How to Use the Asset Browser in Blender 3.0! (Step by Step Tutorial!)

[@TheCGEssentials]

Hi everyone! Let me know what you think about the Blender Asset Browser in the comments below! :)

[@QuickDeath02]

Hi, was wondering if this would work with rigged armatures?

[@vclemdd]

Hi, I'm new to Blender. The tool looks very friendly and convenient, does it import the asset as an instance? I'm just wondering regarding the memory footprint

[@supergirl1892]

Please make a detailed video on how to convert 2D image ( say a caboose or bus ) into 3D model, with textures from image.

[@silverretinastudios3869]

Simple. Easy to remember. (Jack Sparrow voice)

[@TheWavys]

Really hoping the next update doesn't require you to have to "save as" into the actual asset folder...id love to just have it automatically work in a very simple way.....

[@terryn3457]

Amazing! Thank you for covering the category files, as well as how to mark materials as assets. I'm going to lose an afternoon setting this up, but it's going to be so worth it.

[@EnderElohim]

Oh thanks you very much fun fact: if you add multiple path on preferences->file path->asset libraries you can have multiple files for different stuff

[@sjdennis]

15:05 I beg your pardon? I can drag that out of where? All jokes aside, great explanation of the Asset Browser. Thanks!

[@8bbp]

Very clear and pleasant to follow along, thank you very much !

[@Temarius_Walker]

Awesome tutorial. Thanks!!!

[@AndrewPace77]

Regarding the Bonnie model's initial orientation, it would be much easier and more straightforward to just apply the object's rotation, location, and scale. Ctrl+A gets you that menu.

[@MrSerenity1223]

I thought the same thing. And just move the pivot point to 3D cursor.

[@TRANSISTOOR]

That's true in most cases but doesn't work on objects that you want to drag onto a wall like an AC unit for an example.

[@Chronomatrix]

Great tutorial, thank you. I find it very odd the categories are saved in a different file, also the fact you can't just add an asset directly to your library but instead have to save a blend file that contains it. Idk maybe they'll improve it a bit later on but for now it kinda feels like a third-party plugin. Also, what's the deal with previews? Why can't it just show the material if it brings it over with the asset anyway?

[@TheCGEssentials]

Well I'm sure it has to do with the way that Blender files are structured, and I doubt you're going to see a significant change to this anytime soon

[@caribbeanchild]

Yes. It's a pain in the arse the way it works.

[@demoness2005]

That's exactly what I was hoping for. I would love to bring in some objects and materials in other formats to find easy to use in Blender instead of duplicating things as a Blender file, thus using extra HD space unnecessarily. Thank you for the tutorial, but I doubt I'll be using it much unless I have something in a Blender file that I intend to use often.

[@ArtistryMusication]

I'm thinking it's to keep down the load on the system. Looking all over your hard drive for these files would bog down your computer. Also it looks like if you take the time to add all your objects and Mats to one and catalog them they will all be in the same place anyway. If you have a large file with assets just change to read that folder where it's saved.

[@chrishenderson1671]

@@ArtistryMusication Yes I agree. I'm reasonably happy with the Asset library as is. I prefer functional performance over slight inconvenience. Just having an asset library is gold

[@PeterEller]

is there any way to keep parent relationships and collections in the asset browser?

[@KevRyanCG]

This is great! Is there a way to add all your own assets to the library, for example my HDRIs via blender? Or would be have to load that up as a texture first in blender to save it as an asset? I was hoping I'd be able to add a folder and see my HDRIs/textures almost like a file browser.

[@KevRyanCG]

I've since answered my own question and no. It's not how it works, however if you have a "world" set-up with a HDRI you can right click on it in the dropdown and Mark that as an asset. So I'm gonna have to convert a bunch of them at some point.

[@caseymckinney2423]

@@KevRyanCG good to know

[@DimiArt]

@@KevRyanCG thanks bro

[@Sophistry0001]

@@KevRyanCG So you're saying you added an HDRI to a sphere or on some other mesh - as a texture so it could be added into the asset manager?

