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Technical Updates

This section lists mostly technical updates such as file name or API changes that are mainly relevant for power-users or developers. General announcements are made via Patreon.

Upcoming changes that have not yet been implemented are marked using the Draft tag.

  • 1 min read

Documentation for the new API v3

The new API v3 is now available. It simplifies the access to certain data, especially file downloads and is more customizable, allowing you to include or exclude certain data as needed.

Documentation for the new asset endpoint can be found in the API v3 section.

The old APIs will continue to be available for the foreseeable future, but it is recommended to switch to the new API, especially for new projects.

  • 1 min read

Removal of zipContent attribute in API v2

Later this year, the field zipContent on file downloads will no longer receive data, meaning it will still be present but always show up as an empty array ([]).

This change is necessary due to some changes in the internal database that made it exceedingly difficult to continue providing this data via the API.

Thank you for your understanding.

  • 1 min read

Repackaging of nearly all assets on ambientCG

Later this year, nearly all assets on ambientCG.com will be updated with new files. These updates change the structure and sometimes also file names.

Surfaces (Materials, Decals, Atlases)

  • USD files are now built with USD 25.05 (up from 22.05)
  • USD files now use the new Asset Preview API
  • The archives now contain .blend built in Blender 4.2 files which are marked as assets.
  • .tres files for Godot are also included.
  • The .mtlx files now use the OpenPBR model instead of the Standard surface model by Autodesk.

HDRIs

  • HDRIs now also come with .usdc, .tres and .blend files
  • To accommodate this, they are now also delivered in .zip archives
  • File names have changed slightly, bringing the names unclipped and tonemapped versions closer to the naming convention of PBR materials.

3D models

  • Publication of .blend files is also planned, but not yet implemented.

Previews

Preview files for testing are available here.

  • 2 min read

Upcoming changes to the ambientCG API

A major update to the ambientCG website is scheduled to release at some point in late 2024 or early 2025. It can already be tested on beta.ambientCG.com and introduces new features and a more interactive user experience.

As a part of these updates, some changes to the underlying data model were necessary which will lead to a new API (v3) which will be announced at a later time. The existing APIs (v1/v2) will continue to work mostly as usual. However, some differences will be noticeable once the update is deployed:

Both v1 and v2 currently offer two separate download links, one using a HTTP redirect and one linking to the CDN directly. When the API was introduced this feature was implemented to accommodate certain CLI-based downloading tools which had trouble following HTTP redirects. Now, several years later, I have decided to retire this "split" and only offer the redirect-based links in the interest of more accurate statistics. For compatibility reasons, both fields will still be offered, but they will contain the same link. The vast majority of HTTP-libraries and tools should have absolutely no trouble with this change.

Removal of the thumbnailAssetId field in /v2/categories_json

Currently, the list of asset categories displays a thumbnailAssetId that is used as a "representative asset" for this category. The new version of the site displays categories in a different way and no longer stores such a "thumbnail asset". The value is therefore permanently set to null.

Changes to the creationMethod field

Both API versions contain a field describing the creationMethod of an asset. The new version of the site stores this information in a different way which is not easily representable as a single string. Therefore, many assets will have their creationMethod changed to UnknownOrOther.

Changes to data inclusion in /v2/full_json endpoint

The /v2/full_json endpoint allows clients to tailor the response data to their needs and to improve query performance using the include=X,Y,Z,... HTTP parameter. The list of possible values for this parameter will change to the following values:

  • statisticsData
  • labelData
  • relationshipData
  • fileData
  • previewData
  • technicalData

Queries using the OLD parameters will (mostly) be converted into the new format, but adjustments to this parameter may still be necessary.

Testing the changes

All upcoming changes can already be tested on beta.ambientCG.com. Please get in touch if you encounter any unexpected bugs, performance issues, inconsistencies or other problems.

  • 1 min read

AssetFetch endpoint for ambientCG Materials

Earlier this year I announced my intentions to build AssetFetch, a system for building easy asset discovery and import solutions without the redundancy normally associated with developing a new software plugin for every software / asset vendor combination. The specification and more info about this system is available on assetfetch.org.

In order to bring this system into the real world the first implementation of the provider-side of AssetFetch is now available using the following initialization endpoint: https://ambientcg.com/api/af/init.

This endpoint serves materials (currently only materials) from ambientCG via the AssetFetch protocol v0.3. Because the AF spec is still actively being worked on there is currently only one version available, future implementations (post 1.0) may endpoint versioning to improve stability.

A first client implementation for Blender is being developed in parallel on GitHub.

The availability of the "traditional" ambientCG API (v2) is not affected by this and any changes to it will be announced in advance on this blog.

  • 3 min read

New names for HDRI assets

Since 2021, more than 130 HDRIs have been added to ambientCG.com. Previously, these HDRIs were only grouped in two categories (Outdoor and Indoor) with a third category for the "sky-only" variants. With the growing collection this categorization slowly became meaningless which is why it was updated to also include the time of day.