Free (Apache 2.0) Unreal Engine 5.3+ plugin that replicates Blender's Asset Browser for UE: centralized catalogs, cross-project library, AI auto-tagging, Blender bridge, provenance tracking, fuzzy search.
| Path | What's in it |
|---|---|
| BlenderAssetBrowser/ | The plugin itself — drop into your project's Plugins/ folder. |
| docs/USER_GUIDE.md | Full user guide — install, every feature, troubleshooting. |
| docs/TEAM_LIBRARY.md | Git LFS / Perforce workflow for shared team libraries. |
| BlenderAssetBrowser/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt | License notices for ONNX Runtime, SigLIP2, Assimp, SQLite. |
Plugin builds and initializes cleanly in UE 5.6. From the live runtime log:
LogPluginManager: Mounting Project plugin BlenderAssetBrowser
LogBlenderAssetBrowser: BlenderAssetBrowser runtime module started.
LogBlenderAssetBrowser: Database opened: ...library.db
LogBlenderAssetBrowser: AssetLibrarySubsystem ready
LogBlenderAssetBrowserEditor: BlenderAssetBrowserEditor module started.
LogBlenderAssetBrowserEditor: Content Browser menu extension registered.
LogAssetPreview: Preview cache root: ...PreviewCache
LogAssetPreview: AssetPreview module started.
LogAITagging: SigLIPInference: model loaded (1 in / 2 out).
LogAITagging: AITagging module started (vocabulary: loaded; SigLIP inference: ready).
LogBlenderBridge: BlenderBridge initialized at ...Exchange
LogBlenderBridge: BlenderBridge module started.
LogUpdateChecker: UpdateChecker module started (Phase 1 stub).
& "C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_5.6\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\Build.bat" `
TestProjectEditor Win64 Development `
"D:\WORK\UE plugins\Asset Browser Blender-style\TestProject\TestProject.uproject" `
-waitmutex -NoUBA-NoUBA is required on this machine — UnrealBuildAccelerator crashes rc.exe.
& "C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_5.6\Engine\Binaries\Win64\UnrealEditor-Cmd.exe" `
"D:\WORK\UE plugins\Asset Browser Blender-style\TestProject\TestProject.uproject" `
-ExecCmds="quit" -unattended -nullrhi -log -ABSLOG="editor_test.log"Then grep BlenderAssetBrowser editor_test.log should show the 13-line boot
sequence above, with no ERROR lines.
BlenderAssetBrowser/
├── BlenderAssetBrowser.uplugin
├── LICENSE # Apache 2.0
├── THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt
├── Source/
│ ├── BlenderAssetBrowser/ # runtime: SQLite DB, subsystem, search, …
│ ├── BlenderAssetBrowserEditor/ # Slate UI, Content Browser menu, drag-drop
│ ├── AssetPreview/ # thumbnail renderer + LRU disk cache
│ ├── AITagging/ # ONNX Runtime + SigLIP2 vision encoder
│ ├── BlenderBridge/ # Blender + DCC reimport bridge
│ └── UpdateChecker/ # Fab scraper + local source watcher + snapshots
├── Resources/
│ ├── BlenderAddon/ # blender_asset_browser_bridge.py
│ ├── Models/ # siglip2_vision_fp16.onnx (≈178 MB via Git LFS)
│ ├── TagVocabulary/ # default_tags.json (189 tags) + embeddings
│ └── MergeDriver/ # assetlib_merge.py (3-way merge for sidecars)
├── ThirdParty/
│ ├── assimp/ # 6.0.5 — external mesh preview
│ └── onnxruntime/ # 1.20.1 SDK (matches UE 5.6 NNE bundle)
└── Config/
This plugin is free and Apache 2.0 — no fees, no telemetry, no upsells. It will stay that way.
If it saved you time and you'd like to say thanks, donations are welcome but never expected. I'm currently saving for an RTX 5090 to keep iterating on the AI side of the plugin (larger tag vocabularies, faster local inference, fine-tuning on UE-asset thumbnails). Every bit helps me get there sooner.
Crypto (preferred — instant, 0% platform fees):
- USDT (TRC20):
TJ5uvnYXHgGALH4M9w4pH2kA1UsyzRYCD1(~1¢ network fee)
Free things that also help a lot:
- Hit the ⭐ Star button at the top of this page — boosts visibility on GitHub
- Open an issue if you hit a bug, or a PR if you fixed something
- Tell another Unreal dev about the plugin
Apache 2.0. Third-party components listed in BlenderAssetBrowser/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.