WEBVTT 00:00.590 --> 00:01.280 Welcome to. 00:01.280 --> 00:04.180 Linking to an external data block. 00:04.520 --> 00:12.050 In this video you'll learn more about linking to another blend file We'll be linking to an object data 00:12.080 --> 00:20.120 block understand that there is a data block hierarchy and how that impacts your linking and how to keep 00:20.120 --> 00:23.170 an eye out for when you might lose data. 00:23.390 --> 00:28.670 That's quite important because it can end up being very frustrating not going to lose it is in it it 00:28.670 --> 00:35.580 disappears off your hard drive but you could lose it in your new blend file the one you're linking to. 00:35.660 --> 00:41.560 So let's have a look at this data block hierarchy and in front of us we have the outline that you would 00:41.570 --> 00:48.830 see if he just opened up a typical default blend file the one with the basic cube in it and a camera 00:48.860 --> 00:50.780 and a lamp in the scene. 00:50.780 --> 00:56.720 Now you can see this is a great example of a hierarchy with the scene having render layers world the 00:56.720 --> 01:01.230 camera object the cube mesh object and the lamp object. 01:01.310 --> 01:08.180 Now beneath each one of those three we also have more details each of which is a data block. 01:08.270 --> 01:14.000 So the camera will contain the camera properties beneath it and the lamp would contain the lamp properties 01:14.030 --> 01:15.830 beneath it and looking at the cube. 01:15.830 --> 01:22.220 There's a data block which holds the mesh information which is the greyed out Triangle. 01:22.490 --> 01:28.370 We've got the material information that's another data block and then beneath that there's a texture 01:28.370 --> 01:30.490 information that's applied to that material. 01:30.650 --> 01:38.480 And the important thing here is if we import let's say the mesh cube the mesh objects the cube object 01:38.750 --> 01:47.040 we will automatically get the data the material and the texture straightaway. 01:47.060 --> 01:52.020 Now if we just in ported the material we would get that. 01:52.070 --> 01:55.400 And the texture applied to that material. 01:55.400 --> 01:59.090 If we only import the texture then we'd only get that. 01:59.120 --> 02:05.960 So if we decide to import something that's got a hierarchy beneath it that's beneath hierarchy will 02:06.020 --> 02:07.540 also come through. 02:07.730 --> 02:12.760 That's important so you don't ever flood your scene with something or miss something. 02:12.980 --> 02:18.560 So let's go have a look now at where we might accidentally start losing information and to do that we're 02:18.560 --> 02:21.370 going to have to hop on over into a blender. 02:22.920 --> 02:29.010 Okay so back over in blender I've got my test room that we've been working on is looking pretty good 02:29.010 --> 02:35.790 so far and I've got this whopping great big hierarchy here so let's go ahead and just experience what 02:35.790 --> 02:40.880 happens when or potentially where we might lose information. 02:40.920 --> 02:44.930 Now hopefully this won't happen to you but it is always possible. 02:44.940 --> 02:52.190 So I'd like to go to file go down to link and I'm in where I'm in at the moment. 02:52.200 --> 02:53.970 I'm in my mind pyramid's scene. 02:53.990 --> 02:55.310 That's not going to be any gates. 02:55.460 --> 03:00.750 And I go to my game asset pack and I'm going to go actually upper level and see the other projects that 03:00.750 --> 03:03.550 I've worked on and go ahead and find something. 03:03.880 --> 03:08.730 I'm going to go back one to the fluffy bunny because I know I played with materials in there. 03:08.780 --> 03:10.700 I'm going to go to fluffy bunny. 03:10.770 --> 03:12.700 Blend open that up. 03:12.810 --> 03:19.140 I'm going to go into material and I've got all of these materials the time made and let's say that I 03:19.140 --> 03:25.590 wanted to I really like the colour of the soil I don't know how but I'm going to pick the soil as the 03:25.590 --> 03:27.520 material and link it. 03:27.540 --> 03:33.510 It does mean that if I change that material over on the fluffy bunny it will automatically be applied 03:33.510 --> 03:36.960 here as well so that's important to know that link exists. 