Asset browser drag-and-drop to the Outliner
THE PROBLEM
Currently, you can drag-and-drop from the asset browser into the 3D viewport. You can also drag-and-drop materials from the asset browser into the Materials tab of the Properties window. However, you cannot drag from the asset browser into the outliner. This is problematic because, when faced with a fresh Blender scene, your first step might be to block things in by hitting Shift-F1 to view your big beautiful asset browser library and just start dumping things into the scene via the outliner, but you can't.
PROPOSAL I propose that when you drag and drop an asset browser file into the outliner, it's added to the targeted collection with cleared-out transforms. 0/0/0 Translate, 0/0/0 rotate, 1/1/1 scale.
That's it! Pretty light proposal.
4 Comments
Yes, this should be a thing. I would like the option to right click on the asset and import to the scene, like "insert on origin" and "insert at cursor" or something similar.
Makes sense to me. Also, when dealing with heavy assets it will avoid to be forced to have a viewport that freezes Blender after adding each asset.
Strong +1 — I hit this from a different angle. I'm assembling scenes from a large linked-asset library, and the viewport drop is the only way in, so every asset arrives at the mouse position and then needs Alt+G to clear the transform and M to move it into the right collection. Three steps for one intention, and the intermediate position is meaningless.
Worth pinning down what the drop should do at the datablock level, since "added to the targeted collection" leaves it open. For a collection asset, link/append/instance are three different outcomes. My suggestion: the Outliner drop respects the Asset Browser's existing Import Method, so with Link set you get a collection instance empty placed in the target collection with cleared transforms. Otherwise the feature risks becoming an append-only shortcut, which doesn't help anyone working with linked libraries.
On cleared transforms being the right default. I'd argue that's not just a preference but the only non-arbitrary answer. The Outliner has no spatial coordinate, so a drop there can't mean anything except "put it in this collection." There's no mouse position to inherit, so identity transform is what's left. That also keeps the two gestures cleanly separated: viewport drop means "place it here," Outliner drop means "add it to this collection, where it belongs." No modifier keys, no new UI.
Also worth noting this is currently what pushes people back to File>Link with Instance Collections ticked, which places at the 3D cursor and gives you the collection choice. The functionality exists, it's just not reachable from the Asset Browser.
Good idea! Would be a quicker workflow when dragging in lots of stuff that way.