[Bf-committers] Asset manager status - meeting notes

[Dalai Felinto]

Hi,

We had a meeting today about the status of the Asset Manager project. The
goal was to sync the backend work (Bastien) with the frontend work (Julian).

These are the notes of said meeting.

Asset Manager
“Where are we and what is the MVP/first use case?”

October 10th, 2019
Present: Bastien Montagne, Dalai Felinto, Julian Eisel, William Reynish

Asset Manager Status
* Need UI refactor since recent file browser cahnges
* Start with Amber (simple local repository), followed by cloud asset
manager

Amber MVP (minimum viable product)
* Drag and drop from asset manager to blender file
* Only supporting datablocks as assets
* Easy to share the entire repository (folder with .json)
* Creating or updating new assets
* Meta-data: Name, description, tags
* Searching
* A single asset per .blend file
* All repository editing goes via the Blender UI

Amber Non-MVP (to be tackled after the basic amber is merged)
* 100% add-on, no specific builtin parts
* Easy to share part of the repository
* Support for “Non-datablock” (e.g., pure texture and video files)
* Editing individual assets (in external blender / app)
* Multiple assets in a single .blend file
* Dynamically update the asset database (new file added to folder, ...)

Ortogonal to Amber, not MVP
* Drag and drop of importable files (FBX/.../...)
* Inspect all assets in a scene (outliner?), and be able to lock/apply them
(in case Link was used, this is more a generic library/packing feature
though)

Non-Amber
(features we will have after the MVP, but that won't necessarily be part of
the Amber engine)
* SVN support
* Cloud asset engine
* Variations of assets
* Access permissions

What is missing for Amber MVP
* Backend:
** Implementation of basic asset definition (via ID props? Bastien will
check with Brecht)
* Frontend
** Drag and Drop system usable by Python - D4071
** User interface - T54642

Thanks,
Dalai