How to link Blender scenes, data blocks and library overrides (2020)

[@aeonbreak4728]

we need more content from this guy. super clean presentation straight to the point

[@Jagent]

Easily one of the most useful blender videos I've seen in years. Thank you!

[@arsa3d]

Thank you ! i just cant believe that you are the only one on internet explaining this properly (and i googled it a lot)

[@CasBox]

Man you have no idea of how this video helped me. Thank you so much for sharing this knowledge and content. I was stuck with my project, and this video helps a lot. It's very difficult to find content related to managing bigger projects or short movies in blender. Most of the content is related to very specific stuff and modeling a single item. Thank you for the help.

[@RyanKingArt]

Super Helpful! Thanks!

[@jeffdavies2824]

Awesome. I've been wondering about scenes for a while now. As my animations grow more complex, I'll be able to put this info to good use.

[@TommyLikeTom]

You are great in Harmontown

[@chuctanundaspiderbone5407]

Excellent, Thanks. I know you published this video a couple of years ago, but now with everybody setting up their new Blender 3.0 Asset Browsers, this information has become even more relevant, especially to those of us for whom library overrides and data blocks are rather fuzzy concepts. I'll bet lots of peeps would love it if you broke this down and went into more detail. For example, "WTF is a library override anyway?" And, "What happens if I click "relocate" on those link thingies?" or "How could my Blender workflow become more efficient if I learned to use scenes effectively?" I know I am not the only person who has made a holy mess out of my computer learning Blender as I experimented, made & reused lots of stuff, and scattered assets across devices. Right?

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Glad to see your still learning from this video! I was cantracted by CGC to make a short video, but would love to expand on these concepts more at some point

[@chuctanundaspiderbone5407]

@@ZachHixsonTutorials That would be great

[@skarlok1]

Need to know more about this compositing thing with multiple scenes .

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

It's about and easy at it gets. Add a "Render layer node," and select the scene you want. All that scene's render layers will be available to that compositing tree just like a normal render layer. It's great if you have really different scene setups, or want to use different render settings between layers. If you want to know something more specific, let me know and I'll be happy to help

[@dawidwizor7205]

@@ZachHixsonTutorials Is there a option to link specific collection to other scene instead of only objects? And one more question: I see there is linked copy option of scene but its live link between 2 scenes and moving object on one will move it on second too. Is there a way to make linked scene only via specific data block like mesh/material data without animations, positions etc?

[@workflowinmind]

Man, I needed that so much recently I had no idea it was already partially ported... Thanks a lot

[@Butterbilk]

Oh, I just thought I saw this on Zach's channel until the CGCookie logo popped up at the end. Good to see you guys working together! Zach's name is misspelled in the description FYI.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Haha, you're right. I have to send an email to Wes anyways, so I'll let him know so he can change it.

[@michaellarsen1987]

Zach, you are invaluable!!

[@DavesChaoticBrain]

I have to thank Ryan King Art for finding this video for me. The linking and library override thing is exactly what I need to save my sanity! But I gotta tell ya, this seems like a bizarrely overcomplicated processes. How do other software packages deal with this? I came from Lightwave and one of the toughest things to overcome when learning Blender was that Scenes and Models are the same file. With Lightwave, models are separate so you could make a library of fully textured models, and when you loaded them into a scene, you were basically taking that model off a shelf and putting it in your scene, it wasn't creating a new, distinct version of that model in the scene. Basically, this linking/library override thing is Lightwave's default behavior and it really just makes sense to me. And even after this video, I still don't quite understand scenes as they apply to a single .blend file. Going to have to look into that some more.

[@chuctanundaspiderbone5407]

Me too.

[@wexoriann]

Holy cow, Now it's wayy more easy to work with team on 1 project :)

[@AndyTanguay]

Crazy important stuff for doing anything of a decent size. Thanks

[@paulwang6844]

Thank you sooo much!!! You are only person that give me answer how edit linked objects ))

[@dhairyavijay2006]

This is super helpful

[@thibaultcezard722]

Fantastic! thank you so much for all those tips especially the library override and refresh button !

[@JimmyGunawan]

2:36 Library Override

[@87render_official]

Great , compact and concise information

[@AdamBaird]

How do you link collections? If I add to the collection does it add it to both places?

[@lubruz7164]

This is exactly that I was looking for. Amazing!!!!

[@scottlee38]

Thanks I needed this!

[@PauloSamurai]

Scenes are awesome! You can make a full movie within the same blender file

[@carbonx95.08]

This video is just what I needed. Thank you and bless you!