[@JohnSmith-bf6im]

Why don't you just use easy hdri. It allows you to switch between different hdri's

[@VTeslaV]

How do I save a collection as a single asset? Lot's of my objects consist of multiple objects but I want to import them as one.

[@georgiosrigas8094]

Really great tutorial. Thank you so much. For me though Blender needs to make it pimplier to save your assets. The procedure for the assets to appear in your asset browser window needs a lot of steps.

[@spiralmoment]

wow, that's complicated for something that should just be drag and drop.

[@systemG3000]

That was a very informative video and helped a lot, thank you mr Ernest P. Worrell. But you have to save every file with assets as a copy in a different directory? Is there a way to have one asset file and save to it from any file you have open? Thank you!

[@MarkRobinsonMBopo]

Thanks for this matey. This is the clearest I've seen it explained so far

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad it helped!

[@DavesChaoticBrain]

Okay, but what about Multi-Part models? For example, at 1:30 you have a Dresser model in your library. What if we wanted that to be a game asset where the drawers could be opened? The drawers that can open would need to be separate objects from the main unit but so far I can't find a way to save a multi-part object as an asset.

[@richod9635]

Wonderful!!

[@ThisIsDownstate]

Your tutorials are ALWAYS concise and well explained. I will always look for your tutorials first for anything I need to learn in blender. I appreciate the work you do sir ! Cheers

[@hasymiller]

Can I just point my projects folder as the asset library (so I don't need to continuously "save as")? AWESOME VIDEO BRO!!!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Ummm...I wouldn't - I'm sure Blender would become unmanageable pretty quick if it was trying to read every single file that was in that folder

[@manojlogulic4234]

Very well explained, please consider make same for pose library. Thanks.

[@TheCGEssentials]

That's definitely on my list!

[@jeniferloviegirl5082]

Question I’m new to the Blender world and Blender kit… I’m hoping to learn unity for the metaverse ….can design on blender and blender kit and load it onto unity? Any suggestions are great very new to this world

[@fxswanlast5486]

when using an asset, is it appending or linking? I want the basic asset but when brought into a scene the ability to change the material, etc. WITHOUT messing with the actual Asset itself.

[@simply_the_dev7588]

the zip file doesn't come with the second file to label the categories. Only a txt file

[@theblitzbrothers]

i can always turn to you to get a very good understanding of Blender> you don't go to fast and you understand the viewer needs a basic starting point! thank you!

[@kingofbingus468]

I thought it was a little hard to use at first- that's how I found this video -but now once I know how it works, it will be a huge help in future projects!

[@abhiramrao2]

should i have to add all the objects in one file and mark it as asset then i can get them? there are like 1000s of them... or can i mark them as asset in their own file even it would be tedious...should i have to mark them as asset???? pls anyone help me in this....

[@GamerReality]

14:50 was the most helpful for me, but this was all great! Thanks!

[@maipix6046]

When i open the asset browser my selection doesn't show the options for shader, scenes, objects, animations etc .

[@vishisht8688]

Hey, so you said that to preview material on the models we need to have a texture. Could you explain what do you mean by that?

[@TheCGEssentials]

That they actually have an image file that they're repeating on the object rather than just a color associated with the material. That being said, I'm not clear if the full driver of this is something specific in the node setup or something else. More testing needed on my part and the documentation didn't really address it.

[@3dartistfoxhound488]

Whut´s ap guuuyyysss! I LOVE IT :D

[@mrnomore]

Thanx. Finally understood how to use it. But I feel it's still waaaaay too complicated to be used on daily basis. One should be able to just drag anything and drop it in the correct folder without all the hustle. This is a creativity killer for now. Sticking to the Assets Management Addon until better solution finds it's way into the sunlight.