03:37.110 --> 03:44.280 But at the moment this material is not applied to anything so it's going to have zero next to it in 03:44.280 --> 03:45.610 the data block. 03:45.690 --> 03:50.500 So if I go ahead and select this doorway for instance and then go to the materials property. 03:50.760 --> 03:53.540 Now there aren't any materials assigned to it at the moment. 03:53.580 --> 04:00.920 If I click this drop down I can see that I've got an L and the L means that it's a linked up. 04:00.990 --> 04:06.930 In this case a linked data block a linked material and it's got a zero next to it which means it's got 04:07.020 --> 04:08.370 no users. 04:08.370 --> 04:15.660 That does mean that if I go ahead and save this file right now an exit without applying that to anything 04:15.720 --> 04:22.490 or giving it a fake user that will result in it disappearing from this scene. 04:22.560 --> 04:28.500 So you can't just go and grab a load of materials from another blend file without giving them a fake 04:28.500 --> 04:31.740 user or assigning them to an object. 04:31.770 --> 04:35.520 Otherwise the next time you open up your scene they would have vanished. 04:35.580 --> 04:38.370 And that goes for several other things as well. 04:38.370 --> 04:39.630 The mesh data. 04:39.690 --> 04:48.630 So if we hop over here to them the data data block Evis here if we were to import law let's do it let's 04:48.630 --> 04:56.380 go and go firewood link and let's go up a level and where is our mesh so we got mesh here. 04:56.430 --> 05:00.910 Got all of these data blocks here and then go for leaves and link from a library. 05:00.930 --> 05:07.460 And again if I use this drop down here we see that it's linked it's got no users and it's called leaves. 05:07.470 --> 05:12.780 So we've got an inherent problem here that if we don't apply it straight away to something there's a 05:12.780 --> 05:17.600 good chance we will accidentally lose it if we left this blend file. 05:17.610 --> 05:21.500 Of course we can give it a fake user or assign it to something. 05:21.540 --> 05:29.520 Now that doesn't happen if you go and do a an object because that actually brings it into the scene 05:29.520 --> 05:29.950 fully. 05:29.950 --> 05:35.430 So if we go and give that a go now and go a link and this time I am going to go back to my game assets 05:35.430 --> 05:42.510 pack go to meshes and under here I'm going to pick the door again so I'm going to go to door going to 05:42.510 --> 05:43.880 go to the object. 05:44.040 --> 05:45.190 And here we go s.a.m.. 05:45.210 --> 05:50.400 Wall door and then the size of its link from library and it looks like it's there now I'm not going 05:50.400 --> 05:51.500 to be able to move it. 05:51.510 --> 05:54.430 And we'll go in more detail about that at the moment. 05:54.630 --> 05:56.490 But it's now in my scene. 05:56.490 --> 06:01.180 I'm just going to move it to a different loughmiller press m here and just move it to. 06:01.200 --> 06:06.990 I like calling that sublayer one I don't know which letter actually applies to Tumblr are they on the 06:07.290 --> 06:08.040 lay beneath. 06:08.040 --> 06:10.430 Just so I can move attack the way quickly. 06:10.640 --> 06:17.790 OK it's another thing I've done that if we go and have a look in the object area we will see oh we've 06:17.790 --> 06:19.610 got a lot in here at the moment. 06:19.770 --> 06:25.410 We're going to have the linked s.a.m. wall door and it's called the L next to it to make sure we know 06:25.410 --> 06:26.690 that it is linked. 06:26.760 --> 06:27.800 There's no zero there. 06:27.810 --> 06:28.820 It's in the scene. 06:28.840 --> 06:35.220 If we go to the data properties here and we drop down here we can see says L. verte Okay it's not named 06:35.220 --> 06:40.830 properly in this case I'll need to go back to the original file and sort that out amongst a few other 06:40.830 --> 06:43.280 things I've got planned to do here. 06:43.470 --> 06:50.580 But it's there and it has an assigned user because the object is a real object it exists in our scene. 