[@violenttriangles]

OH THANK YOU! This stuff was super obscure. You saved my butt

[@Mrwuck88]

Hi, from 2:02, how to modify mesh without affect the uv and mapping? Thanks.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

In edit mode, in the "options," drop-down there's a setting called "correct face attributes," that does this.

[@jeffellis1149]

Excellent. Very clear. Thanks!

[@kleioscope]

Interresting :D Any idea of when material override will be possible ?

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

I know they keep talking about it, but I'm not sure when it's actually coming

[@binaryburnout3d]

oh dude. . . . documentation on the website is soooooooo sparse. thanks for this

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

3:00 Did you say “overrided”?

[@BenLe42]

duuude. Thanks. I am working on some giant CAD files, and this is gonna be a life saver

[@JOELwindows7]

Blender linkings!!! This is your daily dose of Recommendation Cool and good. Thancc

[@kevincortez9584]

this is so useful. Thank you!!

[@mariuszpocztowski9565]

If you put object to a collection and then link it to another blend file you can move and resize it freely.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

If I understand you correctly, you will likely need to make sure that the "Instance collection," option is turned off in the linking dialog, and then override the object, but yes it should work.

[@Viewfinderfx]

Great video! really shines some light on how to manage and organize projects!

[@TommyLikeTom]

Nice!

[@thane5_3d]

How is that override feature different from proxies? So have i have everyone seen use proxies for rigs instead, and it seems to work similarly in a way.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Overrides is replacing proxies as a more robust system. From a data standpoint, only the changes you make are saved, similar to a GIT commit if you are familiar with that programming tool. I never used proxies much before overrides came around, so I'm not well versed on all the differences though.

[@marlonvdw]

Thank you for this very clear overview!

[@jurgenvantomme]

Great tip!

[@xXSepZXx]

Really nice! I have a question, you can also link an obj? I mean, if I modify my obj it will update in blender?

No, it has to be a blend file. Best practice is to import your .obj inside a .blend file, put that mesh inside a collection, and only then you can dynamically link that collection in the other blend file.

[@xXSepZXx]

@ Oh thanks! That's a great idea, I'll practice with that👌🏻

[@architgupta3d]

can we override custom properties?

[@tomoprime217]

So Scenes behaves as the former Workspaces did?

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Blender has had scenes since at least 2.49 (when I started using it) and probably earlier. If I'm understanding you correctly, workspaces are more just for UI layouts, while scenes are almost like having multiple .blend files inside a single file.

[@notsure1969]

Dude. Awesome tutorial. Also, you kind of look like Elijah Wood.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Haha, that's definitely the first time I hear that one, but thanks 😄

[@Rxtxb52gee]

Video's Content: 0:22 Scenes 0:32 Scenes Explanation 0:46 Scenes Materials 0:51 Scenes Link 1:00 Scenes Link w/ Tweaks 1:07 Scenes Link in Compositing 1:41 Append Button 2:03 Link Feature 2:38 Library Overrides 2:52 Overriding Specific Parts 3:10 Managing Linked Data

[@guy_incognito]

Very helpful! Thanks!

[@SuperElon]

nice!

[@maxismakingstuff]

Are these the library overrides that are meant to replace "make proxy" ? Ex: linking a collection with an armature and actually being able to animate it in another scene? Possibly... linking 2 of the same armature in the same scene?

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

I don't know about the armature thing, but I do know that Overrides are supposed to replace the old Proxy system

[@maxismakingstuff]

@@ZachHixsonTutorials I forgot to follow up on this. It did work, I used object->relation->make library override to override everything in the linked collection. Previously when using the "make proxy" setting, the bug I encountered was if you had two links to the same file, the proxies would both recieve the same edits. So link two cubes, modify one, the other gets it too. The library override seems to allow individual edits per link, even if linking the same file. Thanks for this video.

[@LeslieStroobant]

LOL - what are we cavemen? Love your style!

[@jeric_synergy8581]

1:06 "mesh data from other Scenes" -- that went by too fast, please elaborate.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Sorry about that, the contact I had was to make a short video under a certain timeframe so I had to rush through some thing. Of love to cover things in more detail at some point though

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Each object has a separate "mesh," ossiciated with it. In the mesh tab you can swap between different meshes which are associated with the object, just like you can with materials. In short, if you have a mesh in one scene, you can tell an object in a different scene to use that mesh

[@thesufficientgatsby]

that spam animation lmao

[@eknight2904]

How stable is linking nowadays? Some people recommend appending to avoid corrupted blendfiles. And can you link across versions? Thx a lot :-)

Very stable, I have used it in a massive project lately and it worked pretty well. Only thing is that I had to set blender's file paths to absolute in all the blends, otherwise blender can sometimes loses it's way, especially when you use the "Edit linked library" addon.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Pretty stable, but I still run into the odd issue every now and again but it's improving all the time. You should be able to link across versions as long as both versions support the same thing IE: Linking a collection from 2.79 - 2.8 may or may not work since collections weren't supported in 2.79 (it might link a layer instead though), but linking an object from 2.79 - 2.8 should work.

