Asset Browser

Asset Browser...

General

The Asset Browser is an indispensable tool when working with assets: It provides access to all assets made available by Maxon and you can also manage, organize – and above all quickly find – these and custom created assets and scenes.

What are assets?

Assets can be anything that can be part of or used by a Cinema 4D scene. This can, for example, be models, scenes, Nodes, images, videos, and more, but also category names, keywords, Smart Searches, etc. What's NOT included is everything that you can call up from the Cinema 4D menus: commands, tags, tools, etc. (these are listed using the Commander.

These assets can be saved locally on a hard drive or on a Maxon or other server. Assets are organized in databases (see The asset concept.)

The Asset Browser .has replaced the Content Browser. The Asset Browser offers easier to use functions, e.g., you no longer have to download several GB of Content Browser libraries but can only download individual elements that can be easily found using the powerful filter and search functions. What's best is that assets that have been downloaded can be accessed by other Cinema 4D releases (S24 or later), which means they don't have to be downloaded or imported again in order for the Asset Browser to find them.

If you open such a file on a different computer, textures, for example, will automatically be found and downloaded – as long as the computer has an internet connection. The same applies to custom libraries that you can share with other users.

Internally, asset libraries are basically implemented as databases – and you don't have to be a database expert to use them! They are used just as any other Manager in Cinema 4D.

Generally speaking, if you create access to an asset database (see Databases), you will no longer have issues with missing textures, for example. Of course the scene must be saved as an asset in the respective database. Databases can be saved in several ways (locally, in network folders or online) and shared.

How are assets loaded?

Assets displayed in the Asset Browser can be loaded into Cinema 4D in one of several ways:

• If desired (Create|Add Objects|As Instance) you can double-clock on the asset. It will be loaded in the corresponding Manager, depending on the asset type (e.g., objects in the Object Manager, materials in the Material Manager, JPEGS in the Picture Viewer).
• Drag and drop the asset onto the respective Manager or field (e.g., JPEG onto the Node Editor). The cursor will show if this is possible or not.
• Right-click on an asset and select the Load, Create Node, etc. command, depending on the asset.
• The Place tool can be used to place objects directly from the Asset Browser onto object surfaces in the scene.

Otherwise there are several practical functions integrated into the Asset Browser such as:

• If the same object is dragged and dropped into the Viewport, only instances – or XRefs from the very beginning – will be created from the 2nd one on.
• The powerful database makes it possible to include metadata, preview images, keywords, dependencies (e.g., JPEGS that are assigned to a material) and other elements in an asset, which makes working with the assets much easier (e.g., locating them in a huge database).
• The Asset Browser notes how often a particular asset has been used or when it was created, which makes it possible to narrow down the search for a specific asset even more precisely.
• Textures that are used multiple times only exist once in the database.
• Drag & Drop: Describing in detail all possibilities that the drag & drop functionality has to offer would exceed the scope of the documentation. Suffice it to say that it works just like the usual drag & drop functions: assets can be dragged from the Asset Browser into the respective Cinema 4D Managers – and vice-versa. You can drag materials, objects and files (from the Finder/Explorer) into the Asset Browser to define these as assets. A dialog window will open in which you can define the database and category in which the asset should be saved. The elements shown in the Asset Browser can also simply be dragged and dropped into a palette from which they can be called up. This is not useful for every element type, e.g., Spline Presets that only work in conjunction with other special elements (here Function Graphs) cannot be loaded by clicking on them.
• … and much, much more – which is described in detail on the following pages!

Interface

The Asset Browser is in essence made up of 3 areas that are described in the following sections:

• The Category Area in the tree view on the left. This is where the individual assets, incl. Smart Searches, keywords, etc. under Quick Search at the far top, are listed.
• The Asset List on the right shows the assets, independent of the selection made in the Category area.
• The Detail Area can be displayed at the bottom or at the far right. This is where all kinds of information is displayed about the assets selected in the asset list. Additional functions are also available such as assigning keywords or versioning.

The 3 icons at the top right

At the top right you will see 3 icons. These have the following functions (from left to right):

Show Detail area

Shows or hides the Detail area. Right-clicking on the icon will let you define the desired location of the window (bottom or right).

Database display

Here you can display all available databases. Clicking on the eye icon at the right of a database name will hide or show all assets in that category area and the asset list..

New Asset Browser

Use this command to open an additional Asset Browser. This makes it easier to move assets, for example.

If you also press the Shift key, the new window will open in simple mode.