We here at BU have had to answer this question more than once so I decided to post a tutorial on how to reuse objects such as material and meshes in Blender. Also covered will be the advantages and drawbacks of linking vs appending. So without further ado, here we go...
In order to understand the concepts I am going to present in this tutorial, it is necessary to cover some preliminary topics first namely append, link, relative paths, static paths, groups and the structure of a blend file.
DEFINITIONS:APPEND - The act of copying an object from one blend file to another. Edits to the original do NOT reflect in the copy.
LINK - The act of a link from one object to another within blend files. Edits to the original DO reflect in the linked object.
RELATIVE PATHS - A file path that is relative to the location of the currently opened blend file. Relative paths are expressed as "dotted notation". (../../) Relative paths require an initial saved state to determine the start off location.
STATIC PATHS - The full path name to the blend represented like such "C:\Blend Files\..." Static paths do not require an initial saved state (although it is recommended as a "good practice").
GROUPS - The act of combining multiple objects into named groups treated as a single object. Groups include animation IPOs, meshes, materials, and any associated coding of the group such as modifiers.
The theory behind libraries (and reuse in general) is to make objects from one blend available in another. Consider how hard it would be to have everything from a large production like Elephant's Dream in one blend file. Everything from the meshes to the textures to the animations all in one blend. Confusion would quickly set in. Also in collaborative efforts like Elephant's Dream it is impossible to keep up with edits to individual objects when you have 20 or more people trying to work on one blend file. Enter append and link. They are related but different concepts.
Append will bring in a copy of the object. An appended object is a stand alone object that can be edited without effecting the original object. What this means is that if you append a red cube and change the material color to blue in the original blend, the appended cube will remain red (until you change it in the appended file). The advantage of an appended file is portability. You can safely give out the appended blend and the recipient will be able to open it unfettered. Append is the default mode for Blender.
Linking files require both files to exist in a specified location and that the linked object name be the same across edits. A linked object maintains a link to the original object allowing edits to the original to be reflected to all the blend files that are linked to it. This is where the need to specify the path type comes in.
A static path will link in such a way that the entire path to the linked file is given. Static paths are not transportable to other users unless they share the same directory structure (example, networked environment).
Relative paths are paths that are based on the location of the target blend file. It uses dotted notation to show the relative location. To use relative paths you must first save the target blend file so Blender knows where to start.
In both cases, append and link, grouping objects together is the preferred method to use because it allows for easy appending and linking. Planning needs to be implemented so that groups can be defined during creation of the original. Then it is just a matter of appending or linking the group instead of the potentially thousands of objects the group could represent. Groups also retain animations and deformations to meshes making importation of rigged characters a breeze. ManCandy is a perfect example of grouping.
To begin the process we are going to do a simple static append of a material since this is the most common question asked here. You first need a blend file that has the material you want to reuse. Here is one I found on the net and use on a frequent basis:
http://blenderunderground.com/files/use ... rary.blendThe first thing you should notice once you download and open that blend is that it is simply a group of spheres each with different materials. The materials all have a meaningful name to make the append easier. Since this is simply a material library, it is unlikely you will append all the materials so no groups were created (although you could group according to type and then append a whole category such as METAL which would bring in all the metals). Below is what you should see when you open it:
Let's note that I didn't create this library but downloaded it instead. Credit doesn't go to me for it. It goes to Andrew Kator & Jennifer Legaz and their wonderful Blender site:
http://www.katorlegaz.com/3d_models/index.phpWe are now going to open a new session of Blender giving us the default cube. We will assume at this point that the default cube is a mesh that you have been working on for weeks and is a gorgeous representation of an object that a human can come up with. The only problem with it is it is all gray...
Time to append: Click "File" then choose "Append or Link" from the resulting menu. Alternatively you could simply press "Shift-F1" to get the append or link file browser window:
Let's pause here and look at this dialog for a moment. The first button will make this window full screen. This can be handy if realestate is at a premium on your monitor. The next set of four buttons are the sort order for files and directories. The next buttons are to toggle long info, hide dotted files (those are hidden files by default), append or link. Long info will show a single list that scrolls and gives extra info about the files such as creation times / dates, size, etc. The toggle of that just gives the file name. Hiding dotted files will show or hide normally hidden files. On linux machines dotted files litter the home filesystem that this list can be huge if not hidden. .blender is an example of a dotted file (folder in this case). Lastly, append and link buttons will choose between append an object or link to it.
