Asset Project: User Interface #54642
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Milestone 1: Basic, Local Asset Browser
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Reference: blender/blender#54642
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This task is for defining the UI portion of the Asset Browser in Blender.
The Assets editor
The Assets editor in Blender allows users to browse, filter, load and save assets, as well as editing asset metadata. The Assets editor lives inside Blender's UI and is exposed as an editor type. Internally, it will use the file browser as the basis, with different custom UI. The UI can be extended by each asset engine. such as which panels are shown in the sidebar.
{F7929185, size=full}
The Assets editor, with sidebar and sourcelist hidden, set to materials
{F7921176, size=full}
The Assets editor, with sidebar and sourcelist visible
{F7921192, size=full}
Visual, graphical example
Drag and drop
Note: The "Add Item to Library" by dragging into the Asset Browser is currently not part of the core design. It might be added in later iterations though.
One of the core areas needed to make the Assets editor easy to use, is to make good use of drag and drop, both for loading assets and creating new ones.
For materials, it would be nice to make it so we have nicer rollover highlighting, as well as a better indicator of which material will be assigned;
{F7921511, size=full}
Comment: The "tooltip" above should also clearly tell what happens if you drop the asset. Depending on where you drop it, different actions may be applied. This can be communicated well with these "tooltips".
For objects & meshes, it would be useful if they could snap to the surface of your scene for quick set dressing or kit-bashing:
{F7921514, size=full}
Variations
The assets system allows for several 'variations' of an asset. You could have one main asset with several alternative versions or tweaks packaged together. When linking into the scene, users can then swap out several variations if they wish.
To see all the variations of an asset, click on the number in the top left of the asset, which can then fold out the variations:
{F7921860, size=full}
Switching Libraries
The menu in the top left lets users switch between various asset engines and libraries, corresponding to which asset engines are installed:
{F7921172, size=full}
Built-in Libraries
In order to make the Asset Browser immediately useful, we will include these built-in libraries:
In addition, users can easily set up their own asset libraries in Preferences and easily start to populate them with objects, meshes, materials and so on, by dragging them into the Asset Browser.
Source List
In the sources list on the left, users can filter the assets by ID type, but they can also filter by tags as well. We only show tags that are available with the active ID type selected. A third panel here could let users define saved searches or 'smart filters' which can combine all types of filtering:
Sidebar
In the Sidebar on the right, users can see and edit information about the selected asset. Here users have access to editing tags, accessing variants and revisions.
One of the important requirements for the assets UI, is that it should be able to become very compact, so that users can integrate it into their Blender screen layout without taking up too much space.
Linking vs Appending assets
In different situations, users might want to either link an asset or append it.
For simple cases where users just want access to assets as a starting point, appending makes the most sense
For collaborative projects, films with multiple shots, complex environments etc, it makes more sense to create a library and then link to assets.
We want to make it easy to do both, without having to switch between modes or views, like so:
In the Inspector there will be buttons to either link or append, but as a faster method, user can either:
This way, users can very quickly link and copy assets into their scene, using a single gesture.
Accessing assets from data-block selectors
Users may not always have the Asset Browser visible. For this reason, it'd be useful to still be able to access to your assets. We can support this by integrating with the data-block selector, like so:
{F2725404, size=full}
By default, we could have it set to Current File, which essentially mirrors what we have today - although we could still support icon view. But if users want to directly search and browse assets outside your current file, we could still allow this, in a way that's consistent with the way the Asset Browser works.
The data-block selector could also show an indicator for data-blocks that are assets: {F8791281, size=full}
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Asset Project - UI - File Browserto Asset Project - UI - Asset BrowserAdded subscriber: @michaelknubben
Changed status from 'Open' to: 'Resolved'
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Changed status from 'Resolved' to: 'Open'
Asset Project - UI - Asset Browserto Asset Project: User InterfaceAdded subscriber: @SteffenD
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Untagging design tasks from specific releases, in general these should only be tagged with the relevant modules and listed on the module page.