[@Pomeo7520]

a good lesson. is it possible to add a collection to the asset browser somehow? Or maybe it consists of many objects, so as not to combine it all? it seems like there was such an opportunity in the Alpha version, but I can't find it here)))

[@TheCatMurgatroyd]

Oh man, this is really disappointing :/ i thought it was supposed to make life easier? But i have to always copy the blender file over and replace the cat file!? That's stupid and disappointing

[@TheCatMurgatroyd]

Why not make it automatic? If it would automatically always safe a copy of the new blendfile and overwrite the cat file on changes, then you wouldn't have to do these stupid extra steps... But until then i will not use this.. i don't use enough assets to justify this

[@TheCatMurgatroyd]

And what i don't understand as well: you use an asset from the library and any changes you do to the object automatically overwrite the object in the library??? What if i don't want that!? What if i just want to change the material for the scene i have but not overall?

[@Chronomatrix]

@@TheCatMurgatroyd As far as I understand the .cats file will simply overwrite itself adding all categories and merging them. When it comes to changes in assets it will only save changes if you modify the asset in its original file. If you add an asset from your library to another file that added asset will act as an independent object, not as the asset itself, so you can modify it. I agree it'd be nice if you could just save an instance of the asset (lets say you want the same asset with two different materials applied), instead of having to duplicate it; something like how Prefabs work in Unity.

[@TheCatMurgatroyd]

@@Chronomatrix ohhh thank you!

[@BuddhaPhi]

Thanks for the tutorial. I think the Asset Browser as of Blender 3.1 is extremely unintuitive and difficult to use. Attempting to create your own library of assets borders on being a completely terrible experience. I've used a couple different Blender add-on asset browsers (Asset Manager and KIT OPS) and they are far, far simpler to use. Of course they have there own limitations though. I've also used the asset browser in Cinema 4D and it's absolutely painless. I don't understand the Blender devs' logic at all with how they developed this.

[@Mr_Steve3D]

Excellent TUT and I got everything to work. I was here 8 months ago but only knew how to inset a cube then so now I got this is about 2 minutes tyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

[@msmmultimedia-blender]

In my assets blend file i have added a isometric camera with the correct rotation. But when i drag them in to a new blend file the rotation is set back to 0,0,0. I have tried to apply rotation and scale with CTRL+A, before marking as asset. I have also tried to add the rotation to the Delta Transform. How can i fix this....??

[@MACKINATORR]

If I make a model in a new blender file, save the model in my asset browser, and then delete the blender file I made it in, does blender still keep it in the asset browser?

[@Zeriel00]

I got all my files facing the wrong direction and I'm supposed to go and take a screenshot of them? Why can't I just rotate them!??!

[@LukeHomay]

Does this translate over to your other computers? How does that work? Just make sure to have those blend files with you? I keep everything on a fast external SSD

[@thebeardedmen]

It does look like a very early feature, especially if you have to fiddle with files outside the software. But it can only go up from here.

[@clausbohm9807]

But how do I put them in the other folder. I created a buildings folder, Added in the path in preference and pointed to it in the file (It shows up in the asset browser view) but how do I get the scene building that I downloaded into that particular folder, not the current one?

[@KennylexLuckless]

So let see if I understand this right, I have a file I work with that is saved in my normal folder structure, but if it have one asset like a chair I want to use I have to save the file again in the asset folder, but this do not just save the asset but the whole 25 Gb file, or alternative I can add all my folders where my work files are saved (around 365 for each year) to be able to reuse the assets? If that is so I will still use Export and Import assets into a normal folder structure, or did I misunderstood something?

[@zofo264]

Thanks for sharing! I wonder if you can save the node setup under composting settings?

