Filling the gaps

What incomplete means

An asset in the library is a folder, and the browser reads what is in that folder. Two gaps are worth a button. A prop can arrive as a picture with no model file next to it, and a material can arrive as a base image whose config asked for texture maps that were never produced.

The browser flags both with a small warning icon in the top-right corner of the card. Red means a prop with no 3D model, amber means a material short of the maps its own config asked for. The picture itself stays at full brightness; the icon is the signal.

The test for a prop is a file: does the asset folder hold a .blend, .glb, .gltf, .fbx or .obj. The test for a material has two halves, and both must be true.

Reading the warning

Click the warning icon and a small panel explains the problem; unless you are part way through a multi-selection, the card is selected too, so reading a warning never costs you the set you had built. For a prop the panel says No 3D model — the prop is only an image, generate a 3D model from it or pick a different prop — and its own button is Generate Model. For a material it says No PBR maps and closes with OK; the material button lives in the footer.

The footer says the same thing in one line, and counts. With one card selected it reads No 3D model; with several it reads 2 of 5 have no 3D model, so you can see how much of a multi-selection is affected before you press anything.

Generate Model

Generate Model sends the prop's existing image to the cloud step that was never run, and a mesh comes back. Nothing about the prop is re-decided: no prompt is sent, no popup opens, and the result lands on the same seed rather than beside it as a new version.

The button acts on every model-less prop in the selection, one job each, and its label counts them — Generate 3 Models for three. Select the whole handful before pressing rather than working through them one at a time.

A prop with no model cannot be assigned, which is why the button matters. Assign drops model-less picks at commit and says how many it skipped; if everything you picked is model-less, Assign disappears and Generate Model stands in its place.

Generate PBR

Generate PBR is the material twin. It builds the missing texture maps from the base colour image the material already has, again with no prompt and onto the same seed. Like Generate Model it reads the whole selection, so six materials short of their maps are six jobs from one press.

Unlike a model-less prop, a material with no maps can still be assigned. The amber flag tells you what you are assigning; it does not block the assignment. That is the practical difference between the two buttons: one unblocks an asset you cannot use, the other improves one you can.

While the job runs

1. The card dims under a translucent pane reading Generating…, drops out of the selection, and stops responding to clicks. Its star and warning icon come off while it works.
2. The log line in CLOUD ACTIVITY reads Missing prop submitted… or Missing material submitted…, and the job is tracked like any other. See Jobs, progress and errors.
3. When it finishes, the asset is downloaded into the local library and the card comes back with its new model or maps and no warning icon.

The dimming exists because these jobs take minutes and cost credits. A second press would be a second real job against an asset that is already being finished. The card stays inert across the popup closing and reopening, and a failed job hands the button back so you can press it again.

Custom assets cannot be filled in

Both buttons need a cloud identity: an asset_id recorded in the asset's folder, which only assets downloaded from a cloud job have. Assets read from your own Custom Assets Folder have none, so there is nothing for the cloud to finish and the press is refused. The same rule refuses Regenerate on them.

The warning icon and the button still appear on a custom prop with no model, because the flag is about the folder's contents. Pressing it writes a line to Blender's console and does nothing else — no job, no charge, no message in the panel.

[iCity2] 'Park Bench' has no cloud identity - only cloud assets can have their Generate Model generated.

Two ways to tell before you press:

• —The footer info line ends in Library or Custom for the selected asset.
• —The View dropdown at the top of the sidebar has My custom folders, which filters the grid to your own folders. It only appears when a custom folder is configured.

For your own assets the answer is to supply the missing file yourself: put a model file in the prop's folder, or the map images in the material's folder, then press Refresh in the browser. The exact layout is in Using your own assets.

What it costs

Each asset is one cloud job, charged like any other. No estimate is shown before you press, because there is no popup to show it in — pressing with five props selected submits five jobs. Credits are metered on measured cost after the run, so treat the composer's on-screen figures as estimates rather than prices.

For what a credit is, how the allowance works and where to watch it, see Credits and plans. For generating a new asset from a prompt instead of finishing an existing one, see Single materials and props.