[@athinasdesigns]

So like maya we can have our aniamation file and update the models? In case we finish the animations and we wanna update something on our models?

[@andrewhu7770]

simple and clear! thx

[@m_tth_w9647]

Do assets in other scenes affect render times?

[@sgasolacewolf4930]

In the scenes thing does this mean if you add objects to different scenes that they won't make the blender project so heavy anymore?

[@kubanowskyy]

Very useful ;)

[@S9universe]

hey, i always thought about scenes for batch render multiple scenes, do you have any tips please ?

[@Arunkishor3d]

Thank you!

[@tjseries3057]

Thanks

[@alebaroli]

how I can join the multiple scenes and make a final animation? When I try using the VSE, the sound from these scenes don't play. Only the animation.

[@AmazinglyStrangeMedia]

Brilliant!

[@macronchampion]

Can we overide rigs?

[@yahyatarek443]

Thank you

[@korochanew]

I have a question: I f I want to render an file on multiple friends pc's , and we share a same folder syncronized - is there a way to whrite in OUT an .. oot oot ender something? so friends don't need to place their out like d: or e: diferent drives and just open scene and hit render ?

[@arib8782]

Thanks for this video, it seems super important. I’ve just started learning about linking, and I think I’ve made a fundamental mistake - the thing is I have multiple Blender files going, one for each scene instead of having them as various scenes within the same single Blender file. I wanted to bring them all together into one master file for video editing but in a way that if I made changes to any of the other files, the one master file would reflect any of those changes. So I started learned about linking and I started linking to scenes and doing my video editing - but the scenes are each in their own Blender file. It kind of works, but I don’t think the master files reflects the updates to the scenes in the other individual files. I’ve already done so much video editing in the master file though - should I just append all these scenes into the video editing file, as separate scenes but all together in the master file? I’m really sort of at a loss

[@UonBoat]

Wow that Link feature is pretty similar to "an assembly inside an assembly" concept in SOLIDWORKS.

[@dannyaustin84]

Is it possible to append a collection that has already been linked and placed in a scene? I would use the term 'merge' coming from 3ds max but that has different connotations in Blender

[@dannyaustin84]

apparently it's not and the devs are aware of this as a 'bug'

[@martinngan5285]

I am new to blender. I wonder is there a function that I can create and edit object in a new scene, then link the collection of object to the main scene where the collection can move and displaced. I try to link the collection to the scene but it will copied the location. It does not happen when I duplicate linked in the same scene. Thank you.

[@alexmattyou]

Thankyou so much

[@berni85]

Is there any way to update/reload/refresh linked collection in blender 3.x ??? Reloading project file not working, and i can't find any other way in Outliner nad Blender file info to refresh modified collection. Please help

[@RandomPickles]

And still to this day there is no way to unlink the position of an object linked form another scene? Can't find anywhere. Seems weak.

[@crossman1611]

I know I'm 3 years late to the party but is there anyway to work with/bake particle hair from a linked character?

[@psalm1319]

Thanks alot

[@pedrobello2305]

Can you edit a linked file in a new scene and have that be reflected in the original file? thank you... :D

[@DonaldDrennan]

Thanks, this is helpful. But I'm working on something with one mesh that has like 2 million faces. It makes Blender slow to a crawl. Every little thing I do, even just selecting stuff, takes an enormous amount of time. There's a logo object that I want to edit without that huge mesh. Is there a way to just load a single mesh from that blend file and edit it separately ?

[@AaronGwynaireGameDev]

Can you do these things in 2,79?

[@totheknee]

Every time I override a material, it gets reset when I reload the file. Even in Blender 3.0 and 3.1. Do you also have this problem?

[@francomarianorojas8431]

Excelente tutorial como estas? Sabes de que forma sacar la relacion entre objetos cuando comparten el mismo material? Porque use make link/materials y ahora no puedo hacer que cada objeto tenga un material distinto. Use clean parent y no funciona, igual que borrar el material. Saludos !