[@seannarae]

Help talk me off a ledge here, Justin... I get that in order for assets to be available/visible in the Asset Browser (AB), those assets must first be [a] saved within a .blend file sitting at path specified in User Preferences, and [b] be Marked as Asset within that .blend file. Once i swallowed that pill, it seemed clear that my OCD brain would want to have one central .blend file for Materials, another for Meshes/Objects, etc. Hell, i'm not opposed to having one .blend file to rule them all, containing 100% of the assets i want to be available in the AB. But here's where i'm going grey... If i want to be able to see & play with those assets within a NEW .blend files' AB, does that .blend file *ALSO* need to saved to the same folder as specified within User Preferences? Seems so, yes. If i create a new/fresh .blend file using my existing pre-3.0 file structure - before i created a dedicated Assets folder - the assets Marked as Assets will never show up. If however i save a copy of the .blend file (SAVE AS) within the dedicated assets folder, only THEN will the assets be visible/available. Seems if i want to use the new Asset Browser, i'll have to completely re-think the file structure + save locations for my .blend files.

[@MECACARL]

Question: I have a model that I created in another 3d program. Once I imported the model into Blender, I clicked on a 3d object within the "model" and then "Marked as Asset". I did see movement within the "Asset Browser" but the model/ Image of the model never appeared in " The Asset Browser". Question; Is the reason that the model doesn't appear, is because it's not a "Blender File"? and if so, how do I get "Mark as Asset" to work for a 3d obect that's from another 3d program?

[@mattli911]

Thank you! Eeeh... this seems like needs some work yet in UI/overall usability on the Blender side. Definitely is not very user friendly to me yet. Or similar to what other people said. Having to go back and forth with files and save in a certain way. I've been using Asset Management Addon, and it's much more simple I feel like. In that addon, you can mark an asset for add, and it saves in its own file/goes into a certain subfolder on your computer. So you can have 100 bolt files, and not into 1 huge file.

[@MrStevenhogg]

nothing downloaded from site , if you click on download nothing download ??

[@TheCGEssentials]

I don't know what this means

[@MrStevenhogg]

@@TheCGEssentials it means when you click on the link nothing downloads

[@chrisgroff4981]

Hi. I like the browser but I'm having a problem saving rigged characters in it. I save it as a collection but the armature is included with the rest of the meshes as one mesh. I've tried it seperately but it comes out funny. Can you please help?

[@ShapetrixEntertainment]

Hey Justin, Question have you ever used the asset browser with a team over dropbox or sync? I am running into some issues with the assets that are used from the asset browser not showing up, i think its something to do with the path to the file that is in sync software we are using. so on one machine it will be on the C:\\ and on another machine it might be on the E:\\ drive. do you know of a way to fix this that is not going into the outliner and relocating the files. If you know of anything that would be great, Thanks again and keep up the good videos

[@stevesculptor1]

If I bring in an asset, a block of wood, and save as an asset say a 2x3 wood block, when I drag it in to the viewport and change it, it changes the asset ! I've tried refreshing the library but that doesn't work ?

[@akongas]

So if you have a scene where you’ve brought in 100 monkeys into the stage from the asset library and you wanted to change the size of the ears but didn’t want to do it for 100 monkeys, just the one… how do you update the scene once you’ve changed the asset?

[@drumSick66]

Great, thank you! Is it possible to use a path, that's somewhere in the web? Like a dropbox-path or something...

[@ivanrendon8735]

idk how other people are finding success, I find this very confusing. Followed step by step and none of them happened. Copying and pasting files into the asset folder did nothing for me on blender and nor did the material preview in the asset browser did not show for me either. Interesting tutorial.

[@krzysztofdeoniziak5618]

Why is this so anti-human, could it really not be done more simply? Good video, terribly bad UX design

[@caribbeanchild]

But I want to save current assets from the file I'm in into an asset file. I want to open all my old files and drag and drop assets into the file saved in the asset files folder. It can't do this...so is kind of a pain in the arse really. It doesn't work very well at all. Typical Blender... things just don't make sense and are not very intuitive.

[@yass_queeen_engery]

I love you for doing this ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@VintageTechNerd]

Prolly already been said, but if you go to material properties and set the viewport color, that shows up in the asset browser so it’s an easy way to color objects for both the viewport and the asset browser for later use.