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In case there is more than three variation(let say 10), maximum shown is still 3 but then then slider would appear somewhere? Or you plan to have functionality that way so that everything can be shown at once in rows and columns?
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This is looking beautiful!
For files stored locally will there be a quick link to open the asset and edit it? Like an "Edit Asset" button. As well as "Make New Version" and "Make New Copy"? And for cloud assets "Make Local Copy".
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Would also love to know if this is planned.
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When the Alt-Drag to Link is implemented we will begin testing the Asset Browser extensively. Linking film quality assets (without duplicated materials and textures) is essential for us. For now, we have to use manual linking without the thumbnails. The new Asset filter for that is very useful.
Added subscriber: @Harley
Dragging and dropping has always seems a bit backwards in Blender. Hold down one obscure modifier key or another or not before you start to drag, then while doing so we are dragging text like “Drop onto Object to link material” or similar.
I’d rather just initiate by simply dragging without first deciding on what to do. In fact some operations can’t be known until you get to the drop zone. So just drag without pressing alt or shift or option. Then, while dragging show as little as possible, like only an icon or small thumbnail - I don’t need hints or full paths or similar. Then as soon as I drop, open a menu of options that apply to that drop zone if there is more than one. So nice descriptive options like “Add new Object” and “New Object with linked materials”, “Add link to object” or whatever. That way you can have more variations than you have obscure modifier keys.
I suppose those different options would be all within the same operator, so one could change the action after the fact in the F9 menu or set the default behaviour for when some modifier key was pressed during dragging in the keybindings?
The part about holding Alt when dragging in this design doc is outdated.
Linking will only possible from project repositories / libraries and will be the default, after which you can make local if needed. For user libraries as available in the first milestone in 2.92 it will only be possible to append..
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Please consider implementing my proposal:
https://devtalk.blender.org/t/variation-system-my-proposal-based-on-current-asset-browser
It's a bit late for 2.93, maybe put it on 3.0's list?
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May I ask if there will be a folder management function like a file manager, which will be very useful for a large number of management.
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Unless there are major show stoppers requiring a big revert, the Asset Browser will make its debut in the 3.0 release. Not everything shown in this task made it in yet, and there's also some outdated information/screenshots here. But at this point I think we can reduce the priority of this task to Normal, since the basic UI is there now. So further additions to the Asset Browser UI will be regular development.
This is also not tied to a specific release.
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Hi, I think it would be useful to put the append/link operator options in the asset browser (Localize all, Instance object data, ...). Currently, if you append a file that has data indirectly linked to other files, these are also imported into the scene.
Also it would be very useful to have a new insert mode (or some options in the actual link mode) that creates a new local object but keeps the data linked instead of having to manually localize the object each time.
In this way you could use "place object under mouse" new tool and reduce the filesize. I work with large assets (detailed vegetation) and to avoid to create huge blend filesize, currently I have to link the asset from asset browser, make te object local, move the object where I want....
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Since variations typically all exist in a single .blend file, I wouldn't really need the "Variations" feature in the short term if there was a way to sort/group the list of assets by the .blend file they came from.
For example I have 4 .blend files with many materials in each: fabric.blend, metal.blend, stone.blend, nature.blend.
All of them contain multiple materials whose names start with: privacy_screen-*.
Instead of having to manually create "Variations" in the asset system, and also without needed to add things to the catalog heirarchy, I'd be satisfied with just being able to see all assets that come from nature.blend all grouped together in the list and then it would be easy for me to find the privacy_screen-antique_bamboo-painted-blue material
Variations and what you said doesn't conflict with each other. Finding a material naming somthing is the basic and fundamental way of using an asset.
Is there any documentation as to where the preview images of the asset browser items are being saved or how we can access them?
I would love to see them all in a folder somewhere, have an export all as .png (or any image file with transparency background) somewhere I could have access to outside of blender, or even just a "copy" option in the drop down menu of each asset thumbnail.
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Think we can close this basic UI design task. There is an asset browser with a UI based on this (but iterated further). Improving it is part of regular development now, and UI design additions/changes can be discussed at a more granular level.