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Blender Tutorial : Linking And Appending : DO’s and DON’TS!
Posted by Aidy Burrows on Jan 22, 2016
● WHATS THE DIFFERENCE between Linking, Appending, Importing and Exporting?
● Take advantage of the HUMAN POWER to coordinate by setting up a large project between multiple artists!
● Animate an INFINITELY looping Helicopter blade rotation
● Bringing it all together into a MASTER Blend file
● Understanding AND correcting someone else’s blend file for your purpose
● Randomly using UPPERCASE in a bulletpoint list can be FUN!
VIDEO CHAPTERS
(Colors at the top of the video for easy navigation)
Chapter 1 (red) – Introduction
Chapter 2 (orange) – Import and Export
Chapter 3 (yellow) – Append
Chapter 4 (green) – Linking and local
Chapter 5 (cyan) – Group Linking
Chapter 6 (Indigo) – The Big Picture – Analysing someone else’s Blend
Chapter 7 (purple) – Fixing Materials and Textures
Chapter 8 (pink) – Fixing the Drivers
Chapter 9 (red) – Linking a rig the correct way
Chapter 10 (orange) – Creating the chopper blades animation/action
Chapter 11 (yellow) – Linking all into the master file
Chapter 12 (green) – Edit Linked Library Addon
Blended Blends Blending
The below image shows 3 blend files (as shown down the side).
TOP BLEND > This has the model and the rig which are both in the same group.
MIDDLE BLEND > Here the animator has linked in the group from the top blend. They can’t start animating until they get control of the rig though, so with the group selected they go ‘CTRL ALT P’ to make it proxy and select the armature from the options.
BOTTOM BLEND > Here the director has linked in the group from the top blend and like the animator made it proxy. Also linked in is the ‘Action’ from the middle blend. Now the director can create the lights and camera to render (or put that in yet another blend!)
All of this (and more) in more detail in the video above.
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Keep an eye out for BAM! The Blender asset management system. This could be exactly what you need for that large project.
Blendswap Helicopter model link by papa dragon. (MANY THANKS TO THE ARTIST!)
Edit linked library addon online details.
More Blender pipeline tips from Pablo Vazquez for the recent official Blender film COSMOS LAUNDROMAT
Any more – LET ME KNOW I’LL ADD THEM UP. 🙂 Aidy.
Comments (9)
Thank you for this very informative video! I have played around with linking and appending before, but while watching the video I learned a lot of things I had never thought about. While most simple projects won’t need appending or linking, it is still an important skill to know, as sometimes you will want to grab an object/material/etc. from a previous project.
Thanks! Yeah that’s a good point you make there though, these tools are not just about working in teams in that sense. You can have various nodegroups, materials and kitbash meshes etc etc all linked in. I’m glad you saw that 🙂 Aidy.
How do i relink broken links?
Like in Maya Reference we use to get a browse file option if the linked file is not found.
Ah yes, I remember that in Maya. At 12:37 you’ll see me check for external data broken links. There’s also an option in that list to Find missing links, this is where you would put it at the new folder location. I think it’s a tad harder if filenames have changed though, so not a good idea to do that I think. 🙂 Aidy.
Thanks Aidy for the detailed explanation. I don’t work in a team yet but already I’m linking instead of appending, I think more to make a habit and because I consider it more “clean”. I didn’t knew about the action linking. Thanks again.
You’re welcome! Good luck when it comes to team time! 🙂 Aidy.
Vol: fly; arrete: stop; porte: door; fenetre: window; cabine: cabin. Ouvert/ouverte: open (masc./fem nouns); ferme/fermee closed. Its cool the rotors have a flight mode already set up. awesome model. anymore French just let me know! (carrosserie refers to the body work material, comes from ‘carrosse’, from the old horse-drawn coaches, even used re cars today.
Ahhhh, thanks so much! That’s very helpful! And you are the first person I will be coming to for localization! haha. 😀
Aidy.
Before I even watch this I know it’s going to really help, lots of topics I need especially as I am stumbling through linking and appending doubts and quandaries. Thanks in advance. Now, where’s my notebook?
