heres what i did. its cumbersome, but it is what it is
open the blend file (that has the custom brushes) with this build
in the outliner with blender file view, find the brushes and mark them as asset
save the blend file in the default library folder “Documents/Blender/Assets”
and thats it
start a new project or refresh the asset library and the stuff will be there
i dont know how to organize things. like put selected brushes in a separate tab/make a “favorites” tab. i dont even know if thats supported
This. I prefer in real life to have a drawer of brushes that are available to me and a cup to pull some of them to for the project I am undertaking. I don’t operate with all of them at once, but I do have a subset that I prefer for each kind of work. Same for Blender, I’d like to see a way to tick a marker for each brush to then have them appear in a box or popup when I call that set. It would be great to be able to set them in collections as if they were objects so I guess that points to using the Asset Manager and subfolders.
It is not clear where the brush selection popup should spawn under the cursor. The new build contains 3 versions, which you can toggle by setting the Debug Value via Edit > Menu Search > Debug Menu. These are the available options:
Debug Value 0: Position the popup so the active brush is under the cursor. (Default)
Debug Value 1: Position the popup so the first brush is under the cursor.
Debug Value 2: Position the popup so the center of the first row of assets is under the cursor.
There’s some existing discussion on this in #123202.
I love what’s happening in this build, and I’m very excited!
Unfortunately, I get an immediate crash when I hit shift+space.
The brush selection popup appears, then Blender goes down hard.
I personally think this way is better because it allows muscle memory to be built. In this way, the mouse position is always constant and the movements to reach other brushes are always the same (if one wants to use the mouse to choose the brush, of course). Also, as rightly pointed in the discussion, when searching, the first result will immediately under the mouse.
However, I’d leave the option in the settings for this!
Crash here too. Also on opening brush selector in toolbar
Other bugs:
There is no highlight for active brush anymore.
Flickering on undo is still there, very annoying.
Number of brushes are missing from grease pencil draw. Like ink rough and marker chisel.
What I dislike:
There should be confirmation box for “Update Asset” operator.
Asset name text field shouldn’t be exposed like that, especially when you can’t rename essentials and you’re simply changing emply string field and creating confusing situations. That field shouldn’t be editable, and actual asset name should be changed in Edit Metadata operator.
It is really blocking for alpha brushes that you can’t assign texture data-blocks from local file to non-essential assets anymore, and textures from custom assets to essential assets. It should be appending/linking brushes texture data-block, letting you change that, or assign that texture to essential brushes.
I still feel that favourites system is important for asset shelf (no pop-up version) to reach its full potential. Sorting is very weird and you need to scroll a lot. Just a tag “Favourite” which you set in context menu and favourites appear at the front of the catalogs they belong too. Nothing more than that.
You can’t add tags to brushes for asset browser. Should be part of “Edit Metadata”.
Shelf settings should be same for workspaces. I’m tired of enabling names and changing size for all modes separately.
I got to give it a try now that the crash is fixed (thank you for the quick response on that.)
This is starting to feel really good! I think a lot of people familiar with the brush menu from a different sculpting app will enjoy this.
I love the clever re-use of the tools hotkey being utilized this way.
I did notice if you click on a brush (either on the asset shelf, or on the brush selection popup), then click on it a second time you get a warning: “Unable to select brush, wrong object mode.”
Using Shift + Spacebar while the following is active; Tools = overrides Play Seach = unaffected, has only one option which is search. Play = overrides Tools
seems like another shortcut is needed.
Edit Feedback wise with Debug options, they only work on big screens with enough space on the screen to show the popup. You cant be on a border or the different options wont be visible.
Those debug options fail when you are using a small window size like for example
600x960px.
I just tried it and there’s no crashes, it works pretty good! Debug=1 is my favorite so far, but I think the options should be exposed in the preferences.
I think the scrolling here should be horizontal instead of vertical, makes more sense IMO.
I have a question about saving custom brushes as assets. If I have let’s say a skin pores brush with an specific alpha texture and I save that brush as an asset, will the image be saved with the brush too? Or do I have to also save the image as an asset…? I’m still a bit confused about that functionality.
As a user I’d prefer to always include any texture the brush is using and keep it packed with it.
I don’t like default preview size for asset shelf and want to turn on names. That means in my startup file I have to adjust settings separately for:
Mesh Sculpt Mode
Mesh Vertex Paint Mode
Mesh Weight Paint Mode
Mesh Texture Paint Mode
Grease Pencil Draw Mode
Grease Pencil Vertex Paint Mode
Grease Pencil Weight Paint Mode
Grease Pencil Sculpt Mode
Curves Sculpt Mode
For each workspace that I have.
Why? This is such a bad design. Too much customization is as bad as no customization. Who will want to have different thumbnail sizes for each different mode?
I rather use asset shelf than pop-up, but feeling I get is that design doesn’t really want me to. It has so many UX problems that are being ignored because “people will use pop-up anyway”, and its a shame. Its such a good thing but left in raw state, just like tree-view.
Also, strongly agree! It would feel much more intuitive and smooth to use if it was horizontal scroll instead.
Currently, it just feels strange and is a bit hard to scroll through brushes with a tablet. The current interface feels more oriented around mouse use, requiring very high precision movement to get to the very small scroll bar in the corner, which is hard to hit, especially if you are using a smaller drawing tablet. It also just feels strange scrolling as well since there is no animation and it just jumps, making it hard to know how much is left in the list.
I’ve been testing a bit the new build, idk if it is possible or how much work/time it would take, but design wise I think it would look cleaner to me to have something similar to the asset browser in the popup, something like this, maybe without the tabs if it is not possible, instead of have them opened on the side.
