gorgious56/asset_browser_utilities

This add-on aims to provide several utilities to reduce the time it takes to do operations on large libraries :

Features :

• Mark Items as Assets

• Unmarks Assets

• Export Assets

Export assets from the current file.

You can choose an existing file to append the assets to, or a new filepath will create a brand new file with the assets.

• Import Assets

• Copy From Active To Selected

• Custom Operation(s)

• Add Tags

• Remove Tags

• Add "Smart" tags

• Generate Image Previews

• Setup image previews from disk

Select a folder on disk containing previews and the addon will automatically match the image files named like assets in the file with their preview.

• Extract asset thumbnails to disk

• Move To or Remove From Catalog

• Set Author, Description, Copyright, License

• Copy folder structure as catalogs and place assets

Example of asset directory

Result after executing the sort operation

• Merge or Replace Materials or Node Trees

Merge : Before

After

Specifics :

1. Filters

All operators feature a selection set which can be setup in depth to ensure specific asset selections

• Filter by selection (Asset Browser or 3D viewport)
• Filter By item type
• Filter by item name
• Filter by catalog (when applicable)
• Filter by Tag
• Filter by Author

2. Defaults and presets

Define default values and presets inside the addon preferences

Setup the preset on top of the operator popup panel

4.Custom Operations

Add custom operations on top of batch operations, like applying transforms to all assets

Use the custom operation standalone

5. Progress Bar !

asset_browser_utilities's Issues

Support all types to mark as assets

• Material

• Pose Action

• World

Enable exporting assets from all files of a library to a new file

Backup inflation problem

So this is not really a bug but a limitation of the system that needs the file to be saved for the assets to be registered as marked.

If the user selected the settings "Save Versions" in the preferences, it will create a backup file in place next to all the files that have been treated. This will multiply by 2 the library size for no real reason.

I definitely don't want the script to change the preferences globally, and not even temporarily since if for some reason it crashes mid way it won't reset the value back. I could automatically detect if a new file has been generated and deleting it afterwards, but again this needs to be done carefully so as not to erase unintended files.

In blender 2.8 and 2.9

https://github.com/Gorgious56/asset_browser_utilities/releases

Option to batch-clear only asset previews

Export assets : Prevent overwriting if item already exists in target file

Provide option to generate previews from custom scenes

Batch (re)move from catalogs has no an empty imput list for the catalog values

All catalog moving/ removing operations suffer from the same issue that they have no input values to choose from. These values can also not be typed in. This happens when trying to change catalogs for files on disk in Blender 3.1.

Batch associate assets with existing previews on disk

Add & Remove tags : Option to filter by prefix, contains or suffix

releases contain unnecessary __pycache__ folders

Hi! I noticed that there's a considerable file size difference between downloading the main branch and a zipped release.
It turns out that your releases unnecessarily contain compiled python files in the __pycache__ folders and some orphaned folders.

To me it seems as if the release was packed locally from a working space and then uploaded. You could consider using a github action to build the release directly from a clean version. This could look somewhat like the untested setup below.

name: Release Asset Browser Utilities

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '*'

jobs:
  tagged-release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Zip Release
        uses: TheDoctor0/zip-release@master
        with:
          path: './'
          filename: 'asset_browser_utilities.zip'
      - name: Get Version Info
        run: |
          echo GH ref: ${{ github.ref }}
          ver=$(echo ${{ github.ref }} | grep -oP "[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+-?.*")
          echo Version: $ver
          echo "::set-output name=version::${ver}"
        id: version
      - name: Release
        if: ${{ !endsWith(steps.version.outputs.version, '-pre') }}
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        id: create_release
        with:
          name: Asset Browser Utilities ${{ steps.version.outputs.version }}
          files: asset_browser_utilities.zip
          fail_on_unmatched_files: true
          draft: true
          prerelease: false
      - name: Pre-Release
        if: ${{ endsWith(steps.version.outputs.version, '-pre') }}$
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        id: create_prerelease
        with:
          name: Asset Browser Utilities ${{ steps.version.outputs.version }}
          files: asset_browser_utilities.zip
          fail_on_unmatched_files: true
          draft: true
          prerelease: true

Export Operator : Set fake user option

For objects that are not immediately linked to another data block, eg materials can exist in a vacuum, they will automatically be deleted from export file on quitting it since they users is set to 0.

Provide option (or maybe force it since in any case if the user wants to export materials, the only way for it to save it is to set it to fake user) to set fake user

Do not generate previews of assets which can't generate a preview

Some assets can't have a generated preview (armature, meshes with no faces, lattice, etc.) the current implementation will run forever waiting for the preview to finish leading to a possible memory leak and other good stuff.

