The Asset Browser

Asset Browser

General

Asset Browser new features in 2024.4

• In the Asset Browser, HDRIs can be dragged directly into the view and a Dome light will be generated automatically.
• If you load models from the Asset Browser, the Placement tool will automatically be activated.
• Navigation in the Asset Browser is made easier by the hierarchy.
• The tree view can now be shown or hidden using an icon.
• Breadcrumb navigation is now possible.

The Asset Browser is an indispensable tool when working with assets: On the one hand, it provides access to all assets provided by Maxon, on the other hand, you can use it to manage, organize and, above all, find your scenes and assets yourself!

What are assets?

Assets can be anything that is contained in or used by a Cinema 4D scene. These are, for example: models, scenes, Nodes, images, videos, etc., but also things like category names, presets, keywords, smart searches. This does NOT include all the things you can call up from the Cinema 4D menus: commands, tags, tools, etc. (these are listed using the Commander).

These assets can be stored locally on the hard disk or on Maxon or other servers. Assets are organized using databases (see The concept of Assets).

The Asset Browser has replaced the previous Content Browser, offering many more convenient functions: for example, you no longer have to download several gigabytes of Content Browser libraries. You can download individual elements that you can easily find again at any time using powerful filter and search functions. And best of all: once downloaded, assets are saved across versions (from Cinema 4D S24) and do not need to be downloaded or imported again with another Cinema 4D version in order to be found by the Asset Browser. If you open such a scene on another computer, textures, for example, will automatically be found and downloaded - as long as this computer has an Internet connection. The same applies to custom libraries that you can share with other users.

Asset libraries are always implemented internally as databases. Don't worry, you don't have to be a database specialist. As with Cinema 4D, the corresponding Manager commands can be used to manage these.

Generally speaking, if you ensure that there is access to asset databases, the problem with missing textures, for example, is no longer a problem. To do this, the scene must, of course, be stored as an asset in the corresponding databases. Databases can be stored and shared in a variety of ways (locally, on network folders or on the Internet).

How to load assets

There are several ways to load the displayed assets into Cinema 4D:

• Double-click on the asset. Depending on the asset type, these are loaded in the corresponding manager (e.g., objects in the Object Manager, materials in the Material Manager, jpegs in the Picture Viewer).
• Drag and drop the asset onto the corresponding manager (e.g., Jpeg in Node Editor) or the corresponding input field. The cursor always shows what is possible.
• Right-click on an asset and select Load, Create Node or similar depending on the asset.

Otherwise, many practical functions are integrated in the Asset Browser, such as,

• if desired, (Create/Insert Objects/As Instance), only instances - or in the case of XRefs directly from the start - are created when the same object is dragged and dropped several times into the view from the 2nd operation onwards.
• By using a powerful database system, assets can contain metadata, thumbnails, keywords, dependencies (e.g., jpegs that are assigned to a material) and similar, which make handling the assets (e.g., finding them in unmanageable mountains of data) much easier.
• The Asset Browser remembers how often you have already used a certain asset or when you created it. You can use it to limit a search accordingly.
• Textures used more than once are only available once in the database.
• Drag&Drop: Describing all the drag&drop options in detail here would go beyond the scope of this section. In a nutshell: the usual drag & drop functions work. For example, you can drag assets from the Asset Browser into the Cinema 4D Manager, but you can also drag materials, objects and files (the latter from the Explorer/Finder) into the Asset Browser to define them as assets. A dialog will then open in which you can define the database and category in which the asset should be saved.
  The elements displayed in the Asset Browser can also be simply dragged and dropped into a palette so that they can be easily accessed from there. This is not useful for every element type: for example, spline presets that only work in the context of special other elements (in this case function graphs) cannot be loaded with a click.
• Particularly worth mentioning is the drag & drop of HDRI images into the view or the Object Manager. If this is currently a Redshift scene, a Dome light with a linked HDRI file will be generated directly, i.e., the HDRI will have a direct effect. When dragging and dropping further HDRIs, only the link in the Dome light will be updated, so that you can simply drag HDRI after HDRI into the view until you have found a suitable HDRI. Attention: drag the HDRI into an empty part of the Viewport.
• When dragging and dropping models from the Asset Browser, the Place tool will be activated so that objects can be placed directly on existing ones.
• ...and much more, which you will find described in detail on the following pages.

Surface

The Asset Browser basically consists of 3 areas, which are described in the sub-chapters:

• The Category area in tree view on the left contains the individual assets - including smart searches.
• The Asset list on the right then shows the corresponding assets depending on the selection in the Category area.
• Optionally, the Detail area can be displayed at the bottom (or on the far right). This provides you with all kinds of information about the assets selected in the asset list. There are also a few more functionalities here, such as the assignment of keywords or versioning

The 5 icons at the top-right

You will find 5 icons at the top-right of the window. These have the following effects (from left to right):

History

With these two arrows you can jump back-and-forth to categories you have already visited. Right-click on one of the arrows to display a list of recently visited categories so that you can jump directly to them.

Database display

Use this option to display all integrated databases. The Eye icondisplayed on the right behind each database can be used to show and hide the assets it contains in the category area and the asset list.

You may find the following entries to the right of the Eye icon:

Show Detail area

Use this to show and hide the Detail area. Right-click on the icon to select the position (bottom or right).

New Asset Browser

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

If you also press the Shift key, the new window opens in Simple mode.