Link and Append:
Link and append are the two important options which blender gives to share the data between two Blender files. These two options are very useful if you are sharing the work among your team members to achieve greater productivity.
Link: With Link command we can Share parameters like Brush, Camera, Freestylelinestyle, Lamp, Mesh, Object, Scene, Texture and World from one Blender File to another Blender file. The properties of the Shared parameters can not be changed unless they are modified in the parent Blender file.
Link Example:
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Open the Blender and delete the default Cube.
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Now create a mesh plane, Add ==> Mesh ==> Plane (Shift+A)
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Scale the Plane four times (S ==> 4)
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Now create a sphere, Add ==> Mesh ==> UV Sphere (Shift+A)
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Translate the Sphere above the plane (G ==> 1)
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Now go to File ==> saveas, to save the blender file as Example.blend
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Now Open a new Blender file and translate the Cube 1 unit in Z and 3 units in Y. (G >Z>1, G>Y>3)
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Go to File ==> Link, now locate the previously saved Example.blend file from the directory.
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Select Example.blend, then it display all the sharable parameters of that file (i.e Brush, Object, Mesh etc.,..)
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Select the Object and Select the Plane and UV Sphere then click on Link from Library to open them in the new blender file.
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Now if you select the imported objects they are surrounded by a blue line, that means they are not editable. What ever changes required they must be done in the parent file.
Linked Objects
Append: With Append command we can Share parameters like Brush, Camera, Freestylelinestyle, Lamp, Mesh, Object, Scene, Texture and World from one Blender File to another Blender file. The only difference between Link and Append is that, the properties of the Shared parameters can be modified in the new blender file without affecting the parent Blender file.
Append Example:
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We are going to use same blender file "Example.blender" which is already saved.
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Now Open a new Blender file and translate the Cube 1 unit in Z and 3 units in Y. (G >Z>1, G>Y>3)
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Go to File ==> Append, now locate the previously saved "Example.blend" file from the directory.
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Select Example.blend, then it display all the sharable parameters of that file (i.e Brush, Object, Mesh etc.,..)
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Select the Object and Select the Plane and UV Sphere then click on "Append from Library" to open them in the new blender file.
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Now if you select the imported objects they are surrounded by a Orange line, that means the shared objects are editable in the new blender file. These changes will not affect the parent blender file (i.e Example.blend).
Both Link and Append very useful when different people are working on different parts of a single project which improve the productivity a lot.