06:50.640 --> 06:57.210 The mesh data the materials and the textures etc are just properties that can be applied to an object. 06:57.270 --> 07:02.950 So if they don't have a user they can disappear if they haven't been used or given a fake user. 07:04.210 --> 07:05.100 Okay guys. 07:05.230 --> 07:08.020 Now I've got a small challenge for you. 07:08.020 --> 07:11.140 I would like you to link your building blocks. 07:11.140 --> 07:14.020 Now do check your pieces for any issues. 07:14.120 --> 07:16.120 He's probably going to be naming one. 07:16.150 --> 07:26.560 If anything fix and make any new pieces as necessary link the major pieces into your scene and store 07:26.560 --> 07:28.430 them on a separate layer. 07:28.720 --> 07:32.420 Remember to name the layer appropriately. 07:32.420 --> 07:38.590 Now don't worry about moving them for the moment when you bring them in as a linked object. 07:38.590 --> 07:44.260 They will be highlighted blue and you won't be able to do anything with them in terms of transforming 07:44.260 --> 07:50.680 them so you won't be able to move them scale them or rotate them so pause a video now and give that 07:50.680 --> 07:51.490 a go. 07:53.390 --> 07:54.150 Okay guys. 07:54.170 --> 07:55.310 Welcome back. 07:55.580 --> 07:58.610 Let's go link building blocks over in blender. 07:59.900 --> 08:05.930 Right before we hop into a blender I just want to show you what I've done in the background so you guys 08:05.960 --> 08:10.280 are not shell shocked when it changes from a simple room to more of a church style. 08:10.310 --> 08:16.040 I've gone in repeated these sorts of basic building blocks of tut my basic building blocks away in a 08:16.040 --> 08:19.210 basic room fold up and underneath the meshes. 08:19.310 --> 08:22.480 And I've gone for some church style assets. 08:22.500 --> 08:25.260 So let's have a more detailed look. 08:25.310 --> 08:32.420 I've got a floor of three different sizes and I've done that for the simple reason that even though 08:32.420 --> 08:38.660 I can scale my objects when a texture is applied to that it will scale the texture as well so I want 08:38.660 --> 08:44.870 as much flexibility as possible especially with the floor because I want large pieces and I might want 08:44.870 --> 08:49.660 small pieces to flesh out little alcoves or corner pieces. 08:49.670 --> 08:53.180 I've also made a church corner which is very useful. 08:53.180 --> 08:57.950 It's one blend the unit by one blender unit by four blender units high all of these. 08:57.950 --> 08:59.720 Now for high because it's a church. 08:59.720 --> 09:01.300 It's a lot bigger in structure. 09:01.340 --> 09:04.280 I've got a front door that I've made the vaults. 09:04.280 --> 09:07.680 Now that was one of the most challenging ones to make. 09:08.100 --> 09:12.710 But it's perfectly possible using all the skills we've got already have a quick look of that in a moment 09:12.980 --> 09:16.420 and a plain old wall which has four by four where nought point two. 09:16.420 --> 09:17.750 That's the other change I've made. 09:17.750 --> 09:19.190 I made the thickness point two. 09:19.310 --> 09:24.650 So when I'm moving in tenths of a blender unit I can actually match it up. 09:24.980 --> 09:29.660 And the church window so there's an archway window in there as well so let's just have a quick look 09:29.660 --> 09:37.310 at the vault and explain how this was put together because it was more of a challenge than the simple 09:37.310 --> 09:39.090 building blocks that we've got. 09:39.260 --> 09:45.590 Now I realize that I'm in my designer there about eight blender units apart where the pillars are going 09:45.590 --> 09:47.830 to go that come up to this Voltz. 09:47.890 --> 09:53.650 I had to look up what the vault was called it's the ceiling bits that looks like this in a church. 09:53.770 --> 10:02.990 Okay so I produced an archway just a series of edges join together to make an arch and I mirrored that 10:03.050 --> 10:04.490 around one of the axes. 10:04.520 --> 10:11.060 I then duplicated that around the other way but keeping the mirror modifier actually applied. 