ResourceSpace: Open Source Asset Management for Blender

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ResourceSpace is a web-based, open source digital asset management system, with a twist: it will dynamically render previews of Blender files, making it a great solution for Blender Asset Management. It’s based on PHP/MySQL so you’ll need to have access to a webserver if you want to use it.

Tom Gleason wrote:

Some blender users may be interested to know that ResourceSpace Digital Asset Management (php/mysql) has the built-in ability to manage blender files, including generation of previews through a server-side command-line operation. I suppose it would be useful for people who have a bunch of different .blend files with modeling experiments or who would like to easily set up a website to show off and share their files.

It probably could work well as the basis for a file repository for those artists who like to share their blends, textures, movies, etc.

I know several organizations are benefiting from this software, and in my opinion, it is the best DAM system around. It is very flexible and free but there are also great hosting and development services available from it’s creator.

It’s also a great example of several other quality open-source utilities in action.

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    • http://www.adventuresinblender.com terrywallwork

      Very clever idea.

      Now that its been done once, hopefully all the other content management type systems will follow.

    • http://pw-software.com NetOperator Wibby

      Whoah, this is pretty slick. I’d like to have this on my server as well. Downloading …

    • felix

      bart you sure this doesn’t work locally if you have Xampp/Lampp installed?

      http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @felix: sure. You can have a local webserver, too ;-)

    • Tom Gleason

      Just want to point out that the blender integration is a pretty new idea, and it works by command line rendering, so the way it works with the blender application path may need a little more work on a particular machine. (for example, I’m not positive it works on Linux at the moment because I don’t have a Linux testing environment until my new computer arrives).

      Anyone know if any preview images are being embedded in blender files?

    • banor

      Excellent! This could be useful for a global Blender project, perhaps? Nice!

    • http://delini.wordpress.com marin

      The idea is great :) Unfortunately a web interface-based asset management software can’t integrate tightly with other applications (such as InDesign, Photoshop or even Blender) but it I will definitely give it a try.

    • http://www.watchmike.ca Mike

      This news on my birthday……excellent! Good job BN and ResourceSpace!

    • Kent Mein

      Another similar application which I saw at GSOC summit is:
      http://wiki.worldforge.org/wiki/Wombat

      It’s probably not as full featured but its another application to look at, and it’s being actively developed.

    • http://www.fahassani.blogspot.com Fahassani

      No way Dude it a joke right?! really Cool news,
      “has the built-in ability to manage blender files,….. “ that what got me,
      Yap really great idea!
      ;-)

    • tom g

      well, the ability to manage files is definitely built in, and rendering blender previews depends on blender being on the server.
      I hope anyone who tries it will give me feedback regarding any problems or potentials they find. Again there are some path issues I have to work out for linux and windows, but with a little feedback we can have it working. I’m willing to help polish this feature up for anyone who is seriously interested in trying to work with it.

    • tom g

      marin, I agree a web program doesn’t integrate ‘tightly’ and, actually, blend files have a bunch of cool asset management features of their own. The main advantage here would be the potential ease in creating a web-based and visual repository of files. A user could collect a bunch of the files s/he is interested in using or studying and zip them up for download, categorize them in different ways to make them searchable by others, etc.

      There is also a ‘staticsync’ script that can sync the website up with a local folder structure; that could possibly be used for a kind of ‘live’ window into works in progress.

      In other words, it may or may not be useful in any particular case, but I’ve found many ways to modify this system for various workflows (outside of blender). Now that I’m getting into blender, I think there may be some potential in this area. Just hoping to share the idea and contribute something if I can to the blender community, which I’m very thankful for.

    • http://www.reynantem.blogspot.com Reynante M. Martinez

      This is fantastic! I’ll be using it from this time on. Thanks so much! ^_^

    • rivenwanderer

      I hope it caches the renders so that it doesn’t hose the server when multiple people want to preview blender files!

    • tom g

      The previews are made when the file is uploaded, and then they are stored in the system as various jpgs. Once the renders are created, there is no problem. There is the possibility that the file could be very complex and slow the server down upon upload.

    • zapman

      very handy tool I guess.. I’ll give it a try and install it on my linux server :D

    • zapman

      thx tom g!!!

    • http://wickes.webs.com Papasmurf

      Thanks for this! This resource is definitely going in my book, and I will recommend it for my publisher Apress to use when distributing my .blend file examples and other starter assets.

    • http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com kernond

      Thanks.

    • clover

      can i request a blend file viewer?