Videos

Asset Linking

1st May 2020

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Published by

Sybren A. Stüvel

Video Description

Set Building typically starts with linking in available assets from various blend files, instancing those into the scene, and positioning them nicely so that they can be picked up and placed. This is not a fun task, so perfect to automate with some scripting! In this episode of Scripting for Artists Sybren explains how to link data from different blend files, how to instance collections in the scene, and even covers the parsing of JSON files to separate the project-specific information from your add-on.

Links from the video:

Contents:

  • The Settlers project: 00:35
  • Manually going through the process: 01:30
  • Linking data with Python: 02:58
  • First step of linking: 05:48
  • Instancing collections into the scene: 08:38
  • Creating a collection if it doesn't exist yet: 10:40
  • Lining up the assets: 12:33
  • From snippet of code to add-on with functions: 13:22
  • Reading project-specifics from a JSON file: 17:27
  • Everything is working: 23:48
  • Cater for future changes: 24:08

5 Comments

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Dan Pool

2nd May 2020 - 00:36

@sybren The main thing I've not been able to wrap my mind around is creating an active tool. It would be great to get a tutorial on this. The template in the text editor "UI Tool Sample" is too simple. Specifically, it would be great to see how to implement a gizmo built with a combination of built-in gizmo shapes (arrow, circle, etc.) that are clicked and dragged on similar to the move tool or extrude tool.

Sybren A. Stüvel

2nd May 2020 - 13:52

*@Dan Pool* I've answered the same question on twitter ;-)

Alex Dumproff

30th August 2021 - 17:19

Wait ... did I see that correctly that you were able to start the python module from the terminal and get the Blender output like on the console?

Alex Dumproff

30th August 2021 - 17:30

@Alex Dumproff This comment system is way too trigger happy to post for my taste. ;) What I meant was: How did you get the system window output directly into the terminal vies of the VS Code window?

Sybren A. Stüvel

7th October 2021 - 10:23

@Alex Dumproff Just start Blender from the terminal view.