Blender 5.3 adds Project Setup for per-project settings and asset libraries

Blender 5.3 introduces Project Setup, an opt-in system that lets users define settings, asset libraries and shared variables for each project. Until now, preferences were shared across all projects, and keeping related files and resources organized was left to users and teams.

A project is a root directory that groups related files, lets them share resources and keeps its settings separate from other projects. Blender identifies it by a .blender_project folder containing a project.toml configuration file, which Blender creates and manages. When you open a .blend file, Blender searches up the folder tree for that folder. If it finds one, that project becomes active; otherwise the session is not part of a project. You can also open a project by passing a folder path inside it on startup, or from File > Project > Open.

Project settings always take precedence over user preferences. They are also designed to be easy to read and edit as plain files, so external scripts can create or edit them and version control can track and diff them with the rest of a production.

Blender 5.3 adds the {project_root} and {project_name} variables for output file paths, so references stay valid when a project folder moves to another drive, machine or artist's computer. Users can define custom project variables, such as a character name, a sequence code or a frequently used folder, and use them in path templates. Each project can also define its own asset libraries, which appear in the Asset Browser, Asset Shelves and Add menus alongside other libraries.

Each project can set its own OpenColorIO configuration: the default Blender configuration, ACES 1.3, ACES 2.0 or a custom one. Projects can also have custom splash artwork, and the splash screen lists recent files from the same project.

For Blender 5.4, the top priority is letting a project ship its own add-ons (extension repo) folder, with add-on settings definable per project. Other goals include supporting path templates and variables on nearly all paths, and showing built-in variables like {project_root} in the project's Variables list. Planned multi-project improvements are a project selector in the File Browser, limiting Save As to the current project, and keeping variables unresolved with Save As Copy so paths in the copy stay live. Progress is tracked in the Project Setup 5.4 targets task.