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Using the Asset & Material Library

Adding the Assets from Library

Place on 3d Cursor

  • To add the object in the desired spot, you first need to place the 3d Cursor (Shift + RMB in the 3d Viewport). Then select the category / subcategory or search for the asset. When the asset is selected, and the cursor is placed in the right spot, press Place on 3D Cursor button in the Flow Panel

Linking mode

  • Local: By default, the asset instance collection will be appended to your local file library, so you could adjust the properties and edit the instance if you need.

  • Editable: When Editable mode is active, the asset will not be added to your scene as an instance collection, but as regular editable object / set of objects.

  • Linked: By using this mode, the asset will be loaded directly from the source file, and there will be no way to edit it locally in the current scene. This will keep local filesiza smaller, but you won't be able to edit or tweak the asset until it's made local.

Remove duplicated materials

When Remove Duplicated Materials setting is active, the addon will check if the materials of currently loaded objects are already in your Blender file. If they are found, the plugin will replace the newly loaded asset materials with the original one, to prevent duplicating the materials, e.g. when loading modular sets of objects.

Replacing Instances

When you have an instance collection active, you can replace it with another object from the Flow Library. This can be done in two ways:

Replace Selected Instances

This operator will replace only the selected instances with the asset, that is currently selected in the addon. If there are other types than 'EMPTY' among your selection set, they will be ignored, and only the instances will be replaced. The only condition is to have an instance collection as the active object

Replace Instances Group

With this operator, all instances of the same collection as an active object, will be replaced with the new asset. This feature may be useful e.g. when you will want to replace all grass assets with another type.

Adding the assets is available from:

  • Asset Painter Tool
  • Flow Panel
  • Blender Asset Browser
  • 'Add Object' Menu (Shift + A)
  • Flow Main Menu (Ctrl + Shift + X)
  • Adding the assets is available only in 'Object Mode'

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Make Instances Local

Custom Properties are not adjustable, if the assets are linked from another file. To be able to use the properties for previously linked instance, you need to make it local. Function 'Make Instances Local' will convert the selected linked instance collection with all it's objects and materials into the local instance.

Handy controls

Handy controls are the simple handy transforms, provided by Interior Essentials to speed up the workflow. You may use it to any type of the objects, not only the assets from our library.

Rotate Left / Right

This function will rotate the selected object 90 degrees left or right.

Duplicate to 3d Cursor

Function duplicates the selected objects to the 3d Cursor. Objects will snap to the 3d cursor with the origin of the active object.

Move to 3d Cursor

Function will move the selected objects to the 3d Cursor. Objects will snap to the 3d cursor with the origin of the active object.

Shortcuts

Handy controls can be found in:

  • Flow Controls Pie Menu (Ctrl + X)
  • Duplicate do 3d Cursor is also available directly via Ctrl + Shift + D

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Adding Materials from Library

Flow Material Painter is the best way for precise adding the materials into the meshes. You can find out more about the Material Painter HERE

Panel Method

The 'Material Library' Panel is available only when the active object is the editable type with the possibility of adding the materials. So you will not see the panel if the active object is one of the assets (if it wasn't converted to editable) Materials_01

Valid Object types:

  • Mesh
  • Curve
  • Surface
  • Text

Object Mode

  • To add material from library, select the object, then select the desired material slot to replace, then click "Add Material from Library", choose the material, then click OK to add the material.
  • The material will be added to the selected material slot. If active object has no material slots yet, the slot will be created and the selected material added to this slot.
  • If the chosen material is already in the library, the material will not load as a duplicate, it will be replaced by the existing material. This allows you to add the same material via the plugin many times without duplicating it.

Edit Mode

  • To add material from library, select the object, then select the desired material slot to replace, then click "Add Material from Library", choose the material, then click OK to add the material.
  • The material will be added to the selected faces. If the selected material is already in one of the slots, the selected faces will assign to this slot.
  • If no faces are selected, the selected material will append in the end of the material slots.

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Searching for the assets

Type anything inside the searchbar and the plugin will automatically search for the provided input inside your library. You don't need to type the whole name, plugin should find even the part of your name.

To search for the asset, type it's name in the searchbar and click ENTER

When searching for the assets, browsing categories and subcategories will be impossible! To return to the initial browsing, just erase the search input and click Enter

Asset searching is provided in Assets, Materials and Textures Libraries. It's also present in Asset Painter & Material Painter

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