Spawning Assets

All assets can be spawned via engon Asset Browser. It also contains search and advanced filtering options and the whole window can be customized.

engon Asset Browser

Displays filtered assets in square grid view. Asset can be spawned by clicking on asset name.

Keyboard shortcut to open engon Asset Browser is E

Keyboard shortcut can be changed in Preferences -> Add-ons -> Object: engon -> Keymaps -> Toggle Area

engon Asset Browser display methods

You can open engon Asset Browser in different ways. You can either open it in a selected zone or in a window.

engon asset browser overrides preferences

We use the Blender preferences view and draw the browser interface over it because of technical reasons. This means that when you have the engon Asset Browser open and open preferences it will show the engon Asset Browser instead of the preferences interface. You can always go back to the preferences view by clicking the red X button in the browser or the N-panel.

Clicking on image preview doesn't spawn asset

To spawn assets, you have to click on the asset name.

Why not built-in Blender Asset Browser

We were extensively looking into this option but built-in Blender Asset Browser doesn't allow developers to customize spawning and we would need to remove some of our features. Having custom asset browser also allows us to have more powerful asset filtering options. If you don't mind loosing those features we natively support Blender Asset Browser. Read more here.

Search Bar

Search assets by name, category or even string parameters. Browser will show assets that contain all keywords separated by spaces, commas, dashes or underscores.

Search history

Return back to your previous search in two clicks.

Multiple filters

The category and the seasonal filter are still active next to search filter. If you search for tree that was already filtered by other filters it won't show up. For example if you search for maple in the tropical category there will be no matching assets.

Multiple keywords

Search filters can take multiple words split by a space for more complex queries. You can use search filter A B C and all assets containing A, B or C will be displayed.

Category Navigation Buttons

Easily navigate through Asset Packs and categories. When you select an Asset Pack, categories specific to the Asset Pack appear allowing quicker selection.

Asset Type Filters

Chooses asset types to be displayed, options are objects, materials, particle systems, scenes,worlds and geometry nodes.

Advanced Filters

Filters based on more advanced properties, each asset type contains different properties. For example browser can display only materials that contain displacement or objects that are higher than 3 meters or specific genus or species, year of manufacture.

Asset Spawn Options

This menu allows you to change how the asset is going to be spawned, specify certain options like setting texture resolution for materialiq materials, spawning the asset editable and editing particle system values before spawning the system.

Spawning models into particle systems

You can change the model Collection in spawning options to Particle System Collection. Then any model spawned from engon will be added to the active particle system.

Don't forget to refresh the particle system by clicking the Refresh Particles button in the scatter panel to see the changes.

Sort Mode

Sort assets alphabetically from A to Z or from Z to A with single click.

Preview Scale

Set number of assets shown in the browser. By manipulating the scale you control the size and number of previews shown in the browser.

Preferences

Customizes engon Asset Browser window. Settings can be toggled by clicking on button in the top-right corner. You can set Search History Count, change visual style of navigation or Enable Debug where you can reload previews in case they don't display correctly.