Hello and welcome back everyone to Master Blender 3D with Wild West Environments.
In our last lesson we went over the basics of the collection setup.
Now we're going to just make use out of it and get ourselves the nice setup for this
part.
Before doing that though, I would like to note that we should check these collections
that we already have.
These collections over here, if you'll have a look, are set up for us.
And the reason being is that some of the geometry note does make use out of collections.
So for example, this terrain over here is going to make use out of the collections over here.
And we don't really want to change them.
We don't want to mess with them because it's already set up for us.
So for that reason, all of the ones that we copied that we've taken into our scene, we're
going to just hide them all away like so.
And once we hide them, we are basically just left with the rest of the items that we can
move around.
So let's go ahead and do that.
We're going to go ahead and just grab the rest of the items.
We're going to hit M, New Collection and that's just call it Resource Pack.
Just like that.
Create.
We can hide it out of the way.
The next thing that I'd like to do is going to be simple.
It's going to be what happens when we overlay already existing setup with the gray box, basically
the gray box items which we already have with the items that we create afterwards.
If we click Alt and H, we'll see that for example, this tower is being overlaid with
the tower underneath.
And we don't want this to happen.
We want to make sure that whenever we create something, we don't really need to delete
out of the gray box.
We can keep the gray box, but at the same time, it's just not going to be in our way whenever
we are checking for other objects.
So gray box right now is not going to do that.
And for that reason, what I like to do every once in a while is just select the parts that
I already completed, then click M and create a gray box complete.
There we go.
Once we create it like so, we can then work with the parts that we have not created.
And we don't need to worry about anything else.
So for example, right now we have these barrels over here.
Let's go ahead and set them up to be used for the scene.
And before doing that, though, we do need to work on the asset referencing.
So we're going to go over the basics video of how we can set up asset referencing.
And then afterwards, we're going to create ourselves our own one and put these objects
in so we can just populate the parts that we need to.
So that's going to be it for this video.
Thank you so much for watching and I will be seeing you in a bit.
Welcome everyone to the Blender asset manager guide.
And based on what we're going to do in this one is just go through the asset manager,
show you how it works.
It does seem fairly complex on when you first start this, but actually it's quite simple
once you get your head around it.
So here you can see I've got a standard scene here and I've actually brought in some actual
assets and they're named.
This is important actually that just make sure you name the assets before you actually
put them into the asset manager.
Now you will notice when you first come into Blender, whether that be Blender three or Blender
four, at the top here, it doesn't actually say asset manager.
So that's the first thing we want to do.
So to do that, all we need to do is come to the little plus button.
We're going to come across to where it says general and then we're going to go down to
where it says asset manager.
And once you click that on, you'll actually be taken into the asset manager.
And this is the easiest way to actually work with this.
And the thing is now you'll see at the moment we have our asset manager down here with all
of the files on the left hand side.
And in this, this is will be populating all of our assets.
Let's actually just pick this up a little bit then.
And then what we're going to do is you can see at the moment we have current file and
we have essentials.
And under essentials is basically all of the assets that Blender has decided to put into
the asset manager as default.
What we want to do is we want it to be on current file.
So now I'm going to do is I'm going to come to my first asset, which is going to be my
tree.
And now what we're going to do is we're going to add this into our current file asset manager.
So with this selected, if I come over to the right hand side, you can see here, it says
tree.
If I right click, you'll see here says one that says markers asset.
The moment we actually mark is asset, you will see now that actually appears in this
space down here.
You will also see that if we put this onto material mode, and now if I come in and actually
drag this out, you will see that it actually comes out with materials actually attached,
which is really, really handy.
So now let's delete this out the way.
And what I'm going to show you is now if we focus on our actual car, let's press shift
and space bar just to move it over here.
And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to come over right click and I'm going to
mark as asset.
And you'll see now our car appears there.
Now if I come up and right click and put clear asset and then spin this round RZ my
minus 90, like so, right click, mark as asset, you'll see it appears exactly the same way.
So to actually change the rotation in the asset manager itself, what you need to do
is you need to now reset all of the transforms.
So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to clear the asset and then we're going to
put control A or transforms, right click, set origin to geometry, and then right click
and I'm going to come down, mark as asset.
And now you'll see it's actually rotated that round for you.
You'll also see as well now if I pull this out, it comes in with all the materials.
Now we can actually do some other things as well.