Need to find a way to detect if an asset can have a generated preview

Or to add a timer and stop generating the preview if the timer is reached. However hard to do because for instance materials and complex objects can take several seconds to generate and it depends on the power of the user machine.

Add option to filter assets by name

Add option to tweak operator defaults in addon preferences

Export assets from file : Add option to export each individual asset to a new file

Export Assets : Option to export an object which is not an asset in source file, but mark the item as asset in the target file

This would be very nice but a bit awkward since we don't have a handle on appended objects and their name gets changed if there already is an object which name is the same as the appended one.

Would need to store a list of all existing objects in the file, and compare it afterwards when all objects have been appended ?

or maybe add a temporary custom property on the objects...

Batch Move from catalog A to catalog B

Objects with unapplied transforms or scene with unit-scale other than one sometimes won't generate previews correctly

See https://blenderartists.org/t/batch-mark-assets-and-generate-previews-from-library-files/1343899/11

Addon not installing Blender 3.0.0

Hello there,

When i try to install the addon i get this issue:

Am I doing something wrong?

Catalog operators : Do not display catalog filters

Optimize multiple choice with enum property

asset_browser_utilities/filter/type.py

Line 13 in 10d3b89

class FilterTypes(PropertyGroup):

Operators : Add option to open new window to execute instead of overwriting the current one

• Export assets
• Mark / Unmark assets
• Add / Remove tags
• Set Author
• Set Description
• Tweak Catalog

Import operator

Option to import from one or more files, or from one folder / subfolders

Option to ensure re-generation of preview

The overwrite option could be branched in 2 options :

• Overwrite Assets
• Overwrite Previews

Ensure correct catalogs are parsed

Following 18703ab
and #43

It would be nice to find a way to parse the entire library for a catalogs definition.

Might be worth looking at the source code to see how it's done under the hood by the asset browser

Support all asset types for 3.1

• Node groups
• Collections
• Brushes
• Cache Files (?)
• Hairs (?)
• Images
• Freestyle Stylelines
• Masks (?)
• Meshes
• Movie Clips
• Paint Curves (?)
• Palettes
• Particle Settings
• Scenes
• Simulations (?)
• Sounds
• Texts
• Textures
• Workspaces

Error message when accessing file with no catalog

Custom interval time

Let user with a slow computer change the interval if the previews don't render fast enough

Toggle global filter

Feature : Operator to batch generate only previews-

Add batch author and description

Could you add a way to batch input authors and descriptions?

Add operator presets

Export assets append : Use lower level API

https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_72_release/bpy.types.BlendDataLibraries.html
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.BlendDataLibraries.html
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/33998/86891

Option to not generate previews, only mark as assets to save time

nuff said

Add option to filter by object type (mesh, armature, grease pencil, etc.)

Mockup :

Add option to create new catalog

Batch put or extract from catalog

Smart Tags

Add an option to setup smart tags. EG : add a tag to objects from one of their properties like scale, location, rotation, or custom properties, object color, etc.

• Dimensions
• Tricount (rounded up or down) & Vertcount
• ID Custom property (user input)
• Scale

Hi! Won't you help a little? Thank you

I saw that you have experience in checking all subfolders and importing obj from it.

I need a code that searches and imports fbx from all the subfolders in the selected folder. Can you share if you know?

Is there a way to easily know if an asset has a generated preview ?

I noticed assets with blank previews had a preview image pixels set to all black, so I'm doing this

    preview = last_asset.preview
    arr = np.zeros((preview.image_size[0] * preview.image_size[1]) * 4, dtype=np.float32)
    preview.image_pixels_float.foreach_get(arr)
    if np.all((arr == 0)):
        # Preview not generated (all black)

but this seems higlhy inefficient, is there a way to know for a fact a preview has been generated for an asset without having to add a custom property to it ?

Name collision

asset_browser_utilities/operator/tags_add_or_remove.py

Line 12 in cb5412f

class ASSET_OT_export(Operator, ImportHelper):

Error when exporting materials with "Only Selected" ON

Filter by selection

• Asset Browser
• 3D viewport
• Outliner

Option to filters objects by catalog

Add option to apply transforms on assets

https://blenderartists.org/t/asset-browser-utilities-batch-mark-unmark-export-manage-tags/1343899/60

Asset preview never fires as being generated on meshes with no polygons since the preview is black

Option to act on library paths (the ones defined in preferences)

Batch marking assets throwing error (version: 0.0.12)

Sorry for reporting so many issues today. But when i try to Batch mark assets in the current file or an external library i get this error message:

Thanks in advance!

Generate previews : Option to only generate previews for assets which don't already have one