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Las anulaciones de material llegarán pronto, pero aún no están aquí

[@arthatamayusuf8848]

i have encountered a problem in this subject. i wanted to link multiple objects from the same file. but it failed to do what i want. let me descibe it in details. i have a rigged character lets call it charA. and i want to animate that character in another file with a bg object. in that file i want to have multiple charA objects from the same source file but it always failed, those charA objects can only be controlled by a single proxy. how to solve this? to have multiple charA objects which controlled by their own proxy?

[@openroomxyz]

That's look cool but you have to be really careful when you do linking. You may forget it's linked somewhere and change it. You may think you don't need it and you delete it and it would break another project. I prefer to append things, as keeping track what is linked to what seems a mission impossible over time and HDD space is cheap complexity & time is expensive. Is there any way that i can get a warring don't mod read only / don't delete it's linked into some other project? Multiple Scenes in On File Sounds great, what if Blender corrupts the Blend File, you loose whole project, not just one Asset, you have been modeling, you definitely should have some version control of that file as 5 hours of work is not equal loosing 10 weeks of work.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

I agree completely. I append generic things like furniture and random props as they definitely won't remain consistent over many projects. However, I'm working for a company right now that uses standard assets in all their animations, so linking really helps a lot.

[@NordieBeats]

holy shit hes the MAN, i had some trouble and you solved it in 4 minutes, fking A. hairline king, problem solving king! thanks!

[@sonicboy150]

I keep getting scene unconfigured error everytime i try to export to smd, can anyone help?

[@3dlab334]

Hi, Link is not working propertly. Update never happen. :(

[@henriklarsen8193]

MORE PLEASE!!!!!

[@sh4dow2a]

AHH !!! VERY IMPORTANT !! When selecting what you want to link... UNTICK "INSTANCE COLLECTION", this option blocks you from "adding library override"

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

If you want to select and move the individual objects, then yes absolutely do this. There are a lot of reasons to want to import a collection as a solid chunk though (such as adding more objects in the future) in which case you wouldn't want to do that

[@sh4dow2a]

@@ZachHixsonTutorials Also, adding overrides and editing the overrided object doesn't work, got a confirmation by a developer. The object data needs to be imported in the scene, but the object itself can stay in overrides.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

@@sh4dow2a Yeah, they're reworking the depsgraph to allow for some of that stuff, but it's not there yet

[@sh4dow2a]

@@ZachHixsonTutorials sad :(

[@darius55508]

Thx :)

[@MichaelLuckhardt]

I cannot for the life of me figure out how he moves objects after the library overdrive. All my stuff is stuck in place. (Also my object shifts in position once I add library overdrive?)

[@MichaelLuckhardt]

Figured it out.. If using Library Overdrive and you want to move elements around. File > Link > Find your Blender file > Collection (Uncheck Instanced Collections on the checkbox to the right). The linked file will import immovable. Now right click the Imported Collection > Make > Selected And Content. You should be able to move individual elements and the main object. (Blender version 3.6.0)

[@notenochliang]

Anyone knows how to pack linked assets into a blend file?

[@BsAnimation0]

Thx

[@BsAnimation0]

First

[@Illasera]

Should have spent at least 10 minutes on the library overrides feature [Even if undone as for the time of posting] , I guess that will do, I am grateful.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

There's so much to talk about when it comes to overrides, I could probably make hours of content around it. I was just contracted for a 3-5 minute video, so that's what I made 🙂

[@SinanAkkoyun]

tysm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@DavidJohnson-dc8lu]

Nice tips, but you didn't not show anyone how to operate them at all. If anyone hit append they aren't going to find objects in their current work files at all.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

As I've mentioned in some other comments, the video I was contracted for was supposed to be under a certain time limit. I'd love to give deeper into these concepts sometime

[@jkartz92]

That was too fast, could have been a bit slower explaining stuffs in details in relation with an project!

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

I'd love to go into more detail in the future, but this was more of just an quick overview.

[@Leukick]

It's been 4 more months of you using Blender. Now, this video should appear a lot slower to you ;)

[@matteofalduto766]

2:58 My Grammar Nazi asks whether shouldn't it be "overridden"?

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Haha, probably. Wouldn't be the first time my poor spelling/grammer has been imortalized on KZbin 😅

[@jesusaulloa1653]

Ong thank you

[@X360DevNerd]

Idk how but i was unsubbed from here :(

[@thenout]

Ahhh! Ctrl+L Thanks a bunch, good vid!

[@emileravenet]

does any1 know how to link pose libraries between blender files?