At this point I'm going to note a difference between Blender 2.45 and Blender 2.46 (aka 2.45.16 or SVN). Blender 2.45 doesn't allow choosing between relative or static paths in the append dialog as shown above unless you save the file first. SVN adds this functionality with the "relative paths" button without saving first but that isn't a good idea.
Next, browse to the newly downloaded KL_materials-library.blend file you just downloaded and open it. You are then presented with a new type of tree:
As you can see, we now have every object that is available for appending. We want to append a material so click the Material folder. It then shows the available materials all ready to append. Notice that this material library has quite descriptive labels for the materials. This is why most tutorials stress giving objects good names upon creation. Many a Blender user has been bit by this omission and quickly learn their lesson when they are condemned to finding a desired material out of a list that reads "Material, Matarial.001, Material.002, etc...". The same can be said of meshes, armatures, the works! Don't fall for this trap. Name your objects upon creation so you don't have to live this nightmare.
The material I want for this cube is a nice gold polished look. I switched the listing by clicking off the "long info" toggle. Scroll down until you locate "METAL Gold Polished". When you click it, Blender will fill in the filename in the box at the top. Clicking "Load Library" will load the material into our target blend and close the file dialog box.
At this point, it doesn't look like anything happend but it did. Go to the shadings buttons (F-5) and select "METAL Gold Polished" from the material selection dropdown box. Viola! A gold cube we all can be proud of!
Because we appended this, changes to the gold material won't affect the library or changes to the library gold material won't affect this material. So what about an object that we want to change and have the changes reflected across all the blends that use that object? More, what about grouped objects? That is where we want to link instead of append. For this part of the tutorial we will use the ManCandy 2.0 blend file.
http://blenderunderground.com/files/use ... _2.0.blendManCandy is a fully rigged character that you can use freely. It is covered under the Creative Commons license. More info on ManCandy can be found here:
http://orange.blender.org/blog/mancandy-updated/Because ManCandy is a constant and complex work in progress, it would behoove us to link to it so that updates can be handled easily without having to update our animation blends the hard way. Start by downloading the blend above. Save it to a convenient place (in my case, since I have the ManCnady FAQ DVD in my home directory, I will use it as the root path {meaning "/home/penix1/The Mancandy FAQ/"}). Just like append, we will be using a new blend file this time deleting the default cube. We will be using relative paths for the link so when you open the append or link dialog (Shift-F2) select "relative paths" and "Link". Before we do this though, we have to save the blank blend file so that Blender knows where to start. I saved it as "ManCandy_Animated" in my "/blends/working" directory. Now we can link to the ManCandy blend. Follow the directions for Append above except select the "Relative paths" button and "Link" instead of "Append". Also, since it is a group we want to link to instead of browsing to materials we go to group and select the mancandy group.
Again, it looks like nothing happened when we clicked the "Load Library" button but in fact it did. If you look at the outliner window you will see that it is now full with objects all having the "Li" icon indicating they are linked.
Since we are in the outliner, now is a good time to show you how to change the location of the linked file if an update comes along or you move the linked file somewhere else. Selecting "Libraries" from the view dropdown next to the "Search" menu item will show the location of the path and file name of the linked file. To change it simply CTRL-Left-Click the file name and using dotted notation type in the new location. Dotted notation is relative to the location of the blend file you have open. ../ (or ..\) indicated moving up one directory level. It takes some getting used to but is really worth the effort in this case.
To get ManCandy in the 3D window we need to add it just like we add a mesh (spacebar) except we select "Group" then "Mancandy_2.0" then "ManCandy". At this point we have the mesh in but we can't animate it without having the armature to do it with associated.
To do this we need to add a proxy. CTRL-ALT-P brings up the add proxy menu. The ManCandy rig was purposely setup to list the CandySkel as the first item in the long list. This is where planning comes in during creation. Select "CandySkel" and you see the armature come in.
Lastly is the association of the armature to the mesh. Select the mesh then Shift-select the rig and press CTRL-P Parent Object. The last thing to do is select the armature and switch to Object buttons (F-7) turn on wire mode and xray. As a bonus turn off "Relationship Lines" in the view properties. We now are ready to animate.
To review...
Append copies objects from one blend to another. Link joins objects from one blend to another. Appended objects don't translate edits across blend files while linked does. That is really all there is to it. Happy Blending...
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