[Bf-funboard] Append->Link expansion of functionality

[Vania Smrkovski]

Hello,
	Being new to the list, I hope this doesn't cross old ground.  I
couldn't find a web digest.
	I am using Blender as the primary tool for modeling, animating and
rendering a movie.  (Yes, yet another one!)  I almost chose Blender a
few years ago, in the last days of NaN, because it offered great
potential, the web plug-in, the real-time physics simulator/game engine,
the scriptability, even if I had to learn Python.  I stopped using it
because it was so darned hard to use, and being new to 3D development, I
couldn't bring myself to keep trying.  I would learn, then forget the
earlier things I learned....
	I have chosen Blender for my project officially, as of the recent
2.32.  It is an excellent tool, and without unduly affecting the tool's
existing functionality -- I still use my copy of The Blender Book for
reference, and it is useful! -- your developers have managed to tweak
and improve very subtly the way the program works, and it is so much
easier for me to learn how to use it.

	So, to the point....  I found the Append feature, and found, to my
surprise, the Link feature.  I thought, AWESOME, this is a way for me to
break this huge project of mine down into manageable pieces....  See,
I'm making a village.  The scope of the project ranges from mountains to
sewing needles, water to walking, lip syncing to cloudscapes.  The mesh
for the land form alone was nearly 100 Mb.

	Now, exploring, I have found what, to me, are limitations.  I was
hoping you folks might be able to find a quick modification to the way
linking currently works.

	I would like to have two additions to the way Append-Link works.  1) I
would like one file's links to be importable into another, that is
Computer.blend imports object Monitor from Monitor.Blend, and
Office.Blend imports object Computer, which contains a link to object
Monitor from Monitor.blend.  2) I would like the ability to "Group"
objects together, so I can reference an object that is itself a
collection of other objects, that is Room.blend defines object Room
which groups a linked object Bed in Bed.blend and a Dresser object and
its three Drawer objects, and then House.blend imports Room.Blend as
described in 1).  Like a Russian Matroshka doll within a doll within a
doll....

	These two capabilities would allow me to create libraries of objects
which can then be reused in other library files.  The most important
thing for me is to be able to create low-polygon objects as placeholders
to get pacing down for the story, and then email the low-poly object to
another artist to create a higher-resolution, better quality version. 
If that object is a doorknob, I want to be able to replace the Cube I
used for the doorknob in all Door objects, Room objects and house
objects in my Village file by simply replacing the file defining the
doorknob as a cube.  When I open the Village, it should find the links
to Houses, with links to Rooms, with links to Doors, with doorknobs, and
the new file should be the source.

	Ideally, things like animations, scripting and other attributes would
also be imported, but frankly these are much less important to me than
the two items I described above.

	Thoughts?  Is this the idea for this list?

Thanks,
-- 

Vania Smrkovski
http://www.pandorasdream.com