External Collection

Loads one or more collections from an external .blend file, either as a live link or as an appended copy.

When to use it

Use External Collection when your assets live in a separate .blend file — for example, a character library, environment asset, or prop file. One External Collection node targets one source file. Add as many collection entries as you need from that file.

Outputs

Socket	Description
Collection	The loaded collection(s), ready to connect downstream

Properties

File path — path to the source .blend file. Click the folder icon to browse. The toggle button to the right switches between absolute and relative paths (relative paths use Blender's // prefix and require the current file to be saved).

Refresh List — re-reads the external file to update the available collections list. Use this if you've added or removed collections from the source file since the node was created.

Load Mode — controls how the collection is loaded:

• Link — creates a live reference to the source file. Changes to the external file are reflected automatically the next time you open the .blend or manually reload linked data.
• Append — copies the collection into the current file. The copy is independent of the source after the first load.

Collections list — add collection entries with the + button in the header. For each entry, type or select the collection name from the dropdown (populated by the Refresh List button). Use the × button to remove an entry.

Tips

• Use relative paths (//) to keep your project portable across machines.
• Link mode is recommended for asset libraries that change frequently. Append is better for snapshots or when you want the render to be reproducible regardless of changes to the source file.
• If a collection name is missing from the dropdown, click Refresh List to re-read the file.