Add-On: Edit Linked Library

Here is a very nifty add-on to facilitate editing of the linked libraries, developed by Jason van Gumster, Bassam Kurdali and Pablo Vazquez…

It was included in to the add-ons that blender comes with not too long ago. It serves very well for quickly going to edit the library you’re working on without having to go and look for the file.

This will most likely serve you well if you work on shorts, commercials, games or pieces that are made of several shots where the same assets are used over and over, because usually when you create a single scene the tendency is to have everything in the same scene so if you’re one of those, then it might not serve you that well.

Here is how it works:

Once you’ve activated it in the Add-ons panel, go to the relations tab in the 3D view, and there is an Edit Linked Library panel.

If the object you have selected is Linked it will show you a button that says “Edit Library:” and the name of the original file, with 2 options, and then the path of that file.

Else, it will say “<<blabla>> is not linked”

When you hit the button, by default it will just save your file and open the one you are going to edit:

Make your changes, I’m going to change color just for demonstration purposes, and you hit the “Return to Original File” button, as you can see by default it has an autosave option so whatever you changed it’ll stay.

And we’re back!

Yes, so there you have!, now go edit all those little libraries!