Blender has never had a really good system for managing assets built right into the editor. While this is currently under development and there are beta versions available on the official website our best bet for the offical releases are still add-ons. So, In this article we will cover some of the available options.
When Blender 3.0 hits the official release and if the asset manager that has been built for it ships according to plan I highly suggest that you start to use that as your asset manager. Until then, let's find a good alternative.
Related content: How to do Asset management in Blender
Asset Management add-on is a paid asset manager. It has been around for a long time and is probably one of the most widely adopted.
This add-on can manage your scenes, materials and hdrs! You can sort all your assets by libraries and categories easily with the add-on, making it extremely useful for having an organized asset library to quickly and efficiently access later on.
Asset manager was early with its own built in thumbnail generator and is probably the reason why so many chose to use it. However, it took quite a while for asset manger to get updated for Blender 2.80 so me and many others had to look for alternatives since sticking to 2.79 simply wasn't an option. This is the biggest dwonside to any third party asset manager. You never know when development stops.
External content: Blendermarket, Asset manger
Simple Asset Manager is an add-on that you could download for free, but there is also a paid option if you would like to support the creator. It took over quite dramatically after 2.80 and I suspect that many that previously used Asset Management as their asset manager moved over to this one since it was usable in 2.8 and above.
Today it has a thumbnail generator and is a very well working asset manager with plenty of options for organizing and bringing in your assets into your scene.
It is a solid choice if you want to get started right away and don't want to pay for asset management while we wait for the built-in asset management system in Blender 3.0 to be finished.
The Simple Asset Manager add-on works with objects, materials, particle systems and hdrs, and generates your thumbnails from the eevee preview.
External content: Blenderartistis.org, Simple asset manger thread
The Chocofur Model Manager add-on is my current asset manager. The primary reason is that I use the chocofur model library extensively. I highly recommend to check out the Chocofur model library. They even have a large library of cc0 assets for you to download and use for free.
To get the add-on though, you need to create an account on their website.
One of the downsides of the Chocofur Model Manager add-on is that it doesn’t have a thumbnail generator, instead you will need to setup your own scene for thumbnail rendering.
External content: Chocofur model manager
I have actually never tested this add-on, but iMeshh Asset Manager is another free asset manager that comes with a lot of free 3D models for interior visualization, much like Chocofur’s.
You can add your own folders and categories like the other add-ons, and it generates its own thumbnails from the product images that are with the blend folder. Click on the link below for further details regarding the add-on’s features.
External content: iMeshh Asset manager
Lazy Asset Manager is quite different compared to the other add-ons we’ve covered. It is more of an importer/exporter and browser for data between blend files, and to help section out different types of data from one blend file to another.
The add-on can assist with managing assets such as objects, collections, materials, node groups and other data types.
Check out the link above for the price of purchasing the add-on, and to see further information on how the asset manager functions.
External content: Blendermarket, Lazy asset manager
There is a built-in asset manager for Blender 3.0 or later, and we are still waiting for the official Blender release.
However, for earlier versions of Blender, you can still do asset management without having to use add-ons.
To learn how to manage your assets on a local or shared hard drive, you can read my article below, which goes into detail on how to achieve this.
Related content: How to do Asset management in Blender
Asset management is really useful for managing and organizing your 3D assets. The above listed add-ons will no doubt be helpful to you when wanting to access your assets, as they provide an efficient organization method.
No matter what kind of work you use Blender for, do consider managing your assets through the listed methods as they could increase the efficiency of your workflow.
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