3D]

Thank you!

[@kaptains241]

@@Brandon-3D 🙏👌

[@ClausBohm-v9f]

Thanks for the video, appreciated! You actually counted how many times you said "Asset", Lol!

[@ChristopheFaure]

Thanks Brandon

[@joe_fabricator]

Hi Brandon. Wondering if you have an updated video on this topic?

[@walterwhitetailfeather9998]

Super clear. Thank you.

[@Silmerano]

Well this is neat. I'm currently learning how to make some static scenes for rendering still images for use in Renpy and this seems super god damn useful.

[@qiqiorangehp]

what did you do？press ctl+s？Why I can‘t save the catalog I creat when I had save my file？06:59

[@Brandon-3D]

If you save the file it saves the catalog. Once you save it the first time then make changes you can press that button instead of saving the entire file.

[@qiqiorangehp]

@@Brandon-3D thankyou！！