Personally I would like to see this get merged into master as soon as its any what useable. The sooner we have anything that saves us from having to append blend files manually the better!

Gotta give credits on the design work done so far <3 Looks clean and powerful.

Will asset manager support custom node tree data blocks so such add-ons as animation nodes or sverchok could use to save some node trees?

"Once the asset manager is working for the basics and the UI can do its job, we can start to make things nice. This includes better handling of thumbnails" ...

Could the following Python library be used to speed up thumbnails loading?

https://github.com/3dninjas/3dn-bip
https://blenderartists.org/t/blazingly-fast-preview-loads-images-of-arbitrary-size-bpy-utils-previews-drop-in-replacement/1303349

Will the asset manager support skinned armatures? I've got an armature with a skinned mesh parented inside it. when I select the armature and mark as asset, I only get the skeleton without the skinned mesh.
when I select both the armature and the mesh and mark as assets, I get them separately without the skinning connection "because of renaming".

when I put them both in a collection and mark the collection as an asset I get them together but as a collection instance without an override so I can't pose the armature.

am I missing something?

In T73366#1172878, @Bay Raitt (spiraloid) wrote:

Will the asset manager support skinned armatures?

There's no such thing in Blender.

I've got an armature with a skinned mesh parented inside it. when I select the armature and mark as asset, I only get the skeleton without the skinned mesh.
when I select both the armature and the mesh and mark as assets, I get them separately without the skinning connection "because of renaming".

No. You get them separately, because they're two separate objects, and the assets are created as such.

when I put them both in a collection and mark the collection as an asset I get them together but as a collection instance without an override so I can't pose the armature.

am I missing something?

Yes. Lookup Linked Rigs.
Asset Manager is an Interface/Management system. It does not functionally change anything.

Thanks for the response. I like that it's not changing anything. I am wondering how to put characters in it so that they can be added to scenes without additional setup.

(The first thing I tried was to link a rig and create a library override for it and make an asset for it)

in case anyone ever needs my fancy bendy tube for testing.

FYI, project update here: Asset Browser Project Update.

Any chance on seeing some basic support for geometry nodes modifiers & node groups any time soon?

I am super excited about this new Asset Browser. I've started using it in the 3.0 Alpha and am really happy with what is already implemented. So way to go! 🎉 🎉 🎉

• Is there a way to search "tags" assigned to different assets? Or what's the plan with that?
• If there is anything I can do to help with testing or UI/UX design wise (I'm an experienced artist) to help let me know.

Hi all,

Regarding the Project Repositories, please reconsider having a default base set of folders for a project.
It will make cleaner project setups, and it's not that hard adding extra folders to a project if needed.

Or, like with e.g. Maya or Houdini, have some kind of project manager available to change folder names, or add extra folders., before the project creation.
With a base set of folders, you can also 'direct' the app towards these folders for certain tasks, e.g. opening the 'textures' folder when you need an image for a material. Or by default rendering all images to a folder called e.g. 'renders'.
Same for caches, go into 'simulation' etc. etc.

It's not forcing users to use a certain workflow, but it makes a cleaner one when certain things are offered. It's one of my annoyances with Blender, after working with apps like Softimage, Maya, Houdini and others for years.
And I always found it odd that unpacking a blend file will create some of these folders, but by default there's no such system in place.

So again, please consider something like a default folder structure for projects.

cheers!

Along with folders, I would also like to see an asset tagging system that's independent from folders. So you can tag each asset with an unlimited amount of tags and then search entirely by these tags, for larger databases with a large variety in assets I believe management would be easier this way.

Just to be clear, there are no folders per-se. But instead the catalog system that creates a virtual folder system to sort the assets in a hierarchical way. On top of that a tag system can be implemented for filtering too.

Unless there are major show stoppers requiring a big revert, the Asset Browser will make its debut in the 3.0 release. There is still a lot of work to do and we'll soon do further planning for that. But at this point I think we can reduce the priority of this basic umbrella task to Normal. Better to have individual parts of the design high priority (e.g. collection support).