The soft is still in beta version, it will be available for download by the end of June 2026
A unified library browser for 3D assets and Material assets (materials along with UVWMaps and other modifiers) — tag, filter, preview, and place directly from within 3ds Max.
MzAssetBrowser is a 3ds Max plugin that gives you a dedicated panel for managing your scene file library and material library. Instead of navigating Windows Explorer and manually merging files, you build an indexed library of assets, tag them, browse previews, and place or apply them with a single double-click.
The browser operates in two distinct modes — 3D Assets and Materials — each with its own index, folder structure, and workflow. You switch between them using the mode buttons at the top of the browser.
Get from zero to placing assets in five steps.
Drag'n drop the .mzp file into 3dsmax's viewport, and choose install. From the Max menu bar choose Mz Tools → MzAssetBrowser to open the browser panel.
Click Settings (bottom of the browser). Choose a folder where MzAssetBrowser will store its database and preview images. This can be anywhere — a local SSD is recommended for fast previews. Click Save.
In 3D Assets mode: click Import Folder and pick a folder containing your .max scene files. The browser recursively scans it and adds every file to the index. A confirmation shows how many files were found.
In Materials mode: go to Settings and set a Material Library Folder, then click Import Folder to scan it.
Open the Manage Library panel (rolled up at the top of the browser), expand it, and click Render Previews. MzAssetBrowser launches a background render of all indexed files using a dedicated render scene. Thumbnails appear in the grid when done.
3D Assets: double-click a thumbnail to start the placement tool. Click in the viewport to place the object — it snaps to surfaces automatically. Press Shift to cycle through objects, Ctrl to rotate on Z. Right-click or press Escape to finish.
Materials: select objects in your scene first, then double-click a material thumbnail. The material is merged and applied immediately.
The browser is divided into three areas:
Mode buttons (3D Assets / Materials) sit on the left. The search box, sort order dropdown, and rating filter are to the right. The bottom strip holds Import Folder, Settings, and the Pick & Add button.
In 3D Assets mode you get four tabs: Folders, Tags, Catalog, and Smart Catalog. Materials mode omits the Folders tab (all files live in one library folder). Use the tabs to switch how you navigate your library.
Files are displayed as thumbnail cards with the filename below. Clicking selects a card (highlight); Ctrl+click adds to the selection. Right-clicking opens the context menu with tagging, rating, hide/show, and preview actions. Page controls at the bottom navigate through large libraries.
3D Assets mode is designed for libraries of .max scene files — furniture, props, vehicles, architectural elements, or any reusable geometry. Each file in the library represents a placeable object.
You can navigate this mode in two complementary ways. The Folders tab mirrors your disk hierarchy — expand and click any folder to see its files. The Tags tab shows your entire library at once, filtered by whichever tags you activate — ideal once your assets are tagged. Both views lead to the same placement action.
When placing, a Place Options panel is available (usually a small floater). Key settings:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Merge mode | Merge · Merge as Group · Collapsed · XRef · Proxy |
| Find surface | Snaps objects to the surface under the cursor |
| Align to surface | Rotates the object to match the surface normal |
| Align to | Which part of the object touches the surface: Pivot, Bottom, Top, sides |
| Uniform scale | Apply a fixed scale multiplier on placement |
| Random scale | Random scale within a defined range |
| Random rotation | Random Z rotation 0–360° |
| Offset Z | Raise or lower the object from the surface hit point |
Materials mode gives you a flat library of .max files, each containing one or more materials. The browser shows a thumbnail preview of the material — rendered on configurable shapes (sphere, cube, plane, teapot, and others) — so you can visually identify materials before applying them.
There is no folder tree in Materials mode: all library files live in a single configured folder (Material Library Folder set in Settings). You find materials through tags, the search bar, or catalogs.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Double-click | Apply material to all selected objects |
| Apply as Diffuse | Assign to the Diffuse/Base Color slot only |
| Apply as Environment | Set as scene environment map |
| Material Painter | Opens the painter tool for element-level application |
Both modes share the same tag, catalog, and search infrastructure. The key differences are in folder structure, the action on double-click, and the preview approach.
Tags are the primary way to find assets across large libraries. They appear as clickable chips in the left panel. Multiple tags combine as an AND filter — selecting "wood" and "dark" shows only items tagged with both.
Right-click any thumbnail → Edit Tags. Type tags separated by commas. Tags are lowercased and deduplicated automatically.
