Spawning & Manipulating Assets¶

This section describes spawn asset in detail, concepts of filtering, how we name things, how Convert To Linked and Convert To Editable can be used in your scenes to maximize efficiency and asset related features that we ship in aquatiq.

Spawn Asset¶

Spawn Asset button can be used to spawn a single asset. The model will always spawn at the current 3D cursor location.

Spawn Asset Dialog¶

• Asset to be spawned is the main part of the user interface. It is a preview image representing the asset that will be spawned after clicking the OK button. If you want to spawn another asset click on the image and a list with all assets fitting your filter will appear.
• Full name is the name of the assets with the prefix and suffix. This additional information can be used in the Search bar.
• Make editable checkbox. When checked the asset is appended to the scene, otherwise, linked instances will be created. We recommend having this option disabled to save memory. It is possible to make assets editable afterwards. For more information read Convert To Editable section.
• Use aquatiq collection checkbox. When checked the asset will be placed in a category collection under a aquatiq collection. If the collection does not exist, it will be created. This makes all of aquatiq content end up in one place for your convenience.

Filters¶

Assets can be filtered by provided text input provided by the user.

Search¶

Use this field to search for a model by keyword. For example, if you write the keyword vertical only vertical effects will show up in search. This is a quick way of getting the asset if you know what you are looking for and don’t want to scroll through all assets.

Category¶

aquatiq assets are sorted into multiple categories according to their type. Only assets from selected categories will appear in the assets to be spawned. All other filters apply after this one. You won't find effects in fountain category.

Editable & Linked Assets¶

Objects in aquatiq can be in two states. Either linked or editable. Linked objects save memory and are easily updatable. On the other hand editable objects can be customized to your liking. aquatiq assets should get nice render results out of the box, thus linked variant should be used in most of use cases.

Convert To Editable¶

This button converts selected objects to editable and makes them local to the scene. This way you have complete control of the objects, you can change the mesh, textures, materials, apply custom modifiers, animations, etc. On the flip side, this affects the performance of the scene so use this function wisely.

Convert To Linked¶

This button converts selected objects back to their linked variants. Works only on polygoniq assets because we know where we can locate the original variant. Doesn't work on particle systems.

Asset Manipulation Features¶

aquatiq is shipped with features that improve default Blender workflow and are ready to use in the panel at hand.

Open scene¶

Opens an aquatiq showcase scene. Great to getting know the aq_Water_Ocean and aq_Water_Shorline materials. Click here to get water shaders documentation.

Spawn material¶

Spawns a water material in the selected object.

Utilities¶

Following section describes utility features that can minimize the duplicates in your file or help you with resolving issues.

Remove Duplicate Data¶

Having multiple editable assets can result in many duplicated materials, node groups or textures that reference the same things. Duplicate data are indicated with the .001, .002, ... suffixes. Remove Duplicate Data button merges all duplicate data into one datablock (data deduplication). This applies to materials, node groups and textures.

Find Missing Files¶

Looks for missing files in the aquatiq installation path you have set in preferences. Quick way to fix broken references to images, materials, collections or other aquatiq related datablocks.