[@BurnEdOutOne]

I'd love if you did a video on organization, specifically with regards to the asset browser, because I had developed a system that worked for me before, but now that the asset browser is here I feel like it might be in my interest to reorganize my files so that it can best take advantage of them without simply doubling the storage requirement. It seems like the simplest but least graceful method would just be having a duplicate copy of every finished asset in the base level of the browser folder, occasionally combining some of them based on type. Any advice that would cut out painful learning lessons and time loss would be appreciated.

[@Sophistry0001]

I just spent a lot of time going through all my kitbash and PBR textures to bring them into blend files and then adding them to the asset library. For the kitbash objects, I just went through and appended a bunch of objects into a single blend file for a given category, so like hydraulics for example. Append all hydraulic objects into a single blend file to be loaded into the asset manager. I was a lot of grunt work but nice now that I have it done. Did the same for the materials, made a scene with like 30 iso spheres, and just went one by one texturing them according to a category (wood for example) then save that blend file in my asset location folder. Again, it's a lot of grunt work but it works really well now.

[@ginescap]

Thanks, very exhaustive, the best i've seen till now :)

[@amedavisuals]

did anyone know how to stick models on the floor while dragging it?

[@zubyyynaijaaa2677]

How do I bring the original back. I accidentally messed up an asset now the asset stored is also messed up

[@___x__x_r___xa__x_____f______]

I am just not sure how to render previews with the materials on the mesh. Is there a work around? Seems like materials with nodes dont allow it

[@cutescarydolls]

my new blender files would work slow if I fill too much the Asset Browser?

[@supergirl1892]

Thanks for explaining it properly.

[@kodiakbluefox6643]

I have a question. How do I add new brushes on the BlenderKit?

[@sajeethpasha5495]

Now tNice tutorials was truly an aweso video. I love your thorough style

[@pixel-ink]

Well, the Asset Browser is a good start. But there are some things you can't do; 1) Multiple separate objects (aka collections). Some don't want to Join objects together; 2) If you wanted to setup 3-point lighting, you can't add separate lights to asset browsers; 3) What if you want to create a scene with many objects, lights etc. to the asset browser. You Can't!... So, Not very useable yet.

[@rvayanimat0r]

It can with collection asset

[@nottnice6441]

some of my assets are not showing up in the browser can anyone explain why.

[@IGarrettI]

so..you need to save a whole scene to be able to access its resources in another scene. Kinda dumb

[@candlestorms]

Is there no way of saving rigged objects right now?

[@hyperactiva9791]

I love this tutorials xd, I feel the joker is giving them

[@dubstepboy1334]

OMG thank you sooo much this is very useful information that i needed. I've been hoping from video to video trying to understand assets and they never completely went into detail on how to properly set it up now im one step closer to becoming a competent 3d animator. Thank You.

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad I could help! :)

[@basspig]

This feature is broken. I downloaded some assets from blenderkit saved the project the marked each as asset. Went into asset browser, there they are, but thumbnails are generic paper icons. I selected the assets and clicked on generate thumbnails but only 2 of the 16 items generated a thumbnail. Nthe rest refuse. Wtf?

[@username74060]

I can always count on you for clarity. Much appreciated as always!

[@iresolvers]

thank you didn't know why my assets are upsidedown

[@AutumnRed]

I guess you can use these assets to create architectural forms like wall or roof variations so you can build different building by assembling them later, right?

[@TheCGEssentials]

Yep that would work

[@darthsquirrel4247]

Can u save an object with its connected children as an asset?

[@Promeneur]

Great explanation, so clear. Thanks a lot !

[@MusicAMG]

Johnny Mathews released an awesome free addon to make asset thumb nails for the browser, check his channel out..

[@futurestoryteller]

I don't even know how you would make this work but I'm curious - is any of this conditional? The demo file had a set with a window, and then a curtain as an asset. Would be interesting to think you could change the size of the window and the asset would resize itself to fit automatically.

