Built-in Default Presets/Asset Package
I hope this is the right place to suggest. I'm not a dev, I just want to make people aware of this and I couldn't find any other place:
Something Blender has always been missing in my opinion was a wealthy collection of presets and assets. I'm talking about a library of materials, HDRIs, shaders, sculpting alphas etc. With 2.8 attempting to be more user friendly, it still misses the mark on people getting up-and-running very quickly. Newbies cannot create a scene quickly to cut their teeth on every aspect of the program, and pros need to go rummaging through files to find their pre-made assets, or risk wasting time building them all again.
I find this is what differentiates Blender most from paid packages like 3DS Max, 3D Coat, Zbrush, Keyshot etc. It's very good to hear that an asset manager is on the way for 2.8+, but I believe we need to go further.
I propose an opt-in free "extras" package, downloadable alongside Blender if desired or left out to save space. This collection could be 500MB or so of essential community-developed professional-grade assets like mentioned above, built into Blender and loaded at launch.
Some ideas:
- Materials (rock, plastics, metals, etc.)
- Smart materials (curvature based scratches and dust, heightmap-based landscape textures)
- Trim sheets
- Particles (grass, trees, fireworks, explosions, all different types)
- Compositor effects (bloom, colour grading, film grain)
- Extra models (torus, complex but essential shapes)
- Sculpting alphas and brush presets
- HDRIs (more)
- Basic rigs
- Essential (free) community addons
- Please suggest!
I hope I'm not repeating something that has been brought up before. I believe this is important to bringing in new users, keeping them and speeding up everyone's workflows, and competing against the big boys. Film artists don't have time to mess around!
5 Comments
This is already planned: developer.blender.org/T55239 It'll probably be in a later release like 2.81 since the asset manager won't make it into 2.80.
@Marius: Amazing. Everytime I doubt the Blender community it wows me even more! This is exactly what I was talking about, it makes me very excited it's already on the cards.
Thanks for point that out!
As a user, you could get started now. Why not start creating these assets yourself? Then you can propose them for specific inclusion in a library.
@Jason van Gumster: I certainly had thoughts to do this myself. I am sure there are many that would be better at creating more efficient/professional assets than myself, though. But I would certainly give it a shot.
Hopefully there is a call for submissions when they begin to act on the version that implements this and more people are tempted to contribute. Considering how pricey assets can get, it would be interesting to see who would be willing.
@lap.illustrations: I don't think you need to release perfect materials yourself. If you do this in a forum, users would probably contribute and collectively perfect the posted materials.