10:11.060 --> 10:18.830 Now when I preformed a Boolean operation to produce a union between the two I ended up with a hole just 10:18.830 --> 10:20.220 where I wanted it. 10:20.330 --> 10:24.080 So I then use that mirrored it again rotated again. 10:24.110 --> 10:30.800 And there we go I ended up with this object which then I use the solidify modify which I think is still 10:30.800 --> 10:31.330 applied. 10:31.340 --> 10:33.950 Yes it is still active. 10:33.950 --> 10:34.960 It's not a ply jets. 10:34.960 --> 10:40.580 Just in case I need to change the thickness so I've made it then solid so it's just very thin before 10:40.580 --> 10:43.400 and would cause some artefacts when rendering. 10:43.400 --> 10:45.630 So that's looking pretty good now. 10:45.890 --> 10:51.380 And so I now need to append all of these into the scene and turn on smooth shading. 10:51.380 --> 10:52.840 To make that look a bit prettier. 10:52.940 --> 10:53.870 Excellent. 10:53.870 --> 10:55.040 So let's go. 10:55.040 --> 10:56.940 I don't need to do anything there. 10:56.960 --> 11:03.090 I'm going to create a new blender file and just spend them all in because all of my old assets. 11:03.140 --> 11:09.370 Well it's just going to be a absolute pain to try and use them again in any way whatsoever. 11:09.530 --> 11:17.120 So let's go ahead monomer used the shortcut keys control altes and oh now I need to go to my assets 11:17.120 --> 11:17.860 folder. 11:18.820 --> 11:23.940 Meshes and literally go through and add all of these to the scene. 11:28.720 --> 11:34.660 Okay so the final piece is now coming in the church window as select the objects and bring that into 11:34.660 --> 11:39.470 our scene so that everything there and I'm going to move it to a working layer. 11:39.520 --> 11:41.250 So let's select all of those. 11:41.280 --> 11:46.090 I don't want to select the camera or the other bits. 11:46.090 --> 11:47.290 The lamp itself. 11:47.290 --> 11:53.170 Someone to select them in the outliner instead because that's a bit easier in this case since they're 11:53.170 --> 11:54.110 on top of that. 11:54.130 --> 11:55.960 I've got all of those selected. 11:55.990 --> 11:58.860 I'm going to move them to this layer here. 11:58.870 --> 12:06.610 I'm going to go into my layers into my layer management and just make sure that that is named. 12:06.610 --> 12:09.490 In fact I'm just going to put them on layer 2. 12:09.490 --> 12:11.520 That would make far more sense here. 12:11.530 --> 12:16.480 So moved to layer two and then if necessary to move them later. 12:16.480 --> 12:20.460 So let's give that a name and let's call that parts layer. 12:22.350 --> 12:22.950 Brilliant. 12:22.950 --> 12:26.910 So the final thing here to do is because I've created a new file. 12:27.030 --> 12:33.360 I'm going to save as I'm going to come out o into the scenes using our building blocks tested. 12:33.450 --> 12:39.480 Well now I have moved my files that's actually dead so I can delete that because I've done this hierarchy 12:39.480 --> 12:46.200 here where in the meshes wherever I move them to basic room it's broken a lot of the links so let's 12:46.200 --> 12:47.880 just remember that for future. 12:47.890 --> 12:50.110 So that's okay because it's a test scene. 12:50.130 --> 12:55.040 So I'm going to go into scenes and I'm going to call it Gothic church. 12:57.000 --> 12:57.480 Excellent. 12:57.480 --> 13:01.960 The final thing to do is go to my source straight. 13:02.900 --> 13:04.730 Have I got everything in here. 13:05.030 --> 13:08.070 Let's check and see what assets have changed meshes. 13:08.340 --> 13:10.760 It's got all of my data there ready to go. 13:10.770 --> 13:13.100 I just need to make a commit message. 13:13.100 --> 13:15.980 I've updated my remey far so I know it's all about. 13:16.070 --> 13:26.150 Unknown to commit and this is the 14th lecture so I'm going to call it game asit pack 14 linking to 13:26.150 --> 13:33.040 an external data block and then I make sure that I've stage those which I have done and click commit. 13:33.050 --> 13:33.550 Brilliant. 13:33.560 --> 13:37.220 How did you guys get on please share your work in the discussions. 13:37.310 --> 13:40.150 And I will see you guys in the next lecture.