We can actually also save out materials.
So what I'm going to do first of all though is I'm going to come down and click the little
plus button.
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to call this assets, like so, I'm going to call the
next one materials, like so.
Now I'm going to do is I'm just going to save out my work.
And then I'm going to go to unassigned and you'll see at the moment we have these two
assets that we put in there, we can simply shift select them both or shift select them
all if you've got a lot and drop them then into our actual assets.
And now they're going to appear in our assets.
Now let's move on.
And if we click on this bench, what we'll do is we'll come over to our material and
we can see we've got two materials in here.
So let's right click this one, mark as asset, the same thing.
And then what we'll also do is come to this one and we'll right click and mark as asset.
Now you will see when you've marked them as asset that we've got this little book here,
the same as we've got up here.
And now you'll see we haven't got any assets in there at the moment.
So these two materials didn't go in there.
And that is because they will be in unassigned.
Now let's grab both of these materials.
Now drop them into our materials.
And there we go.
We've got materials and we've got assets.
Now the best thing about asset manager, what you can also do is you can also use this for
things like geometry nodes.
The only thing that you can't use it for at the moment is animations, but pretty much
everything else you can use it with the asset manager.
Now the next thing we want to look at is actually doing that then with an actual geometry node.
So I'm going to do is press control V and here is a geometry node that I've actually
created.
You can see here that if I pull this up over on the right hand side, you can see it's actually
a geometry node.
And at the moment, if I press tab, you'll see it has actually no mesh or any kind of
topology because it's obviously a geometry node.
Now what I want to do is I want to come up, right click, mark as asset, and now you'll
see that I've got something that says unassigned.
So let's make one more now and what we'll call this is geometry or geo node, like so.
And then I'm going to come to unassign and put it into my geometry node there.
So you will see now if I bring this in, it actually comes in as a geometry node, which
is really, really handy if you've got loads of geometry nodes and you want to bring them
and drop them in your scene.
Now let's first of all come up to file and save because this is all great and that, but
actually how do we use this in other files?
So the way that we can do that is we can come up to a new blend file.
So let's open up a new blend file.
So here is our new blend file.
And what I want to do first of all, I want to come up and add in my asset manager, so
plus asset manager.
And at the moment you'll see there's nothing in there.
And what I want to do now is I want to go up to edit, I want to come to preferences and
within preferences you will have one that says file path and this is basically going
to tell blender where it needs to go to look for asset manager.
So let's actually come in and what we'll do is we'll click the plus and then all I'm
going to do now is find where I've actually saved out that previous file and I saved it
in something called blender asset manager, which is here.
So this is the one that I'm going to add it to.
You'll see here that it doesn't show any blend files or anything like that.
And then all you need to do is add asset library like so.
And then we can actually close that down.
Now what I can do is I can come down and you'll see that I've got one that says blender asset
manager and here are all of those actual files that I actually put in there as well as where
it says assets, geo nodes and materials.
So now I can simply come in drag and drop my actual truck in there.
I can actually turn on the materials and now you can see once again it actually comes in
with all the material.
Now the best thing is if I actually bring in a cube now and just drop that there, shift
spacebar just to move it.
And then what I can also do is I can come to where my materials are drag and drop straight
on to my actual cube.
Let the actual shader compile and load up and there we go.
Now we can actually drag and drop materials as well.
Let's come to our geometry node then and I'll show you that that also works.
So now we can see we've got a geometry node that we can actually use, which is really,
really handy.
And now you can see just how useful the actual asset manager really is.
Now the other thing, if we go up to edit and go to preferences, you will see that we are
able as well to add many, many asset libraries.
Just make sure that you save your blend file.
So if I bring this over here just to show you, just make sure you make a file and then
within there you're going to actually save your asset manager.
Because the most important thing actually is when you're actually saving it in here,
you will see that what else comes in is an actual text file.
This text file gives Blender all of the data that it needs to actually set up these groups.
So very important, if you're moving your asset manager to a different file, make sure you
move this text file as well.
All right, everyone, so let's close that down.
And Leslie, before I finish, what I will show you is if you come to Chrome file where we
don't have anything, you can also select all of the things in your scene, right click,
go down and mark as asset.
And then you'll see that they all get put into the asset manager.
All right, everyone, so I hope you enjoyed that and I'll see you in the next one.
Thanks a lot.
Cheers.