This [Blender addon](https://github.com/kaosat-dev/Blender_bevy_components_workflow/tree/main/tools/blenvy) gives you:
- an easy to use UI to add and configure your [Bevy](https://bevyengine.org/) components inside Blender
- the UI is **automatically generated** based on a **registry schema** file, an export of all your **registered** Bevy components's information, generated
by the registry export part of the [Blenvy](https://crates.io/crates/blenvy) crate
- the ability to **toggle components** on/off without having to remove the component from the object
- an automatic export of your level/world from Blender to gltf whenever you save your Blend file.
- export of used /marked collections as [Gltf blueprints](../../crates/blenvy/README.md)
- change detection, so that only the levels & blueprints you have changed get exported when you save your blend file
- export of material librairies
If you want to know more about the technical details , see [here]()
> IMPORTANT !! if you have previously used the "old" add-ons (*gltf_auto_export* & *bevy_components*), please see the [migration guide](../../Migration_guide.md)
If you can I would generally recommend starting fresh, but a lot of effort has been put to make transitioning easier
- setup the [Blenvy crate](https://crates.io/crates/blenvy) for your project (see the crate's documentation for that), and compile/run it to get the ```registry.json``` file to enable adding/editing your components in Blender
> you normally do not need to do anything, as the defaults are already pre-set to match those on the Bevy side for the location of the ```registry.json``` file, unless you want to store it somewhere other than ```assets/registry.json```
- toggle this to turn the whole auto-export system on or off :
when enabled, **every time you save your blend file** Blenvy will automatically export a set of gltf files , for levels, blueprints, materials etc depending on your settings, see below.
- click on this button to open Blender's standard gltf exporter settings **specific to Blenvy** : ie you have access to all of the normal gltf settings, but there is additional boilerplate
to gather these settings for Blenvy only, so it does not impact your normal export settings
- you *must* keep the "remember export settings" checkbox checked in order for the settings to be useable by Blenvy
- toggle this to export additional settings like ambient color, bloom, ao, etc from Blender to Bevy: this automatically generates additional components at the scene level that get processed by the Blenvy crate
- toggle this to enable change detection: ie, to make sure that only the blueprints , levels or materials that have actually **changed since your last save** get exported to gltf files, a sort of "incremental export".
> Under the hood, Blenvy serializes your whole Blender project to a simplified representation, to be able to tell the differents between successive changes
- this options enables more detailed materials scanning & thus detecting smaller changes, even **changes in material nodes** . This comes at a potential additional processing cost, so if you notice performance issues in projects with complex materials
- similar to the one above but for modifiers, this options enables more finer grained change detection in modifiers, even **changes in geometry nodes** . This comes at a potential additional processing cost, so if you notice performance issues in projects with complex modifiers
These options can also be **overridden** on a per collection instance basis: (if you want to split out most collection instances, but keep a few specific ones embeded
- you can also force per level or per blueprint systematic export (regardless of change detection), see the relevant sections in the levels & blueprint documentation
If you want to use multiple blend files (recomended if your project starts to grow even a bit), use Blender's asset library etc, we got you coverred too !
- mark your level scenes as specified above ( personally I recommended **NOT** specifying a **library** scene in this case to keep things tidy, but that is up to you)
- configure your asset libraries as you would usually do, I recomend using the "link" mode so that any changes to asset files are reflected correctly
- drag & drop any assets from the blueprints library (as you would normally do in Blender as well)
- choose "split" for the combine mode (as you want your gltf blueprints to be external usually & use the gltf files generated from your assets library)
- do your Blender things as normal
- anytime you save your file, it will automatically export your level(s)
- I highly recomend (if you are using vscode like me) to use
[this](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=JacquesLucke.blender-development) excellent extension , works easilly and fast , even for the latest
versions of Blender (v4.0 as of this writing)
- this [article](https://polynook.com/learn/set-up-blender-addon-development-environment-in-windows) might also help out
(easy enough to get it working on linux too)
## License
This tool, all its code, contents & assets is Dual-licensed under either of
- Apache License, Version 2.0, ([LICENSE-APACHE](../LICENSE_APACHE.md) or https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
- MIT license ([LICENSE-MIT](../LICENSE_MIT.md) or https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
