Sculpt Layers
Sculpt layers keep what a stroke moved apart from the mesh, so you can turn a pass of detail off, fade it, exaggerate it or throw it away long after you sculpted it. Open them from Window > Sculpt Layers. The window docks like the other panels.
Which mesh the layers belong to
The line at the top of the window reads Acting on: Loaded Mesh or Acting on: Generated Mesh. Layers belong to the mesh on screen, and each mesh keeps its own separate stack — switch the viewport to the other mesh and the window shows that mesh's layers. With no mesh at all, the window just asks you to load or build something first.
Base and the layer list
Base (the mesh itself) is always the bottom row. With Base selected, strokes go straight into the mesh and belong to no layer — that is the default, and it is how sculpting works when you never touch this window. With no layers yet, the list says No layers. Sculpting goes straight into the mesh.
Layers sit above Base. Click a row to make it the active layer (it is filled with your action-button colour); every stroke from then on goes into that layer until you select another. Hover a row to read its name, its opacity, how many vertices it holds and how much memory it takes.
The order of the rows is for your own grouping only. Layers add their displacements together, and addition does not care about order, so moving one layer above another could never change the shape — which is also why sculpt layers have no blend modes, unlike paint layers.
Sculpting into a layer
Select a layer and sculpt as usual. When each stroke ends, what it moved is recorded into the active layer. A layer stores only the vertices its strokes actually moved, so a detail pass over part of a model costs a small fraction of the whole mesh.
A stroke into a layer is stored so that it looks the same at the layer's current opacity as it did while you sculpted. Sculpt into a layer at 50% and the layer stores twice what you saw; turning it up to 100% then doubles it, which is what an opacity slider promises.
Strokes made with Dynamic topology add and remove points, so they cannot be described per vertex. They always go straight into the mesh, whichever layer is selected.
Ctrl+Z on a stroke made into a layer takes it out of the layer as well as off the mesh, so the layer still matches what you see. The Text tool makes layers of its own: embossed or engraved letters go into a new layer named Text: and the words, and a text mesh into a new Sculpt Layer.
Opacity
The Opacity slider at the top of the window belongs to the active layer and runs from 0% to 200%. Below 100% fades the layer; above 100% exaggerates what was sculpted into it, so you can dial a pass of wrinkles or pores up or down long after making it. With Base selected the slider is disabled and shows 100% — Base is the mesh itself. A hidden layer's opacity can still be changed; the new value takes effect when you show it again.
Controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Eye (on each layer row) | Hides or shows the layer. Hiding takes its displacement off the mesh; showing puts it back. Base has no eye: it can never be hidden or faded. |
| Double-click a layer name | Opens Rename layer. Type a name and press Enter or OK; Cancel keeps the old one. New layers are named Layer 1, Layer 2 and so on. |
| Opacity | The active layer's strength, 0%–200%. |
| Extract from Mask (the folder icon) | Makes a new mesh from the masked part of the model, in a new Sculpt Layer of its own — see Extract from Mask below. Greyed out until part of the mesh is masked. |
| New Layer | Adds an empty layer just above the selected layer (at the top when Base is selected) and selects it, so strokes go into it until another is selected. |
| Merge Down | Folds the active layer into the one below it. Both opacities are baked in, so the pair keeps displacing exactly as it does now, and the merged layer's opacity becomes 100%. The result is visible if either layer was. Disabled for the bottom layer and for Base. |
| Flatten | After a confirmation, commits every visible layer into the mesh and removes the whole stack. Hidden layers are discarded. Disabled when there are no layers. |
| Delete | Removes the active layer and takes its displacement off the mesh with it. Disabled with Base selected. |
Flatten cannot be undone. What is visible is kept as it looks now, and anything hidden is thrown away along with its shape. Show any hidden layer you want to keep before you flatten.
Extract from Mask
Mask part of a model, then extract it as a new mesh you can sculpt on its own. Mask the trousers on a figure, for example, then extract them: you get a trousers mesh sitting just off the legs, in a new Sculpt Layer, ready to sculpt folds into. Mask with the Mask tools, then click the folder icon at the bottom of the Sculpt Layers window. A small window opens. The view stays free to orbit while it is open, and an orange preview shows what the result will be, updated as you change the settings.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | The new Sculpt Layer's name. |
| Offset | How far the new mesh sits off the surface, along its normals. Negative goes inward. Type any unit: 2 mm, 0.2 cm. |
| Thickness | How thick the new mesh is, grown outward from the offset into a closed shell. 0 makes a single-sided sheet. |
| Method | Keep Topology uses the masked faces themselves, so quads stay quads. Remesh rebuilds the result as an even, closed voxel shell at the Voxel size you set. Use Remesh on a voxel-built model, or where the surface curves more tightly than the thickness and a thick offset would fold. |
| Smooth Edge | On by default. Trims the faces that stick out along the cut and relaxes the edge along the surface, so it follows the mask smoothly instead of stepping along the polygons. |
| Keep Source | On by default: the original mesh stays whole. Off: the extracted part is cut out of it. |
The arrow at the bottom of the window opens More options:
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mask threshold | How masked a point must be to count. A face is taken when all its corners reach this; 0.5 cuts a feathered mask edge half way. |
| Copy paint | The new mesh keeps the source's vertex colours and material. |
| Separate pieces | Each separate masked area becomes its own mesh, so two boots give two meshes. Off: one mesh for all of them. |
| Closed output | With Thickness 0, caps the openings so the sheet becomes a closed, watertight body. A thickness above 0, or Remesh, is always closed. |
| New empty Sculpt Layer | Makes an empty Sculpt Layer instead. Move meshes into it from the Sculpt Tree (right-click, Move to Layer). |
Extract (or Enter) makes the new mesh. The new Sculpt Layer becomes the active one, so your next stroke sculpts the extract and leaves the source alone. The mask is cleared. One Ctrl+Z takes the extract and its layer back out, and with Keep Source off it puts the cut part back. Cancel or Esc closes the window without making anything. If the model has subdivision levels, extracting applies the level shown.
Layer memory
The Layer memory readout at the bottom left is the total that the layers on this mesh hold. Each layer stores only the vertices its strokes moved, but layers are the one thing you can create without limit that costs memory each, so the number is kept in view. Merge or flatten finished layers if it grows large.
What keeps layers, and what clears them
- Save Sculpt... and a saved project keep the layers.
- The mesh always contains exactly the visible layers at their own opacity, so exporting the mesh exports what you see: hidden layers are not in it.
- Opening another model, starting a new file or reverting the mesh clears both meshes' layers.
- Whenever the Generated Mesh is replaced or cleared — a new retopology, or a change of subdivision level — its layers are dropped, because they describe the vertices of the mesh that was replaced.