Asset
An object, material or texture used by reference, in other projects or repeated in its own, with no copy.
An Asset is an object, a material or a texture that lives in one project and shows up in others. The project that uses it keeps no copy: it points to the original, and whatever changes there changes everywhere the asset is placed.
An object can also be used as an asset inside its own project, to repeat the same piece many times without copying it.
In the hierarchy the asset has its own icon, both in the source project and in the ones that use it.
Create
An object or group becomes an asset from the context menu, with Make Asset. A group takes everything inside it along.
Materials and textures become assets the same way, from the context menu of the resources list.
- What goes along: The materials and textures the object uses follow the asset, without having to become assets too.
- Stop Being an Asset: In the same menu. Projects that used the asset start showing it as unavailable.
Use
The Add Asset button opens the list of assets, sorted by the project they come from, each with a thumbnail of the object. The list includes your projects, the ones shared with you and the ones in the groups you belong to. The objects the open project turned into assets are listed too, to be repeated in it.
The asset comes in as a single object, and can be placed as many times as needed.
- Move, rotate and scale: Like any object. Each time the asset is placed, it has its own transform.
- Content: Read only. The objects inside do not appear in the hierarchy and cannot be selected or edited, and the materials and textures that came along stay out of the resources list.
- Edit Asset: Opens the source project in another tab, which is where the asset is edited. When the source is in this same project, it selects the original object.
- Rasterize Object: Cuts the link. The content becomes objects of the project, with materials and textures copied, and no longer follows the original.
Materials and textures that are assets appear in the Assets folder of the resource picker, and can be applied to any object in the project.
Updates
The project reads the asset when it opens and checks again whenever the tab gets focus back. Editing the original in one tab and returning to the other already shows the result.
An asset from the same project is updated right after the change to the original is saved.
Unavailable asset
The asset shows up with no content, with a warning in the hierarchy, when:
- It was deleted, or stopped being an asset, in the source project.
- Whoever opened the project has no access to the source project.
- It ended up inside itself, directly or through other assets.