[@WilIJpelaar]

Very nice and olso the Tutorial.

[@OmluTerong]

very nice.Thank You

[@rehanfarooqi8556]

is it possible to save rig file into asset library ?

[@SkyfishArt]

I find it a bit unintuitive. Blender states "only assets from the current file can be moved between catalogues". So if i have my plant pots in one blender file, and my materials in another, inside my assets folder, I still cannot categorise them in the blender UI. So that makes me having to go back to have a single blender file for all my assets. Or if i have a nice floor in my interior design file, and a nice floor in another file, i cannot make a "floor " cateogry to contain both of them....

[@SkyfishArt]

I suppose that means I have to, every time I make a nice material, have to go an manually append that material as a clone in the material library Blend file, that is just as much work as not having the material browser was. but at least they are easier to drag and drop once they have been made. How are we supposed to use free material libarries online with this, if they cannot be categorised with one another?

[@BMF6889]

This looks like a good start, but it seems to be the Blender developers' culture to include a lot of unnecessary steps to achieve an outcome. First, there doesn't seem to be a batch import to the asset browser where I already have a number of folders organizing my materials and assets. It looks like I have to essentially do them one at a time, save, refresh, wash, rinse and repeat. A long time ago, I used to be a pretty good programmer in several languages such as Natural (the precursor to SQL), the original Basic, the original C, Pasqual, and a couple of others no longer used. But I understand how coding works, and I think it would be fairly straight forward to automate several of the steps to reduce the amount of fiddling needed to add and modify assets. Of course, one size doesn't fit all. Therefore it would be simple to have a preference option that you could change to automatically reduce the steps or a manual option where the user has to go through all of the steps. Second, it's unclear what happens if I modify an asset in the browser. Does it only update in the current blender file or does it also update in the asset browser file. There should be an option to either update only the current blender scene or to update both the current scene AND the original file in the asset folders. That too seems fairly easy to program since it is really an option to just update the current instance or to the linked object.

[@MusicAMG]

assets are in blend files, so, the link and append rules apply.. yea, me too, retired programmer.. If you ever wanted to write your own addon, it isn't that hard really.. One thing I do all the time, is buy commercial addons and guess what you get ?? source code in Python.. :) cheers

[@Illasera]

7:30 Mind, so this is one of those things that the answer to the problem with the origin is To make the model proper to begin with , When you start playing with the origin, some things like bones and animations, physics, blender drivers, mirroring , constraints, modifiers and what not are depended on the origin, It may fix things in this example but could cause problems down the road (Depend on what the model is used for). Which is why the answer is : Do modeling correctly to begin with.

[@HuaCai]

It takes too much time........

[@Elyakim_binenstock]

Can we add geometry nodes tree in the assets library?

[@TheCGEssentials]

Not sure on this one - I don't believe so at this point, but I haven't tested it

[@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 !

[@肖子恒-v8l]

I like your tutorials Very much

[@Sophistry0001]

So, the only reason the objects in the asset manager were responding to being textured is because you were actively working on the asset library blend file. If you were pulling in an asset from one file into another through the asset manager it wouldn't do that.

[@F3rd0]

What if my model is not from a single object? Is it possible to mark multiple objects as one asset? And what about armature?

[@itsjermy]

thank you! as i'm new to blender, it's cool that they have this implemented. it's gonna make it easier for me to set up scenes in the future when I want to reuse assets

[@djC653]

Now I think I got it, tnx this was very clear and cleared up some things I had Q's on. A+

[@ilyasvural5908]

shoe doku mapping displacement vidio

[@waltage]

this not working and freezing

[@ubertcoolie8694]

Your video is the best tutorial

[@MarcV_IndieGameDev]

Cheers big man!

[@frankusvolubilis9210]

Thanks A brilliant video as usual Made it simple to understand, and like the use of Time Lines Very good Video Thanks again