MzAssetBrowser can derive tags from the folder path and filename automatically — a chair in Furniture/Seating/Chairs/oak_chair.max would receive tags like furniture, seating, chairs, oak. To apply automatic tags:
Open Manage Library → Tag Management, select one or more folders in the Imported Folders list, then click Auto-tag selected folders. Check Only untagged files to skip files you have already tagged manually. You can also auto-tag just the current selection from the right-click context menu.
Both modes include two additional left-panel tabs — Catalog and Smart Catalog — for organising files beyond the tag system.
A Catalog is a saved list of assets you have hand-picked — think of it as a playlist or a mood board. Use catalogs to build project-specific collections ("Client A — Living Room props"), best-of sets ("Hero chairs"), or any grouping that doesn't map neatly to a tag.
Click the ＋ button in the Catalog tab to create a new catalog and give it a name. You can mark it as Public (shared across projects) or keep it private.
Select one or more thumbnails in the grid, then right-click → Add to Catalog and choose the target catalog. Files can belong to multiple catalogs simultaneously.
Click any catalog name in the Catalog tab to display only its files in the grid. All other browser features (search, rating filter, context menu) remain available within the catalog view.
Select files in the catalog view, right-click → Remove from Catalog. This removes them from the list but does not delete the files from disk or the index.
A Smart Catalog is a saved snapshot of your active tag filters and search. Unlike a regular Catalog, it contains no fixed list of files — instead, it re-runs the saved query against the live index every time you open it. As you add, remove, or re-tag files, the Smart Catalog results update automatically.
Activate tags and/or type a search term to get the result set you want in the grid. Then open the Smart Catalog tab and click Save current filters as Smart Catalog. Give it a name. The active tags and search text are stored.
Click any Smart Catalog in the list. The browser applies the saved filters and shows all currently matching files. If you have added fifty new chairs since saving the catalog, they will appear automatically — no maintenance required.
| Catalog | Smart Catalog | |
|---|---|---|
| Contents | Fixed, hand-picked list | Dynamic query result |
| Updates automatically | No | Yes |
| Best for | Project sets, curated picks | Category overviews, renderer filters |
| Create by | Right-click → Add to Catalog | Set filters → Save as Smart Catalog |
The placement tool activates when you double-click an asset in 3D Assets mode. A ghost of the object follows the cursor in the viewport, snapping to geometry surfaces.
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Left click | Place object at cursor position |
| Shift (hold) | Cycle to next asset in selection |
| Ctrl (hold) | Rotate object on its own Z axis |
| Right click or Esc | End placement |
The current object name and keyboard shortcuts are displayed as a viewport HUD in the upper-left corner of the active viewport, below the viewport label.
A small floating panel (Place Options) appears when placement starts. It controls surface snapping, alignment, scale randomisation, and rotation randomisation. Settings are saved between sessions.
Thumbnails are rendered using a dedicated render scene and cached as .jpg files in <dataFolder>/<mode>/previewCache/. Filenames use a unique ID derived from the asset path, so renaming your data folder or mode folder preserves all cached previews.
Open Manage Library (rolled up at the top of the browser) and click Render Previews. A progress counter shows rendering status. The grid refreshes automatically when done.
Right-click any thumbnail → Set preview image… to manually assign any image as the preview. Right-click → Remove preview to revert to the auto-rendered preview.
For each asset, MzAssetBrowser looks for preview images in this order:
Rendered (camera-specific) → Preview (generic cached) → Flat → Wireframe
For Materials mode, the shape shown corresponds to the Preview Shape dropdown (Sphere, Cube, Plane, Teapot…).
| Action | Shortcut / Control |
|---|---|
| Select thumbnail | Click |
| Add to selection | Ctrl + Click |
| Select all visible | Ctrl + A |
| Open context menu | Right click |
| Edit tags | Right click → Edit Tags |
| Rate asset | Right click → Rate → ★–★★★★★ |
| Place / Apply | Double click |
| Next / prev page | Page buttons at bottom |
| Search | Type in the search box (filters after a short delay) |
| Action | Key |
|---|---|
| Place object | Left click in viewport |
| Cycle to next asset | Hold Shift |
| Rotate on Z axis | Hold Ctrl |
| End placement | Right click or Esc |
| Action | Where |
|---|---|
| Import a new folder | Import Folder button (bottom bar) |
| Scan for missing files | Manage Library → Missing Files → Scan |
| Render all previews | Manage Library → Render Previews |
| Auto-tag by folder | Manage Library → Tag Management → Auto-tag selected folders |
| Optimize tags | Manage Library → Tag Management → Optimize all tags |